You can be a great marketer and a top salesperson, but if you–or your team–can’t deliver your services with unquestioned excellence, you’re career as a consultant will be a short one.

In this mini-tutorial, we’ve assembled our best interviews and podcasts on the subject of leading people, teams, and complex projects. You can read (and listen to) the leading thinkers on how to get the project results you’ve promised in a timely way–without burning out your team.

Each of our experts has a slightly different perspective on leading projects and people, and you’ll find something you can use immediately on your next project.

Mastering Project Management

For nearly ten years, Scott Berkun managed projects and teams at Microsoft. He also worked in Microsoft’s engineering excellence group, teaching and consulting with development teams. He’s the author of The Myths of Innovation and Making Things Happen: Mastering Project Management.

We asked Berkun for his advice on ramping up projects effectively, managing the common issues that arise, and how to finish any project on time and within budget.

Read the interview with Scott Berkun.

Why Change Fails

William Bridges is an internationally recognized authority on managing change in the workplace. For more than two decades, he has been helping clients with mergers, reorganizations, leadership changes, and cultural shifts.

Bridges is the author of ten books, including the best sellers Transitions and Managing Transitions. He is a frequent keynote speaker at corporate meetings and professional conferences, and the Wall Street Journal named him one of the ten top executive development presenters in America.

We had the opportunity to get both practical and inspirational tips from Bridges about how you can improve results for clients in a world of continuous flux.

Read the interview with William Bridges.

Leading for Success

Marcus Buckingham is coauthor of the bestselling books First, Break All the Rules and Now, Discover Your Strengths, and he is a well-known voice challenging business leaders to operate in new ways.

In his book, The One Thing You Need to Know…About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, Buckingham once again takes aim at the conventional wisdom on leadership, management, and individual performance.

Read the interview with Marcus Buckingham.

Extreme Leadership

Steve Farber is the president of Extreme Leadership, Inc., an organization devoted to the development of leaders in the business community. He is also the co-founding director of The Center for Social Profit Leadership.

A thought leader in management, Farber is a leadership coach, consultant, and a former consultant for the Tom Peters Company.

Farber’s first book, The Radical Leap, introduced the concept of extreme leadership, which led to a Readers’ Choice Award from Fast Company magazine. Farber hasn’t finished exploring the extreme concepts he created. His book, The Radical Edge, is an intriguing fable that connects the lessons of life to the realities of leadership.

Read the interview with Steve Farber.

Leading Clever People

Rob Goffee is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at the London Business School, and an expert on leadership, corporate culture, and innovation. He’s also the coauthor of Clever: Leading Your Smartest, Most Creative People and Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?

Goffee explains how leaders should think about working with, retaining, and getting the most from clever people.

Read the interview with Rob Goffee.

Achieving Credibility

In this podcast, James Kouzes, co-author with Barry Posner of the international bestseller, The Leadership Challenge, talks about the four top traits that people admire most in their leaders (competence doesn’t top the list, by the way) and how emerging leaders can develop those skills. He also discusses why some of the essential aspects of effective leaders, like affirming shared values and sustaining hope, can undermine a leader’s credibility.

Listen to the podcast with Jim Kouzes.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Patrick Lencioni is a consultant, bestselling author, and president of The Table Group, a consulting firm that specializes in executive team development and organizational health.

Lencioni’s books include Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars,  Death by Meeting, and The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. In this interview, Lencioni offers us advice on an issue all consultants face: how to form and develop productive teams.

Read the interview with Patrick Lencioni.

What Motivates People?

Daniel Pink is the author of several bestsellers about the changing world of work, including Free Agent Nation and A Whole New Mind. For his book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Pink looked at forty years of research on human behavior and found a mismatch between what scientists know about motivation and what business people do.

We asked Pink about the best and worst ways to motivate people for today’s challenges.

Read the interview with Daniel Pink.