Here are 100 books that Leadership Is an Art fans have personally recommended if you like
Leadership Is an Art.
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I have been interested in leadership style since my teenage years. My father was a leader in a retailing organization, and I was entranced by behaviors that seemed to connect with others and those that did not. As I grew older, I started to think about leadership style behaviors and models that might capture the most effective ones. While I recognize that leadership needs vary based on industry, scope, and tenure, I do believe that we all should know the leadership styles that are important to us to the extent that we can describe them if we are asked to do so.
We often times spend all of our energy on the ways we should behave as a leader and do not put any energy into recognizing behaviors that are not helping us. Also, as your career unfolds, what might have worked for you previously may no longer be effective, yet we continue doing this behavior as it worked in the past.
I needed insight into my overall leadership behaviors and greater insight into behaviors I needed to evolve or move away from. Behaviors like “Failure to give proper recognition,” “Passing judgment,” and “an excessive need to be me” are all behaviors from which I needed to grow away and evolve. This is stuff we don’t hear enough of—often, we focus too much on where we need to go and not what we are doing now.
Your hard work is paying off. You are doing well in your field. But there is something standing between you and the next level of achievement. That something may just be one of your own annoying habits.Perhaps one small flaw - a behaviour you barely even recognise - is the only thing that's keeping you from where you want to be. It may be that the very characteristic that you believe got you where you are - like the drive to win at all costs - is what's holding you back. As this book explains, people often do well in…
The Victorian mansion, Evenmere, is the mechanism that runs the universe.
The lamps must be lit, or the stars die. The clocks must be wound, or Time ceases. The Balance between Order and Chaos must be preserved, or Existence crumbles.
Appointed the Steward of Evenmere, Carter Anderson must learn the…
After receiving my doctorate in Social Anthropology at Oxford University, I worked in the Nixon Administration until I was fired for publishing a study, Work in America, that garnered front-page attention and accolades in the New York Times (and condemnation in Wall Street Journal editorials). Unemployed and with a family to support, I was rescued by the Aspen Institute, which hired me to direct a program on workplace issues. There, I met philosopher Mortimer Adler, the management guru Peter Drucker, and the father of leadership studies, Warren Bennis. They became my mentors, and through them, I received the education I didn’t get in seven years of formal higher education!
This bible of Realpolitik is another how-not-to-lead classic.
Although Big Mac believed he was offering sound advice to his generic “prince,” his prescription was famously amoral and situational and offered to those who had only one interest: to gain and maintain power at all costs. Since those ends justify any means to their attainment, the prince is advised to use such tactics as flattery, lying, bullying, threatening, and “confusing men’s minds.” Do anything that works.
The prince uses his subject to achieve his ends, not theirs. He is all about himself. Sound familiar?
Here is the world's most famous master plan for seizing and holding power. Astonishing in its candor The Prince even today remains a disturbingly realistic and prophetic work on what it takes to be a prince . . . a king . . . a president. When, in 1512, Machiavelli was removed from his post in his beloved Florence, he resolved to set down a treatise on leadership that was practical, not idealistic. In The Prince he envisioned would be unencumbered by ordinary ethical and moral values; his prince would be man and beast, fox and lion. Today, this small…
In 2014, I was laid off from my management role at Lowe’s Home Improvement. Instead of starting another job, I took several months to reflect on my leadership experiences and researched how leadership has evolved in the 21st Century. Based on a detailed analysis of 14 books, including the five I recommend, I wrote my first book that explains how to practice 21st-century leadership (now in its second edition). After publishing, I’ve written another leadership book, several blogs, and have been a keynote speaker. I now host the Unlabeled Leadership Podcast, which helps listeners learn how everyday people practice leadership.
If you are like me and want to figure out how to help your team become unstuck, you are not alone!
Through his real-life journey, you’ll discover how Captain Abrashoff transformed the crew of the USS Benfold from being low in morale and underperforming to one of the most engaged and high-performing crew in the Navy! I found his story impressively illustrates behaviors that anyone can adopt to build a team’s culture.
After reading the book, I had the privilege of meeting Abrashoff and hearing him talk about his Navy experience, which exemplified the value of his book even more. Abrashoff’s examples and stories can be your call to action that helps you transform a group of employees into a high-performing team!
The story of Captain D. Michael Abrashoff and his command of USS Benfold has become legendary inside and outside the Navy. Now Abrashoff offers this fascinating tale of top-down change for anyone trying to navigate today's uncertain business seas. When Captain Abrashoff took over as commander of USS Benfold, a ship armed with every cutting-edge system available, it was like a business that had all the latest technology but only some of the productivity. Knowing that responsibility for improving performance rested with him, he realized he had to improve his own leadership skills before he could improve his ship. Within…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
After a career as an HR and learning & development executive at PepsiCo, AOL, and Capital One, I founded Arneson Leadership Consulting to provide coaching, talent management, and leadership development solutions to corporations and non-profit organizations. I have a passion for helping leaders develop to their full potential and believe all leaders have the capacity to learn and grow. But development doesn’t just magically happen – you have to be willing to work at it. Whether it’s taking a course, gathering 360feedback, or reading a best-selling book, the best leaders know they must never stop learning.
