COMING IN 2027

The Leader You Think You Are

Why the most confident leaders misread their people, and what to do about it.

David Grossman’s new book is coming in September 2027 with Thinkers50 Publishing.

How accurate is the story you tell yourself about your people?

Every leader carries one: how the team is doing, what they are carrying, and whether the support is landing. It is what a caring mind does with people it cannot fully see, and you could not lead without it.

David Grossman and The Harris Poll measured the distance between that story and what employees actually experience, asking 2,000 employees about the leadership they live with and 1,003 leaders about the leadership they believe they deliver, on the same questions, at the same time. That distance is the subject of this book, including the repair: four steps that close the gap and the check that keeps it closed.

It is also David's most personal book. His own story runs through the research: the check he missed at home before he had a name for it, the truth he never got to tell his father, and the question he now asks everyone he loves and leads. What would help?

Sign up for a first look at the ideas behind it and updates as the launch approaches.

Learn More About the Author

David Grossman helps leaders drive change and come through it stronger. For three decades, he has guided Fortune 500 leadership teams through the transformations that define companies: new strategies, new structures, new technology, and the human work each one demands.

One of America’s foremost authorities on leadership and communication inside organizations, David has been called “The CEO Whisperer” for his thoughtful, personal, and pragmatic approach to coaching and advising. By advocating for employees and serving as a thoughtpartner™ to senior management, he and his team help organizations harness the power of communication as a strategic business tool.

Through it all, David is pro-human: the more of the work AI can do, the more the human side of leadership is worth. What machines take over was never the part that made people stay, stretch, and speak up.

David has been featured on “NBC Nightly News,” in MIT Sloan Management Review, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, and Newsweek, among many others.

His book The Heart Work of Modern Leadership: 6 Differentiators of Exceptional Leaders is a No. 1 Amazon Best Seller, and his Heart First series is in its second edition. His leadercommunicator™ blog has been ranked by Feedspot as the number one blog on communications for 10 years in a row. His research with The Harris Poll spans enterprise change, exceptional leadership, employee well-being, and now the gap between how leaders see their people and what their people experience.