Here are 100 books that The Song of Significance fans have personally recommended if you like
The Song of Significance.
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When I went back to school for my MBA, I was looking for a way to apply the passion I’d found for changing lives for a better world. Studying business started my journey toward founding Velentium, a medtech engineering firm, in 2012. The pandemic was a make-or-break season for every industry, medtech included. We were determined to do our part, but were faced with an unprecedented challenge: boost the world’s emergency ventilator production from hundreds per month to thousands per week—in just 28 days. We succeeded—and it was a spiritually moving experience. I wrote28 Days to Save the World in hopes of inspiring other organizations to punch above their weight class like we did.
From the author ofThe Dream Manager comes a book that will challenge and inspire the core of your organization. Kelly’s bread-and-butter as a business coach and motivational speaker shows in his writing style—be prepared to have the six key lessons reinforced through repetition (great for those of us who read in short bursts with lots of life happening in between). But this book has a strong practical aspect too. Applying its lessons will fill your to-do list for months to come!
Culture is about creating empowerment, not entitlement . . .
Culture is not about bringing your dog to work, free lunches, unlimited vacation, or even casual Fridays. Culture is not a collection of personal preferences.
Our thinking about culture has been kidnapped and polluted by the spectacular, attention-grabbing fads that 99 percent of organizations cannot implement. It is time to get beyond these "here today, gone tomorrow" illusions that foster entitlement, complacency, and mediocrity, so we can start implementing the timeless principles that are: The Culture Solution.
The six foundational principles of a Dynamic Culture are universal and unchanging. In…
UNWRITTEN: The Thought Leader’s Guide to Not Overthinking Your Business Book is a business book about how to write a business book. Written by a business owner (a ghostwriter) for other business owners, it shows you the easiest way to fit writing a book into running your business. And most…
I’m fascinated with the relationship between personal growth and professional performance. Why is it in the same environment, doing the same work, some people can excel while others struggle? Most chalk it up to external circumstances that can’t be controlled. Others focus on tactics. But I’ve learned top-performers are masters at the human side of their work–the way they think, lead and serve–and that’s what gives them their edge. All of my work centers around infusing hard skills with improved soft skills, and getting better results in the process. That’s the stuff I find delicious, and it’s what I speak and write about.
Many organizations pay lip service to “culture” without measuring it, managing it, or even knowing what it really is.
This book describes five different levels of culture, and what each one needs to evolve. Once you understand these cultures, you’ll see elements of them all around in other groups you participate in.
Ever since reading this I’ve worked to get any teams I work with to Level 5, and I’m grateful for now having some direction on how to accomplish this.
In "Tribal Leadership", management consultants Dave Logan and John King show corporate leaders how they can use tribes - the groups that naturally form within any company - to maximize productivity and profit within their own firms. Based on a rigorous eight-year study that covered more than two dozen companies and 24,000 people, "Tribal Leadership" includes interviews with leading business figures such as Brian France, chairman and CEO of NASCAR, and Dilbert creator Scott Adams, and shows leaders from companies of any size and of any industry that the health and success of their firms ultimately depend on the hundreds…
Being a leader is hard, being a woman in leadership is exponentially harder. I learned this firsthand at 22 during my first management role at one of the big 4 accounting firms. I did it all wrong and I want to help women leaders avoid all the mistake I made. The most important thing I learned is the importance of relationships. What I do now is help people communicate to connect because what I believe is that real relationships lead to real results. And close relationships, personal and professional, just make us happier, and who doesn’t want that?
I love this book because it not only reinforced many of the things I already believed, but it also made me look at the ideas from a different angle. I love it when a book is actionable, and I found the questions, especially the ones at the end of chapter 4, helped me take stock of my behaviors and choose something specific to work on.
I actually like homework. I am now building a habit of asking important people in my life, “What’s one thing that would improve our relationship?” And I am seeing a difference.
From a trio of authors, best friends, and leadership development consultants, Better Work Together is a book for leaders who want to improve - at leading, yes, but also at their lives. How so? By building deep, long-lasting relationships that set everybody up for success.
One of the most important indicators of individual, team, and organisational success is the presence of an ally mindset. When we have best friends at work - people who are with us, in good times and bad, and who help ensure we make it through together - we thrive. When we don't, we flail, and…
The Go-Giver tells the story of an ambitious young man named Joe who yearns for success. Joe is a true go-getter, though sometimes he feels as if the harder and faster he works, the further away his goals seem to be.
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.
A colleague of mine introduced me to this book and argued that Kouzes and Posner wrote the gold standard of leadership practices. After reading their research-based stories, I agree.
