Here are 100 books that The Geek Way fans have personally recommended if you like
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I’ve spent much of my career working with leaders as technology reshapes how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and organizations evolve. What keeps me engaged with this topic is how quickly uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception. AI and digital systems are no longer abstract forces; they shape everyday choices, incentives, and outcomes. I read these books because they help me think more clearly about leadership in that reality: how judgment, learning, and responsibility need to adapt when systems move faster than intuition. They’ve influenced how I approach real-world leadership challenges in complex, technology-driven environments.
I love this book because it fundamentally changed how I think about leadership when the path forward isn’t clear.
Too often, I saw leaders confuse confidence with competence and mistake the absence of visible failure for success. This book helped me see why that instinct is so damaging in moments that actually require learning. What stayed with me is how clearly it distinguishes between smart risk-taking and avoidable mistakes, and how much leadership depends on creating the conditions for people to speak up, test ideas, and learn quickly.
I find myself coming back to this book whenever leaders face high-stakes decisions under uncertainty, because it sharpens judgment rather than offering false reassurance.
Shortlisted for the Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year
A revolutionary guide that will transform your relationship with failure, from the pioneering researcher of psychological safety and award-winning Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson.
We used to think of failure as the opposite of success. Now, we’re often torn between two “failure cultures”: one that says to avoid failure at all costs, the other that says fail fast, fail often. The trouble is that both approaches lack the crucial distinctions to help us separate good failure from bad. As a result, we miss the opportunity to fail…
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…
I’ve spent much of my career working with leaders as technology reshapes how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and organizations evolve. What keeps me engaged with this topic is how quickly uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception. AI and digital systems are no longer abstract forces; they shape everyday choices, incentives, and outcomes. I read these books because they help me think more clearly about leadership in that reality: how judgment, learning, and responsibility need to adapt when systems move faster than intuition. They’ve influenced how I approach real-world leadership challenges in complex, technology-driven environments.
I appreciated this book because it refuses both panic and blind optimism about AI. Instead, it helped us think more clearly about what it actually means to work alongside intelligent systems rather than delegate everything to them.
The book guides leaders as they decide where human judgment still matters most. I return to it when conversations drift toward extremes, because it brings the focus back to responsibility, judgment, and choice.
It reinforced my belief that leadership in the age of AI is not about replacement, but about deciding thoughtfully how humans and machines learn together.
From Wharton professor and author of the popular One Useful Thing Substack newsletter Ethan Mollick comes the definitive playbook for working, learning, and living in the new age of AI
Something new entered our world in November 2022 — the first general purpose AI that could pass for a human and do the kinds of creative, innovative work that only humans could do previously. Wharton professor Ethan Mollick immediately understood what ChatGPT meant: after millions of years on our own, humans had developed a kind of co-intelligence that could augment, or even replace, human…
I’ve spent much of my career working with leaders as technology reshapes how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and organizations evolve. What keeps me engaged with this topic is how quickly uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception. AI and digital systems are no longer abstract forces; they shape everyday choices, incentives, and outcomes. I read these books because they help me think more clearly about leadership in that reality: how judgment, learning, and responsibility need to adapt when systems move faster than intuition. They’ve influenced how I approach real-world leadership challenges in complex, technology-driven environments.
I value this book because it helped me see how deeply technology reshapes leadership decisions long before leaders realize it.
What struck me most is how clearly it shows that AI doesn’t just optimize processes; it rewires how organizations scale, allocate authority, and compete.
I often think about this book when leaders treat AI as a tool rather than as a force that changes operating logic. It sharpened my understanding of why traditional management instincts (control, linear planning, incremental change) break down in AI-driven systems, and why leadership today requires rethinking structure, speed, and accountability at a much more fundamental level.
AI-centric organizations exhibit a new operating architecture, redefining how they create, capture, share, and deliver value.
Marco Iansiti and Karim R. Lakhani show how reinventing the firm around data, analytics, and AI removes traditional constraints on scale, scope, and learning that have restricted business growth for hundreds of years. From Airbnb to Ant Financial, Microsoft to Amazon, research shows how AI-driven processes are vastly more scalable than traditional processes, allow massive scope increase, enabling companies to straddle industry boundaries, and create powerful opportunities for learning--to drive ever more accurate, complex, and…
Former model Kira McGovern picks up the paint brushes of her youth and through an unexpected epiphany she decides to mix ashes of the deceased with her paints to produce tributes for grieving families.
Unexpectedly this leads to visions and images of the subjects of her work and terrifying changes…
I’ve spent much of my career working with leaders as technology reshapes how decisions are made, authority is exercised, and organizations evolve. What keeps me engaged with this topic is how quickly uncertainty has become the norm rather than the exception. AI and digital systems are no longer abstract forces; they shape everyday choices, incentives, and outcomes. I read these books because they help me think more clearly about leadership in that reality: how judgment, learning, and responsibility need to adapt when systems move faster than intuition. They’ve influenced how I approach real-world leadership challenges in complex, technology-driven environments.
