Why am I passionate about this?

My career as a leader is built on an endless string of screwups—and I am so grateful for every single one of them. Every time I messed up, I learned another valuable lesson about what it means to be human, to own my humanity, and to make space for the humanity of others. That’s why I am relentlessly passionate about encouraging people—and especially leaders—to heal their relationship with failure and see it for the gift it really is. I believe that being open to growth and failure is what makes us human leaders. If we could all learn to lead with our hearts and our humanity, our world at work would be a much better place.


I wrote...

Permission to Screw Up

By Kristen Hadeed ,

Book cover of Permission to Screw Up

What is my book about?

This is the story of how I built Student Maid, a cleaning company where people are happy, loyal, productive, and…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Radical Candor

Kristen Hadeed Why I love this book

Feedback is something I really struggled with as a leader, and sometimes, despite my many years of practice, it still makes me uncomfortable. This book reminds me why leaning into that discomfort and giving feedback is so important: It’s the most caring thing you can do as a leader.

If we want strong teams, we must build cultures of candor where people feel safe and empowered enough to give honest and compassionate feedback.

By Kim Scott ,

Why should I read it?

8 authors picked Radical Candor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Featuring a new preface, afterword and Radically Candid Performance Review Bonus Chapter, the fully revised & updated edition of Radical Candor is packed with even more guidance to help you improve your relationships at work.

'Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives.' - Sheryl Sandberg, author of Lean In.

If you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything at all . . . right?

While this advice may work for home life, as Kim Scott has seen first hand, it is a disaster when adopted…


Book cover of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well

Kristen Hadeed Why I love this book

I used to think that being good with feedback meant being great at giving it. This book showed me that I was missing a big part of the equation: receiving feedback.

It taught me that one of the most powerful and important ways to build psychological safety and trust on a team is not only to ask for the team’s feedback, but to receive it in a way that builds trust. The simple act of saying “thanks for the feedback” creates a foundation upon which strong teams can be built.

By Sheila Heen , Douglas Stone ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Thanks for the Feedback as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The coauthors of the New York Times-bestselling Difficult Conversations take on the toughest topic of all: how we see ourselves

Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen have spent the past fifteen years working with corporations, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. In Thanks for the Feedback, they explain why receiving feedback is so crucial yet so challenging, offering a simple framework and powerful tools to help us take on life's blizzard of offhand comments, annual evaluations, and unsolicited input with curiosity and grace. They blend the latest insights from neuroscience and…


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Book cover of Gifts from a Challenging Childhood: Healing the Legacy of Childhood Trauma

Gifts from a Challenging Childhood by Jan Bergstrom,

Learn to understand and work with your childhood wounds. Do you feel like old wounds or trauma from your childhood keep showing up today? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with what to do about it and where to start? If so, this book will help you travel down a path…

Book cover of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Kristen Hadeed Why I love this book

Before I read this book, I thought that having a great company culture meant hiring a DJ to spin in your office on Fridays or stocking the breakroom with delicious snacks. Delivering Happiness showed me I had it all wrong.

This book taught me that culture is a feeling: It’s something we create through our behaviors, actions, and values. I learned to ask myself, “How do I want people to feel?” and align my actions as a leader accordingly. That’s the mindset that allowed me to build the culture my company became known for.

By Tony Hsieh ,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked Delivering Happiness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

- Pay brand-new employees $2,000 to quit
- Make customer service the responsibility of the entire company-not just a department
- Focus on company culture as the #1 priority
- Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business
- Help employees grow-both personally and professionally
- Seek to change the world
- Oh, and make money too . . .

Sound crazy? It's all standard operating procedure at Zappos, the online retailer that's doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales annually. After debuting as the highest-ranking newcomer in Fortune magazine's annual "Best Companies to Work For"…


Book cover of Necessary Endings

Kristen Hadeed Why I love this book

I read this book during one of the most pivotal moments of my leadership journey. I was clinging to something that was no longer serving me, but because it was such a huge part of my identity and my life, I had no idea how I could ever let it go.

This book helped me realize that some endings, no matter how painful, are absolutely necessary so that you can make way for new beginnings. It helped me find the courage to “prune my rose bush” so that new roses—new opportunities—could bloom. Endings are a natural and necessary part of life and leadership that we must all learn to embrace.

By Henry Cloud ,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Necessary Endings as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

"If you're hesitant to pull the trigger when things obviously aren't working out, Henry Cloud's Necessary Endings may be the most important book you read all year." -Dave Ramsey, New York Times bestselling author of The Total Money Makeover "Cloud is a wise, experienced, and compassionate guide through [life's] turbulent passages." -Bob Buford, bestelling author of Halftime and Finishing Well; founder of the Leadership Network Henry Cloud, the bestselling author of Integrity and The One-Life Solution, offers this mindset-altering method for proactively correcting the bad and the broken in our businesses and our lives. Cloud challenges readers to achieve the…


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Book cover of Gifts from a Challenging Childhood: Healing the Legacy of Childhood Trauma

Gifts from a Challenging Childhood by Jan Bergstrom,

Learn to understand and work with your childhood wounds. Do you feel like old wounds or trauma from your childhood keep showing up today? Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed with what to do about it and where to start? If so, this book will help you travel down a path…

Book cover of It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work

Kristen Hadeed Why I love this book

I used to be the poster child for burnout culture—and as a result, so was my company. By the time I read this book, we were ready to leave hustle culture behind, but we weren’t sure what it could look like.

It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work paved the way for a new era in our business: one where we prioritize our well-being and make sure that work works with our lives. It helped me confront the areas of my company that were keeping us stuck in the hustle mindset and make big changes that hold us accountable to caring for ourselves and each others.

By David Heinemeier Hansson , Jason Fried ,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this timely manifesto, the authors of the New York Times bestseller Rework broadly reject the prevailing notion that long hours, aggressive hustle, and "whatever it takes" are required to run a successful business today.

In Rework, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson introduced a new path to working effectively. Now, they build on their message with a bold, iconoclastic strategy for creating the ideal company culture-what they call "the calm company." Their approach directly attack the chaos, anxiety, and stress that plagues millions of workplaces and hampers billions of workers every day.

Long hours, an excessive workload, and a…


Explore my book 😀

Permission to Screw Up

By Kristen Hadeed ,

Book cover of Permission to Screw Up

What is my book about?

This is the story of how I built Student Maid, a cleaning company where people are happy, loyal, productive, and empowered, even while they’re mopping floors and scrubbing toilets. It’s the story of how I went from being an almost comically inept leader to a sought-after CEO who teaches others how to lead.

In Permission to Screw Up, I reject the idea that leaders and organizations should try to be perfect. Instead, I encourage people of all ages to go for it and learn to lead by doing rather than waiting or thinking. Through a brutally honest account of my own struggles, I empower readers to embrace their failures because I believe that when you do, you’ll become a better leader.

Book cover of Radical Candor
Book cover of Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well
Book cover of Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose

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