June 3, 2014

Successful Business Leaders Give Free Advice on Audio & Video

In this list of audio and video resources, successful business leaders give free advice on how to get ahead in your career and keep your business thriving. Over several years, we’ve put a premium on showcasing business leadership resources as a part of our Free Audio & Video Resource of the Day Emails. With this list, you’ll learn from luminaries such as Andrew Carnegie, Richard Branson, Jack Welch, Cheryl Sandberg and more on what it takes to forge your own path in the business world. This list also features resources that help you stay on top of the ever-changing trends that can make or break even the most successful enterprises. Click below to get started:

1. JimCollins.com Lecture Hall

Listen to over 50 MP3 downloads and watch over 20 short videos in the JimCollins.com Lecture Hall. Jim Collins (author of Good to Great) provides succinct advice for leadership both in business and in the social sectors in this series of MP3 downloads and videos. Everyone can benefit from these lecture snippets which include great ideas such as how to make a “Stop Doing” list and how to evolve into a “Level 5” leader. They are also now categorized to help you find the audio & video you’re looking for. Enjoy these free audio & video resources from JimCollins.com.

2. Jack Welch on Winning

After his hugely successful 20-year career as chairman and CEO of General Electric, Jack Welch published a few books to share his leadership and management ideas. In this hour-long interview offered on C-SPAN, Jack shares the wisdom from his book Winning. With his candor and wit, Jack provides tips on hiring and firing, the importance of human resources, and much more. Get great leadership advice from Jack Welch, straight from the gut! Note: The audio volume on this video interview is a little bit low so you may want to use headphones.

3. Sheryl Sandberg on Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Sheryl Sandberg has served as the chief operating officer of Facebook since 2008, and she now has a bestselling book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. In this hour-long interview Chicago Tribune vice president Joycelyn Winnecke interviews Sandberg about her book and about the role of women in leadership positions. Sandberg informs us of the statistic that only 5% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women and why she feels it is a problem that so few women are in leadership roles. She tries to bring out into the open many of the double standards and unmentioned issues surrounding female leadership, such as the frequent dislike of women as they get more successful and the reference to leading women as “bossy”. This is talk is available on streaming video through YouTube.

4. Ken Blanchard: Lead Like Jesus

Management expert Ken Blanchard has authored over 35 books including the bestseller The One Minute Manager. In this recent talk from Biola University, Blanchard teaches leadership lessons from the Bible and Jesus Christ. He talks about the importance of all leadership to shift from self-serving to serving others. He provides many examples of this type of leadership in action such as the customer service expertise and values of Southwest Airlines. Blanchard’s lessons can applied in almost any area of leadership including business, church leadership, sports coaching, and the family. This 1 hour and 20 minute talk is available on streaming video from YouTube.

5. The EntreLeadership Podcast

Dave Ramsey is a bestselling financial author and radio host, and his team runs one of the most popular business podcasts on iTunes, The EntreLeadership Podcast. The podcast is hosted by Chris LoCurto, who conducts excellent interviews with today’s top business authors and leaders. At the beginning of each episode you’ll hear a lesson from Dave Ramsey himself. After the lesson LoCurto conducts an interview, and currently on the feed you can listen to interviews with leadership experts like John C. Maxwell, Robin Robins, Patrick Lencioni, Stephen M.R. Covey, Jim Collins, Tony Dungy, Tony Hseih, and, of course, Dave Ramsey. In a recent episode they feature the “Best of 2012” with podcast interview excerpts from the best interviews they conducted in 2012.

6. The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie

Librivox is offering a free audio book download of The Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie. In this unabridged audio book, the great Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie tells his life story from his humble beginnings in a cottage in Scotland to his rise to vastly expand the American steel industry and his late life as a philanthropist. Hear this “rags to riches” story from the man who lived it. This audio book is available as a free download through Librivox.org.

7. Leadership Styles & Ethics

Revisit some of his leadership wisdom with this free video interview and call-in show from C-SPAN taped back in 1989. In this 40-minute interview with Stephen R. Covey, he discusses his book Principle-Centered Leadership and how leaders in business and government must apply principles in order to be effective. He articulately answers questions from the interviewer and from callers across the United States, often addressing the leadership qualities of past American presidents and other political leaders. This interview provides excellent insight into the leadership ideas of Stephen R. Covey.

8. Leading at Google: Tony Hsieh on Delivering Happiness

Tony Hsieh is the CEO of the online shoe retailer Zappos.com and the author of the recent book Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.. He spoke at Google on his book and the ways he has made Zappos one of the top rated places to work in the U.S. along with delivering some of the best customer service of any company. From their unconventional hiring methods to developing their unique corporate culture, Tony Hsieh shows how he grew Zappos to become an online retail giant that was bought in 2009 by Amazon.com for $1.2 billion. Hsieh also gives insights into his studies of the science of happiness and how he applied his findings to his business. Whether you’re a business leader or a regular employee, learn how you can create happiness in the workplace and deliver happiness to your customers. This Google Talk is available on streaming video from YouTube.

9. Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders Podcast

Since 2005 a group at Stanford University has been podcasting talks from some of the most successful people in business and technology. The speaker generally gives an overview of their experiences as an entrepreneur along with advice for anyone looking to start a business. On this podcast you’ll hear from such thought leaders as former AOL CEO Steve Case, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, sustainability architect & co-author of Cradle to Cradle William McDonough, Former CEO of HP Carly Fiorina, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, and people from Google, Yahoo, and dozens of other companies you’re probably familiar with. They have all their podcasts up on the feed going back five years. Learn from these successful business & technology thought leaders.

10. The Business of America: Masters of Enterprise – Lecture 1

Download Lecture 1 of this Modern Scholar course entitled Masters of Enterprise: American Business History and the People Who Made It taught by award-winning professor and historian H.W. Brands. In this first lecture called “The Business of America” Professor Brands gives a brief overview of the course and then proceeds to cover 200 years of American business history in 20 minutes from 1776 to the 20th century. He covers the importance of business in colonial times and its influence on the American Revolution. He then examines the 19th century which brought in industrialization and finance as important factors along with the central issue of slavery and its relation to business. And in the 20th century he briefly covers how businesses shifted their focus to the consumers who would buy all of the products that industrial capitalism was producing. This free lecture is available as an MP3 download or on streaming audio through LearnOutLoud.com.

11. A Conversation with Richard Branson

Entrepreneur, adventurer, political activist and all around firebrand Richard Branson sits down to talk about his plans for the future in this interview hosted by Bob Schieffer at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Starting with the formation of his company Virgin, Branson talks about how his uncompromising attitude and complete willingness to risk big has led to a worldwide reputation for innovation. He also gives a tantalizing glimpse at his latest venture, Virgin Galactic, the first large scale attempt to make private space travel a reality. This talk is available on streaming video from FORA.tv.

12. Leaving Microsoft to Change the World

Listen to former Microsoft employee and the founder and CEO of Room to Read tell his inspirational story of his decision to leave a lucrative job to go build libraries around the developing world. In this talk delivered at Cody’s Books, Wood tells about a visit he made to a sparse library in Nepal where he was asked to bring back books. Wood then set out to build a library there and has since grown his Room to Read organization to build over 5,000 libraries in Asia and Africa. This talk is available on streaming video through FORA.tv.