I found this book compelling because it confronts questions many leaders avoid: what happens when expertise itself becomes scalable through technology?
The book stayed with me because it challenges deeply held assumptions about authority, credentials, and value. It helped me see leadership as the responsibility to rethink how knowledge is created, shared, and governed, especially when technology lowers barriers but raises new ethical and organizational challenges.
This book predicts the decline of today's professions and introduces the people and systems that will replace them. In an internet-enhanced society, according to Richard Susskind and Daniel Susskind, we will neither need nor want doctors, teachers, accountants, architects, the clergy, consultants, lawyers, and many others, to work as they did in the 20th century.
The Future of the Professions explains how increasingly capable technologies - from telepresence to artificial intelligence - will place the 'practical expertise' of the finest specialists at the fingertips of everyone, often at no or low cost and without face-to-face interaction.
I’m passionate about workplace leadership, both as a writer and former human resources executive. I spent three decades in corporate HR roles. At the same time, I wrote 17 books on effective people leadership practices and published hundreds of articles as a columnist for SHRM—the Society for Human Resource Management. I’ve taught in UCLA Extension’s School of Business and Management for years, trained for the American Management Association, and served as a keynote speaker at many conferences. I find leadership and management fascinating—hiring, motivation, professional development, accountability, innovation, and even termination. Building people's muscle while protecting companies from unwanted legal liability has been my passion throughout my career.
In survey after survey, Gen Y Millennials and Gen Z Zoomers value diversity of thoughts, ideas, and voices as a top five priority. This book focuses on creating a work environment where people of all races, backgrounds, interests, and life experiences can partner together to do their best work every day with peace of mind. Kriska provides practical insights and roadmaps on how to lead diverse groups effectively, build trust and respect into team DNA, and bring out the best in others by having their backs.
Developing what she calls a “We Mindset” fosters a stronger sense of teamwork and camaraderie. As the world of work shifts more to team productivity and performance (as opposed to individual achievement), Kriska shows us the way to avoid “us versus them” constructs and excuses in order to build stronger performing teams where everyone wins and benefits, not the least of which is the…
Discover how this leader-focused approach to understanding, managing, and maximizing organizational diversity and inclusion can increase employee retention and productivity.
Workplace misunderstandings lead to lost revenue, lost time, and increased legal risk, thus your success in the marketplace will depend on our ability to collaborate across difference. Yet, inevitably, Us versus Them gaps disrupt workplace efficiency.
In The Business of WE, cross-cultural consultant and diversity expert Laura Kriska will:
Provide a practical roadmap for creating trust with others who are culturally different from yourself
Help you create a WE mindset throughout your organization, bringing teams together into cohesive units.
Walk…
I’ve seen the benefit of investing in awareness about how you can improve in leadership. I am a military veteran with two decades of experience in leading teams in high-stress environments. I’ve seen military leadership at its strongest and at its weakest. I’ve since led multi-million dollar projects and seen the value of investing in leadership and developing a culture of high-performance. For over 100 weeks, I researched and wrote a series of blog articles titled Leadership Sparks. The goal was to be able to create a spark with my words in someone else's mind. To pass the small ignition point of leadership growth to them.
Everyone loves Netflix. But I love their story more. If the conditions are right, your business could look very different. The Netflix way showed me the importance of the statement ‘hire good people and get out of their way'. Whilst that comment is simple, building a company that allows that is more complicated.
This book challenged the way I viewed organizational structure and innate bureaucracies. Reed describes some simple philosophies that provide a contrast to the status quo. I love the challenge of this book to traditional success.
Hard work is irrelevant. Be radically honest. Adequate performance gets a generous severance. And never, ever try to please your boss.
These are some of the ground rules if you work at Netflix. They are part of a unique cultural experiment that explains how the company has transformed itself at lightning speed from a DVD mail order service into a streaming superpower - with 125 million fervent subscribers and a market capitalisation bigger than Disney.
Finally Reed Hastings, Netflix Chairman and CEO, is sharing the secrets that have revolutionised the entertainment and tech industries. With INSEAD business school professor Erin…
Rusty Allen is an Iraqi War veteran with PTSD. He moves to his grandfather's cabin in the mountains to find some peace and go back to wilderness training.
He gets wrapped up in a kidnapping first, as a suspect and then as a guide. He tolerates the sheriff's deputy with…
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.
Leading with dignity is a core leadership behavior. As my journey as a leader has unfolded, I have been drawn to certain words I have experienced, and dignity is one of these words. Everyone has dignity and expects to be treated with dignity. Everyone.
As a leader, you must demonstrate a visible level of empathy and treat everyone you meet with dignity, as by doing so, your ability to impact and influence them grows exponentially. Although I consider myself a skilled leader, this book reminded me of the importance and existence of this basic human trait. I recognize there might be an occasional person I do not feel needs to be treated with dignity, yet their existence is infinitesimal. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity.
