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Great leaders and managers know there’s always more to be learned. Whether you’re part of the executive team or an aspiring leader, you must consider your role in guiding and inspiring colleagues.
At OMTEC 2022, presentations by executive coaches Bryan Warren and Mark Freier highlighted books focused on leadership skills and best practices for building thriving work cultures. We’ve listed 10 of their recommendations — some classics, some newer — to help round out your reading list.
“The Seven Practices of a Mindful Leader”
Marc Lesser
According to Lesser, today’s business leaders struggle to adapt to rapid change while supporting healthy collaborations within their teams. Chronic stress and burnout are sometimes a result of these efforts. Lesser calls mindful leadership one of the most important competencies for business leaders who are committed to vanquishing overwhelming feelings and moving beyond doubt. In this book, Lesser offers principles applicable to leadership at any level. He gives readers the tools they need to shift awareness, enhance communication, build trust and eliminate fear and self-doubt.
“Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior”
Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty
Authored by legendary Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers coach Phil Jackson, this memoir explains how he encourages his players to act with a clear mind and dispenses valuable lessons applicable to any person’s life, including staying calm amid chaos and putting “me” in service of the “we.” This inspiring book, initially released in 1995, has sold more than 400,000 copies.
“Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations”
James Kouzes and Barry Posner
Over the past quarter-century, this book has sold over two million copies and helped countless readers become better leaders. The most recent edition of “Leadership Challenge” tailors Kouzes and Posner’s extensive research for the modern world and likens leadership to a relationship that must be nurtured to thrive. But most importantly, the authors point out that leadership is a skill that can be learned. This seminal leadership book features case studies and examples showing The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership in action around the world and focuses on the toughest organizational challenges leaders face today.
“Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t”
Simon Sinek
The New York Times bestselling author invites leaders to ponder a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home fulfilled. This is not a crazy, idealized notion, Sinek argues in this book on the psychology of teams. In his work with organizations worldwide, Simon Sinek noticed that some teams trust each other so profoundly that they would put their lives on the line for each other. Other teams, no matter what incentives are offered, are doomed to infighting, fragmentation and failure. “Leaders Eat Last” explores why.
Simon Sinek invites leaders to ponder a world where almost everyone wakes up inspired to go to work, feels trusted and valued during the day, then returns home fulfilled.
“Boundaries for Leaders: Results, Relationships, and Being Ridiculously in Charge”
Dr. Henry Cloud
Written by clinical psychologist and bestselling author Dr. Henry Cloud, “Boundaries for Leaders” analyzes human behavior, neuroscience and business leadership to explain how the best leaders set boundaries within their organizations, their teams and themselves to improve performance and increase employee and customer satisfaction. Dr. Cloud’s thought-provoking and practical advice helps leaders to manage their teams, coach direct reports and shape work cultures with strong values.
“Leadership Is An Art”
Max De Pree
In what’s sometimes referred to as the Bible of the Businessworld, the successful former CEO of Herman Miller shows how executives and managers can leverage leadership skills to build a better, more profitable organization. “Leadership Is an Art” has long been a must-read within the business community and in professions ranging from academia to medical practices to the political arena. First published in 1989, the book has sold more than 800,000 copies in hardcover and paperback. The revised edition, published in 2004, brings De Pree’s timeless words and practical philosophy to a new generation of readers.
“Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business”
Gino Wickman
Author Gino Wickman asks readers if they’ve got a grip on their work or if it’s the other way around. This insightful book on business leadership shares Wickman’s Entrepreneurial Operating System® (EOS), a practical method for achieving the business success you have always envisioned. “Traction” outlines the six components to strengthening a business. More than 80,000 companies have discovered what EOS can do, according to the author.
“Good To Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t”
Jim Collins
This classic book focuses on a transformational business study conducted in the 1990s and offers practical takeaways that apply to today’s industry leaders. For years, Jim Collins was obsessed with how certain companies seemed to defy gravity and convert long-term mediocrity (or worse) into long-term superiority. Using tough benchmarks, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results — including Stryker — and sustained those results for at least 15 years. How great? After the leap, the good-to-great companies generated cumulative stock returns that beat the general stock market by an average of seven times in 15 years, better than twice the results delivered by a composite index of the world’s greatest companies, including the likes of Coca-Cola, Intel, General Electric and Merck.
In this classic business book, Collins and his research team identified a set of elite companies that made the leap to great results — including Stryker — and sustained those results for at least 15 years.
“The Gap and the Gain: The High Achievers’ Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success”
Jim Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
Authors Sullivan and Hardy argue that highly ambitious people are often unhappy because of how they measure their progress. We all have an “ideal,” a moving target that is always out of reach. When we measure ourselves against that ideal, we’re in “the GAP.” However, when we measure ourselves against our previous selves, we’re in “the GAIN.” This book teaches that measuring your current self vs. your former self has enormous psychological benefits. It’s a deceptively simple yet multi-layered concept that will help business leaders feel good, grateful and aware that they are making progress even when times are tough, which will, in turn bolster motivation, confidence and future success.
“Fusion: The Psychology of Teams”
Dave Winsborough
Organizational psychologist Dave Winsborough’s “Fusion” describes the underlying psychology that powers extraordinary teams and high performance. Although teams are the basic human work unit, too few leaders are clear about the hard, soft and deep factors that create the conditions for teams to win and team members to thrive. This book lays out a clear path for all team leaders to raise their own performance and build exceptional teams.
