Skip to Content
It's Not Magic
book

It's Not Magic

by John Amaechi
September 2025
Beginner
288 pages
4h 48m
English
Wiley

Overview

An inspirational new take on leadership that proves you too can inspire and motivate your followers

In It’s Not Magic: The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders, author, chartered psychologist and Professor of Leadership at the University of Exeter Business School, John Amaechi, delivers an impactful discussion of the dull, ordinary, energy-expensive, and transformative behaviours that define the world’s best leaders.

The book walks you through the seemingly obvious but difficult-to-nail mindsets and intentions you’ll need to adopt to influence and motivate others. You’ll learn strategies and techniques you can apply immediately to help those who follow you to flourish and maximise their potential.

Inside the book:

  • Easy-to-follow explanations of the straightforward behaviours you can model to improve your ability to lead others
  • Habits you can adopt immediately to motivate others in any setting, from the boardroom to the classroom or the battlefield
  • Data-driven insights into the tiny, little things that great leaders do every day and how to incorporate them into your emotional and behavioural repertoire


An essential read for managers, executives, board members, and other business leaders, It’s Not Magic will also prove invaluable to entrepreneurs, founders, teachers, military leaders, academics, and anyone else expected to motive and inspire others to achieve great things.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

What Successful Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Get Right

What Successful Brick-and-Mortar Retailers Get Right

Rob Angell
What Successful Project Managers Do

What Successful Project Managers Do

W. Scott Cameron, Jeffrey S. Russell, Edward J. Hoffman, Alexander Laufer

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 9781394338276