Author Values Self-Esteem As Workplace Tool

In Self-Esteem at Work: How Confident People Make Powerful Companies (1998, Jossey-Bass), author Nathaniel Branden applies self-esteem principles and technology to the problems and challenges of the modern business organization. In his book, which includes a foreword by Warren Bennis, Branden explains how individuals can further their careers through the development of high self-esteem. "There is virtually no aspect of business activity -- from leading to managing to participating in teams, and from dealing with customers to engaging in research and development to responding to new challenges and new ideas -- that is not significantly affected by the level of one's self-esteem," says Branden. The author says that people without a high level of self-esteem, those suffering from deep insecurities and self-doubts, tend to behave in inappropriate and counterproductive ways in their dealings with others, whether that means being controlling and gratuitously combative or timid and solicitous. The book closes with a self-directed, 21-week improvement program based on the author's 40 years of clinical and consulting experience.