Marcus Buckingham

Marcus Buckingham is a bestselling author, researcher, and one of the world’s leading authorities on strengths-based leadership and employee engagement. His groundbreaking research at Gallup and his subsequent books have fundamentally reshaped how organizations think about talent, performance, and what makes people thrive at work.

The Pioneer of Strengths-Based Leadership

Buckingham spent nearly two decades at the Gallup Organization, where he led landmark research into the world’s best managers and most productive workplaces. His books First, Break All the Rules, Now Discover Your Strengths, and StandOut have sold millions of copies and been translated into dozens of languages. He developed the StandOut assessment and co-created the StrengthsFinder assessment, tools that have been used by millions of professionals and organizations worldwide to identify and leverage individual strengths.

Helping Organizations Unlock the Best of Their People

Buckingham is the head of the ADP Research Institute’s People and Performance research and has been named one of the world’s top management thinkers by Thinkers50. He has spoken to audiences at the world’s largest companies and conferences. His keynotes deliver research-backed strategies for building strengths-based cultures, driving employee engagement, rethinking performance management, and helping every team member do more of the work that energizes them and drives extraordinary results.

Strengths-Based Innovation — Find Your Edge: Win at Work

What does it take for people to stand out at work? How can an organization’s best practices and innovations be shared most effectively? Marcus argues that the future of Learning and Development will focus on delivering to each employee only those innovations and techniques that fit his or her particular strengths.

The Difference between Great Managing and Great Leading

Although many people assume that leadership is simply the next step for those who have proven themselves as managers, Marcus presents compelling evidence that, in key ways, great leaders must do the exact opposite of what the best managers do in order to excel.

What the World’s Best Managers Do Differently

What sets great companies apart? Survey data gathered over decades’ worth of interviews with thousands of managers and workers around the world reveals one simple truth: there are no great companies. Every company is made up of separate teams, and the performance of those teams, no matter how successful the company may be, varies widely. What makes the difference? The manager.

Strengths-Driven Performance

What is the correlation between engagement and performance? Marcus explains the specific lever that most impacts employee engagement: the extent to which they have the opportunity to play to their strengths.

Finding Your Strongest Life

Recent survey findings created headlines about a shocking decline in women’s happiness over the last several decades. While many in the media rushed to conclusions about the impact of the research on feminism and on women today, Marcus avoids easy judgments and examines the causes and the appropriate response to a contemporary crisis for women.