Winner of the 2019 PROSE award in the Business, Management and Finance category
What every leader needs to know about dignity and how to create a culture in which everyone thrives
"With engaging intelligence, Hicks makes a lucid case for the importance of acknowledging a person's worth within organizations and businesses. . . . For anyone wanting to better understand how to bring about the best in themselves and those around them."-Nina MacLaughlin, Boston Globe This landmark book from an expert in dignity studies explores the essential but underrecognized role of dignity as part of good leadership. Extending the reach…
I’ve seen the benefit of investing in awareness about how you can improve in leadership. I am a military veteran with two decades of experience in leading teams in high-stress environments. I’ve seen military leadership at its strongest and at its weakest. I’ve since led multi-million dollar projects and seen the value of investing in leadership and developing a culture of high-performance. For over 100 weeks, I researched and wrote a series of blog articles titled Leadership Sparks. The goal was to be able to create a spark with my words in someone else's mind. To pass the small ignition point of leadership growth to them.
I’ve never had the words to describe why I knew culture was important to success or why I thought the best way to succeed in the long term was to help others succeed.
This book helped me have the words, examples, and stories to be able to communicate that. One of my most recommended books.
'A marvel of insight and practicality' Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit ____________________________
How do you build and sustain a great team?
The Culture Code reveals the secrets of some of the best teams in the world - from Pixar to Google to US Navy SEALs - explaining the three skills such groups have mastered in order to generate trust and a willingness to collaborate. Combining cutting-edge science, on-the-ground insight and practical ideas for action, it offers a roadmap for creating an environment where innovation flourishes, problems get solved, and expectations are exceeded.…
As someone who’s lived through burnout and now helps people prevent it, I know firsthand that productivity isn’t about doing more—it’s about doing what matters, when it matters, without sacrificing your sanity, health, or relationships. Reclaim Your Workday was born from years of coaching teams and leaders to focus deeply, communicate clearly, and work sustainably in our always-on world. These books challenge the myth of hustle culture and offer practical ways to reclaim your time, attention, and energy—so work supports your life, not the other way around.
I hope to gain one or two new ideas from a book in my industry—but throughout Everyone Wants to Work Here, I kept thinking, "This is the book I wish I had written!"
Maura Thomas captures leadership challenges in the post-pandemic era of hybrid and remote work with such accuracy that it both affirmed and validated the strategies I train my clients on.
I don’t often read many others in my space to avoid unintentionally copying them, but this book mirrored so many of my own philosophies and analogies that I laughed out loud at the similarities.
It’s an easy, insightful read for any manager, leader, or team. It’s a masterclass in building teams where focus, trust, and well-being thrive—exactly what modern workplaces need.
Building a productive work culture doesn't have to invite burnout and stress-The Productive Leader empowers you and your team to build effective habits for accomplishing your goals. Exhaustion not required.
To achieve efficiency, productivity, and significant results, you need to make the best use of the resources available to you. Productivity expert Maura Thomas helps you nurture the crucial resource that is your work culture and build productive habits for yourself and your team, without letting work take over your life.
The Productive Leader empowers you to define what productivity means for your team and to create conditions that support…
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman
by
Alexis Krasilovsky,
Kate from Jules et Jim meets I Love Dick.
A young woman filmmaker’s journey of self-discovery, set against a backdrop of the sexual liberation movement of the 1970s and 1980s. In Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman, we follow Ana Fried as she faces the ultimate…
As a journalist covering the Future of Work and Silicon Valley in the 2010s, I encountered pioneering social entrepreneurs and newly minted tech billionaires whose ideologies attracted millions and have since shaped our culture, economy, and society. I've curated some of the most impactful books that informed my understanding of their ambitions and how work is evolving, as well as the thought leaders who inspired them. Engaging with this content and integrating it over the last decade has transformed my worldview, leading me to a more fulfilling, peaceful, and creative life—but it’s been quite the journey!
Most businesses today are filled with untapped creative potential. The primary barrier? Bureaucracy.
Following in the footsteps of Frederic Laloux’s Reinventing Organizations, this book takes a more academic approach, offering CEOs and MBAs rigorous case studies and practical strategies for influencing culture and reducing bureaucratic bloat. Authors Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini—also a McKinsey alum—argue that to be more innovative and adaptable, organizations need a new DNA, free from rigid structures and outdated management practices.
If crowd-sourced strategy, decentralized decision-making, and collective profit-sharing sound like a dream, this book shows how companies of all sizes are succeeding with these methods, adopted by global manufacturers like a leading French tire company and a Chinese appliance giant. It offers a practical guide for anyone looking to reshape work, regardless of their place in the organizational hierarchy.
In a world of unrelenting change and unprecedented challenges, we need organizations that are resilient and daring.
Unfortunately, most organizations, overburdened by bureaucracy, are sluggish and timid. In the age of upheaval, top-down power structures and rule-choked management systems are a liability. They crush creativity and stifle initiative. As leaders, employees, investors, and citizens, we deserve better. We need organizations that are bold, entrepreneurial, and as nimble as change itself. Hence this book.
In Humanocracy, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini make a passionate, data-driven argument for excising bureaucracy and replacing it with something better. Drawing…
