How to Be a Chief Operating Officer

I’ve reviewed dozens of leadership audiobooks, but Geary’s performance here feels like sitting across from a seasoned COO at a midtown diner, swapping war stories over coffee. Her narration is confident without being slick, with a cadence that mimics how a real COO talks—direct, occasionally blunt, but never off-putting. She nails the balance between ‘big picture’ advice and granular tactics, like her breakdown of how to structure a weekly ops review that actually drives action (spoiler: it involves killing 60% of your slides). The production team deserves credit for avoiding the over-polished trap; the slight echo in early chapters fades once your brain adjusts, and it never distracts from the content. A few quibbles: some personal anecdotes drag longer than necessary, and I wished she’d dug deeper into COO relationships with CFOs—often the most volatile dynamic in the C-suite. Still, the audiobook shines in moments where Geary exposes the hidden mechanics of power, like her dissection of how COOs quietly derail misaligned strategies by controlling the ‘facts’ presented to the CEO. If you’re eyeing the COO ladder or already balancing the chaos of the role, this is the audiobook you’ll rewind.