The Extraordinary Leader is a remarkable combination of expert insight and extensive research. The authors analyzed more than 200,000 assessments describing 20,000 managers—by far the most expansive research ever conducted for a leadership book. This book will take you inside the process of becoming a successful leader, as the authors detail the various skills needed to earn the respect of the people you lead. This is a must read for aspiring and experienced leaders alike and is one of my go-to manuals on how to develop leaders. One of the few books I’ve read cover-to-cover more than once, I’m confident you’ll come away with data-driven insights that you can begin to implement in your leadership role.
People can learn how to lead. This was the position John H. Zenger and Joseph R.Folkman took when they wrote their now-classicleadership book The Extraordinary Leader-and it'sa fact they reinforce in this new, completely updatededition of their bestseller.
When it was first published, The ExtraordinaryLeader immediately attracted a wide audience ofaspiring leaders drawn to its unique feature: theextensive use of scientific studies and hard data,which served to demystify the concept of leadershipand get readers thinking about the subject ina pragmatic way.
Now, Zenger and Folkman revisit the subject to addressleaders' most pressing concerns today. Theresult is an up-to-date, essential leadership…
I’ve spent many years as a management consultant to a range of big, global corporations, smaller companies, and not-for-profits. I also headed up succession planning and management development at two major companies. I decided to go into this field based on a strong conviction, a conviction that continues today: that leadership counts. Strong leaders benefit people in their organizations and, ultimately, society itself. Having worked with many senior leaders and led organizations myself, I know the range of pressures executives face and how easy it is to fail. Companies need a supply of capable, well-equipped senior leaders, and those who aspire to top-level positions need guideposts about achieving their career aspirations.
As they move up, executives become more and more responsible for strategy and building the capacity of the organization. But one thing never changes: they are still responsible for making sure that strategic plans get implemented.
Their dilemma, given all the other responsibilities they take on, is how to manage execution without getting bogged down at too low a level of detail. Bossidy is a retired CEO and Charan is a well-respected consultant. They lay out a roadmap for ensuring implementation and simultaneously building organization capacity.
Larry Bossidy is one of the world's most acclaimed CEOs, with a track record for delivering results that has few peers. Ram Charan is a legendary advisor to senior executives and boards of directors, with unparalleled insight into why some companies are successful and others not. The result is the book people in business need today. One with a highly practical framework for closing the gap between results promised and results delivered. After a long, stellar career with GE, Larry Bossidy became CEO of Allied Signal and transformed it into one of the world's most admired companies. Accomplishments like 31…
After receiving my doctorate in Social Anthropology at Oxford University, I worked in the Nixon Administration until I was fired for publishing a study, Work in America, that garnered front-page attention and accolades in the New York Times (and condemnation in Wall Street Journal editorials). Unemployed and with a family to support, I was rescued by the Aspen Institute, which hired me to direct a program on workplace issues. There, I met philosopher Mortimer Adler, the management guru Peter Drucker, and the father of leadership studies, Warren Bennis. They became my mentors, and through them, I received the education I didn’t get in seven years of formal higher education!
He was the CEO who famously coined the slogan “We Try Harder” in the ‘60s, signaling Avis's transition from obscurity to Hertz’s top rental car competitor.
The book is irreverent, witty, wise, and brutally honest about the perils of executive egotism and corporate board indolence. Published in the late ‘60s, the book has withstood the test of time.
I was working as a consultant for McKinsey and Company when I read it. What I learned was that we were giving our business clients all the wrong advice. I submitted my resignation and changed careers.
Although it was first published more than thirty-five years ago, Up the Organization continues to top the lists of best business books by groups as diverse as the American Management Association, Strategy + Business (Booz Allen Hamilton), and The Wharton Center for Leadership and Change Management. 1-800-CEO-READ ranks Townsend's bestseller first among eighty books that "every manager must read."
This commemorative edition offers a new generation the benefit of Robert Townsend's timeless wisdom as well as reflections on his work and life by those who knew and worked with him. This groundbreaking book continues to remind us not to get…
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
After receiving my doctorate in Social Anthropology at Oxford University, I worked in the Nixon Administration until I was fired for publishing a study, Work in America, that garnered front-page attention and accolades in the New York Times (and condemnation in Wall Street Journal editorials). Unemployed and with a family to support, I was rescued by the Aspen Institute, which hired me to direct a program on workplace issues. There, I met philosopher Mortimer Adler, the management guru Peter Drucker, and the father of leadership studies, Warren Bennis. They became my mentors, and through them, I received the education I didn’t get in seven years of formal higher education!
