
How to Act Like a CEO
10 Rules for Getting to the Top and Staying There
If anybody knows what it takes to get you to the top of the corporate ladder, it's #1 executive coach Debra Benton. Now, in this follow-up to her best-selling How to Think Like a CEO, she draws upon her work with top-level executives at corporate giants such as AT&T, Colgate, Pepsi, Mobil Oil, Nabisco, American Express, and McKinsey, and interviews she conducted with 100 CEOs around the world, to: * Identify the 10 "rules of the game ambitious managers need to follow if they want to make it to the top slot * Show how successful CEOs apply the rules in their everyday business dealings, and what happens when they break them * Provide managers with valuable pointers on how to apply each rule in their professional lives Written by one of the most respected executive coaches in the world, How to Act Like a CEO is must reading for ambitious managers in every industry, whether they aspire to being CEOs or not.
Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction, Fiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.
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What the reading experience may hold
A fuller profile for choosing with more confidence—not just another copy of the preview.
Nonfiction · Fiction
Use these as starting points rather than limits; the most memorable books often stretch beyond their catalog labels.
No specific content concerns can be confirmed from the available English catalog information. Consult a publisher or reader-supplied guide when detailed warnings matter.
These notes are inferred from available catalog information and may not be complete. Check a publisher or reader-supplied guide if you need comprehensive warnings.
Balanced tone · Steady pace
Works well for a focused weekend or a few concentrated sittings.
A good fit if…
Readers who want a thoughtful experience and enjoy noticing the connections beneath a book’s surface story.
This book's DNA
A visual estimate based on this edition's categories, description, and length. Select a star to explore the signals.
This signal is descriptive, not a rating. It helps compare the kind of reading experience this edition may offer.
Spoiler-Free Emotional Arc
A broad estimate of the book’s emotional rhythm, shown without story events or outcomes.
This visualization is an interpretive estimate based on catalog description, categories, tone, pace, and content signals. It does not describe specific scenes.
A quick reading snapshot
Edition facts and catalog signals to help you decide whether this book fits what you want to read next.
- ISBN-13
- 978-0-0713-5998-6
- Language
- English
- Edition record
- OL7298541M
A more thoughtful way into this book
This guide uses the edition details and category signals above to help you choose deliberately. It does not replace the author's work or a full review.
Works well for a focused weekend or a few concentrated sittings.
Begin with its place in Nonfiction, then notice where the book resists that label.
Read for connection, not completion.
Mark one passage that sharpens the book's central concern and one that complicates it. That tension often reveals more than a quick summary.
Three questions to carry with you
- Whose perspective organizes the story, and whose perspective remains outside it?
- Which sources or lived experiences carry the author’s central argument?
- How does the book change the way you understand its larger subject?
Editorial framework by Wesley Bryan, BookenDeX Founder and Editor.







