The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader

(By Thomas Barta | Twitter | Facebook)

How can marketers have maxium business impact and great careers? To find out I've teamed up with London Business School's Patrick Barwise to conduct the largest ever research on marketing leadership (involving over 68,000 assessments). Read the answers in our new leadership book The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader.

(Get your copy: amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, 800ceored)

You are a marketer. You have a passion for brands. You are your company's lynchpin for customer focus. In principle, your spot in the organization should be exalted. Top management should respect and look to you as it makes key decisions. Unfortunately, things don’t always work that way!Many marketers are great at doing marketing. They excel at things like understanding customers and creating successful campaigns. Nonetheless, too many marketers struggle to succeed inside their own company. Our research bears this out.

71% of marketers believe their business impact is high, but just 44% are satisfied with their career path.

The solution lies with you, the marketer: Doing marketing isn’t the same as leading marketing. Alongside your expertise in marketing skills, you must also become an expert in marketing leadership. It’s a very different basket.

The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader is the first leadership book for marketers based on anything like this level of research evidence. You’ll read firsthand accounts of marketing successes of top marketers from around the world—and gain surprising psychological insights into the leaders who drove the key decisions. The books teaches you how to:

• MOBILIZE YOUR BOSS: Make an impact at the highest level and align marketing with the company’s priorities. How? Tackle only big issues, deliver returns no matter what, and work only with the best (shape the agenda).
• MOBILIZE YOUR COLLEAGUES: Inspire and support your non-marketing colleagues to meet customers’ needs better than the competition. This means you must hit the head and the heart, walk the halls, and you go first (to serve customers better).
• MOBILIZE YOUR TEAM: Build and hone a winning marketing team. Become a leader of leaders. The marketer’s challenge: get the mix right, cover them in trust, and let the outcomes speak.
• MOBILIZE YOURSELF: This is all about falling in love with your world, knowing how you inspire, and aiming higher (find purpose and inspire others)

Warning: this isn’t a marketing book. It’s a leadership book for marketers, using the latest research on what works—and what does not work—in the digital age of marketing. By zeroing in on the value creation zone (“V-Zone”)—the all-important overlap between your company’s and customers’ needs—you’ll be able to help your business to win in the market and achieve your career goals.

With The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader, you can lead the way with a new vision that is powerful, transformative, and ultimately life-changing.

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What people say about The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader:

“A masterful dissection of what it really takes to lead marketing.”

—Syl Saller, Global CMO, Diageo, President, The Marketing Society

“A must-read for every present and future CMO who cares about making a difference.”

—Seth Godin, author of All Marketers Are Liars

“Barta and Barwise show in this thoughtful book how, by realigning their role, marketers can contribute significantly more both to their companies’ success and to their own career paths. Research-based, but brought to life by human beings.”

—Sir Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO, WPP

“A persuasive and well-researched perspective on the opportunities open to marketers to lead for change.”

—Paul Polman, CEO, Unilever

“Stuffed full of sound analysis, crucial career advice, and fascinating case studies—this is an effortless must-read for the ambitious marketer.”

—Gavin Patterson, CEO, BT

“An essential read for any marketing professional looking to take the next step in his or her career.”

—Dominic Barton, global managing director, McKinsey & Company

“I only wish I had been able to read it a good few years ago!”

—Amanda Mackenzie, global CMO, Aviva

“The essential leadership playbook for the CMO of the future.”

—Jim Stengel, former global marketing officer, Procter & Gamble

“The leadership book for twenty-first-century marketers.”

—Katie Vanneck-Smith, chief customer officer, Global Managing Director International, Dow Jones

“I encourage you to read this book and get into the ‘V-Zone’!”

—Chris Ernst, PhD, global head, Learning, Leadership & Organization Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

“The 12 Powers of a Marketing Leader is a must-read for any marketing leader!”

—Barbara Messing, CMO, TripAdvisor

“It will help any marketer become a true marketing leader.”

—Kevin Lane Keller, E.B. Osborn Professor of Marketing, Tuck School of Business

“A truly insightful guide to how good marketing executives can become outstanding leaders.”

—Joan Kaloustian, managing director corporate marketing, MUFG Union Bank

“Here is a must-read book for marketers as leaders.”

—Richard Hytner, founder, beta baboon, former DY Chairman, Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide

“Barta and Barwise lay out a clear and compelling roadmap for helping marketing practitioners become high-impact enterprise leaders.”

—Peter Horst, CMO, The Hershey Company

“A compelling and incisive argument that leading a group of marketing professionals differs dramatically from being a consummate practitioner.”

—Jack Zenger, CEO of Zenger Folkman and bestselling coauthor of The Extraordinary Leader

“A must-read for anyone who is serious about leading—not just doing—marketing.”

—Bernie Jaworski, Drucker Chair in Management and the Liberal Arts, Drucker School of Management

“This book gets under the skin of what makes a great marketing leader.”

—Peter Markey, CMO, Post Office

“This might just become the bible for marketing leaders.”

—Sherilyn Shackell, founder & CEO of The Marketing Academy