In 1978, the prominent historian and political scientist Jim Burns published this classic, advancing the importance of “transformational leadership.” Referencing such greats as Lincoln, Gandhi, and FDR, he documented how moral leaders help followers achieve their higher goals and realize their potential.
Sound idealistic? Burns showed it was also practical and effective.
Transformational leadership occurs when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality. "Leadership" is Pulitzer Prize-winner James M. Burns' pioneering study of leadership, first published in 1978 and still considered the seminal work in the field of leadership studies. In it Burns introduced the influential theory of 'transformational leadership', which states that the best leaders are those who inspire others to come together toward the achievement of higher aims, a theory that has been the basis of more than 400 doctoral dissertations.
After receiving my doctorate in Social Anthropology at Oxford University, I worked in the Nixon Administration until I was fired for publishing a study, Work in America, that garnered front-page attention and accolades in the New York Times (and condemnation in Wall Street Journal editorials). Unemployed and with a family to support, I was rescued by the Aspen Institute, which hired me to direct a program on workplace issues. There, I met philosopher Mortimer Adler, the management guru Peter Drucker, and the father of leadership studies, Warren Bennis. They became my mentors, and through them, I received the education I didn’t get in seven years of formal higher education!
Most contemporary playgoers and readers focus their attention on Princess Antigone’s courageous defiance of her uncle King Creon’s unjust decree that her slain brother’s body could not receive a proper burial. Actually, Sophocles wanted his Athenian audience to pay heed to how Creon’s egotism, vanity, and stubborn refusal to listen to wise counsel lead to the deaths of those he loves and to the destruction of his kingdom.
The play is a subtle lesson in how not to lead addressed to Athens’s ruling oligarchs. It is still relevant some 2,400 years after it was written.
The curse placed on Oedipus lingers and haunts a younger generation in this new and brilliant translation of Sophocles' classic drama. The daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Antigone is an unconventional heroine who pits her beliefs against the King of Thebes in a bloody test of wills that leaves few unharmed. Emotions fly as she challenges the king for the right to bury her own brother. Determined but doomed, Antigone shows her inner strength throughout the play.
Antigone raises issues of law and morality that are just as relevant today as they were more than two thousand years ago. Whether…
I am an Australian who lives in France, and has worked and lived on three continents, and drawn inspiration for every location. Through this, I have developed a fascination about the way we all think in creatively different ways about the same things. All this cross-referencing has shown me that all responses to the need for change go better with a base of a few things: trust in your own people and those whose businesses support yours, discovery of assets hidden in plain sight, and fun. All these books share these themes. I hope they inspire you to think more creatively and to constantly value the value of values.
As a Fellow of the Strategic Doing Institute, I have used this method in diverse locations, sectors, and with private and public sector groups, and it is the best method of empowerment I have yet to see.
For anyone who is facing ‘wicked problems’—those that are complex, interwoven, and layered—and where no single solution will work, this book is the guide needed.
Yo Yo Ma wrote the foreword after watching how the methodology described quickly bought ideas to action. Communities, industries, and businesses—and me—use the four questions and 10 rules of Strategic Doing to move forward to action—and the results speak for themselves.
Complex challenges are all around us-they impact our companies, our communities, and our planet. This complexity and the emergence of networks is changing the practice of strategic management. Today's leaders need to understand how to design and guide complex collaborations to accelerate innovation and change-collaborations that cross boundaries both inside and outside organizations.
Strategic Doing introduces you to the new disciplines of agile strategy and collaborative leadership. You'll learn how to design and guide complex collaborations by following a discipline of simple rules that you won't find anywhere else.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I am an Australian who lives in France, and has worked and lived on three continents, and drawn inspiration for every location. Through this, I have developed a fascination about the way we all think in creatively different ways about the same things. All this cross-referencing has shown me that all responses to the need for change go better with a base of a few things: trust in your own people and those whose businesses support yours, discovery of assets hidden in plain sight, and fun. All these books share these themes. I hope they inspire you to think more creatively and to constantly value the value of values.
Although we value order and try to group things logically, one man’s logic is another man’s chaos.
I love the book because it challenges us to think about things we take for granted and the importance of discovery rather than finding. As Weinberger says: A topic is not a domain with edges. It is how passion focuses itself.
I agree absolutely that knowledge is not in our heads—but between us. Think of the white spaces on the org chart: that is where things happen.
Love this: Research shows that messiness begins within and to think without mess is to ”imagine thinking the way computers think—which is to say, to imagine not thinking at all.”
Business visionary and bestselling author David Weinberger charts how as business, politics, science, and media move online, the rules of the physical world - in which everything has a place - are upended. In the digital world, everything has its places, with transformative effects: Information is now a social asset and should be made public, for anyone to link, organize, and make more valuable; There's no such thing as "too much" information. More information gives people the hooks to find what they need; Messiness is a digital virtue, leading to new ideas, efficiency, and social knowledge; Authorities are less important…
