They made you the boss. Nobody made you a leader.
Thirty-four years of practiced leadership, from the Marine Corps to the oilfield to eighteen years at Chevron, written down as tools rather than theory. Before you can effectively lead others, you must lead yourself.
The diagnostic is free. Three minutes, your result on screen, no email required.
Industry promotes its best technical people into leadership and calls it a career path. The training was supposed to come from somewhere. It never came. That is a structural gap, not a personal failing, and it costs crews, projects, and careers.
You answer everyone else's questions all day. Yours have nowhere to go.
The room goes quiet when you walk in now. Nobody warned you that's part of the job.
You got promoted for what you could do. You're judged on what your people do when you're not there.
Lead You starts one step before any of that. Not with your crew, your boss or your numbers, but with the person making the decisions. Lead yourself first, and the rest becomes work you can actually do.
The book runs in sequence and the sequence is the point. Each chapter hands you one thing to work on and will not let you skip ahead to managing other people until you have done it.
The honest conversation with yourself, and the questions nobody asks you.
The first eight leadership traits, assessed against your own week.
The second eight traits, and bearing under fire.
Character as a working continuum, not a fixed thing you either have or don't.
Values as the compass. Naming your five, then testing them under pressure.
Trusting yourself first, and the pattern hiding in your broken promises.
Discipline is not willpower. Decide once, then chart it.
Holding the line under pressure, with a decision framework you can carry.
Do the job or chase the ladder. Feedback, ambition, and the conversation you keep avoiding.
Good is effective. Two standards, and the real cost of perfect.
You cannot pour from an empty tank. Fifteen protected minutes.
You will fail. Keep moving. Failure is a result, not a person.
Lead You has been in readers' hands since 2023. Every Amazon rating it has received is five stars.
"I absolutely LOVE the book. This is probably the first self-help book that has genuinely kept my attention. The whole experience feels engaging and relatable."
A reader of Lead You, in a message to Bobby
On Audible, read by Bobby with Shamaan Casey. The whole book in his own voice.
Copies for a crew, a shift or a leadership cohort, usually alongside a workshop.
Bobby Harrington has practiced leadership in sports, martial arts, the military, private business, and a Fortune 100 oil and gas company.
He has taught leadership in twenty-four different countries in thirteen languages. His work focuses on executive leadership, team building and design, and technical innovation for growth. He earned a degree in Intelligence Studies and International Relations later in life.
Bobby is a United States Marine Corps Desert Shield / Desert Storm Gulf War veteran, meritoriously promoted three times. He lives in Texas with his wife and family.
The book gives you the argument and the order. What it cannot do is make you work through it, or tell you where you actually stand. Two things pick that up, and one of them is free.
You were the best tech on the crew, so they handed you the crew, and nobody taught you what to do with it. Thirteen levels of the training you should have gotten the day you were promoted. Worked, not watched.
Thirteen levels you do, not videos you watch.
Twelve statements, the kind nobody says out loud at work. Three minutes. No grades and no right answers, just a real read on where the seat has you and the name of the gap costing you most.
Free. Your result on screen, no email required.
