Gostick and Elton teamed up with major consultancy Towers Watson to conduct a study that combined the results of a survey of over one million employees at hundreds of companies with data about those companies financial results and other measures of success such as turnover and customer satisfaction. The data reveals that today's high-performance organisations have a distinctive kind of culture in which employees believe in their leaders and the company's mission, values, and goals.

They begin by reporting on the results of studies that show that the manager's approach to leading really can have a dramatic impact on the whole culture of his or her department or division. Moving on to present their seven step process for creating that kind of culture, they delve into the specific how tos for each of the seven steps, offering detailed insights into the methods to follow.