The authors write in a way that goes beyond theory by offering a practical guide by focusing on the five practices of exemplary leadership. These practices are applicable to anyone’s career! Through inspiring examples and actionable steps, I learned how to lead with integrity, inspire others, and drive higher performance more effectively.
Read the gold standard of leadership development. It can become your call to action!
The most trusted source of leadership wisdom, updated to address today's realities The Leadership Challenge is the gold-standard manual for effective leadership, grounded in research and written by the premier authorities in the field. With deep insight into the complex interpersonal dynamics of the workplace, this book positions leadership both as a skill to be learned, and as a relationship that must be nurtured to reach its full potential.
This new sixth edition has been revised to address current challenges, and includes more international examples and a laser focus on business issues; you'll learn how extraordinary leaders accomplish extraordinary things,…
I’ve always wondered why meetings are so terrible. And, why we spend so much awful time in them. So, in my graduate studies, I decided to try to figure that out. What makes meetings good and what makes meetings bad? Then, over the course of a couple decades, I wrote what constituted about 25% of all the science on the topic of workplace meetings. It may be self-proclaimed, but I am the Meeting Doctor. Just like you go to a physician for an illness, I’m who people go to when their meetings are sick and need a cure!
Unfortunately, many of the organizations where people work and serve have allowed biases and stereotypes about people to creep in. I recommend this book because it provides leaders with the knowledge and tools to change that about your organization. To bring about inclusion among all employees in every role throughout the entire organization. As the meeting doctor, I can’t imagine a more pivotal place for inclusion than the workplace meeting, and this book gave me the information and ideas I needed to make that a reality in my organization.
In this groundbreaking new book, organizational psychologist and executive coach Gena Cox shows you how to lead an inclusive organization, from the top down, and to seek solutions to the racially based discontent that pervades many employees' experiences. Drawing on psychological science, corporate leaders, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), and her own experience in corporate America, Cox explains how to reframe the conversation, so you can more effectively guide the rest of the leaders in your organization. She helps you understand the key questions you should ask, the constituents you must address, and the difficult actions you must take to…
I’ve founded companies, shut them down (then rebuilt my life), and coached hundreds of executives and founders through their own turning points. Those experiences taught me that resilience isn’t about bouncing back after hard things happen to you. It’s about being open to what can happen through you, including growth, clarity, curiosity, and conviction. That’s why I wrote Rethinking Resilience and why I return to these books often. Each one has helped me see strength, adaptability, and curiosity as intentional and sustainable traits—not something we summon only after crisis. I’m passionate about helping leaders move from reaction to intention and turn pressure into power, and I think this list captures that shift perfectly.
I love this book because it reframes leadership as a long strategic game instead of a transactional one.
Sinek’s concept of the “infinite mindset” mirrors how I think about Intentional Resilience: it’s not about surviving one hard moment, it’s about sustaining clarity and conviction over many moments. His writing reminds me to zoom out, focus on purpose, and lead with a sense of ownership and collaboration instead of competition.
It’s one of those rare leadership books that keeps getting more relevant every year.
The New York Times-bestselling author of Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, and Together Is Better offers a bold new approach to business strategy by asking one question: are you playing the finite game or the infinite game?
In The Infinite Game, Sinek applies game theory to explore how great businesses achieve long-lasting success. He finds that building long-term value and healthy, enduring growth - that playing the infinite game - is the only thing that matters to your business.
Having studied literature at university and been a closet nerd, coding at night in a dank basement room, I've always been intrigued by the interface between human and machine. Then, as a senior executive in a large multinational, I was acutely aware of the value of empathy as a leadership skill. In a world that is increasingly divided and divisive, I’ve become an empathy activist. I believe that the business world can be a force for positive change, but as a society we will need to engage in a much more meaningful and rigorous debate about the ethics involved in the opportunities offered by using artificial intelligence and robots in the workplace.
With business conditions and prospects looking so difficult, we will need to be ever more strategic in the use of our resources. In this light, Michael Ventura’s practical approach to inserting empathy into leadership and how businesses should function with a higher degree of empathy is a tremendous read. Ventura uses a host of case studies based on the work he’s done with his company, Sub Rosa. As such, the material is real life and the book is packed with a host of great and practical exercises. While it’s all about empathy in business, the book is also a good reminder of how empathy can be useful in our private lives, our intimate relationships and in society in general.
Michael Ventura, entrepreneur and CEO of award-winning strategy and design practice Sub Rosa, shares how empathy - the ability to see the world through someone else's eyes - could be what your business needs to innovate, connect, and grow.
Having built his career working with iconic brands and institutions such as Google and Nike, and also The United Nations and the Obama Administration, Michael Ventura offers entrepreneurs and executives a radical new business book and way forward.
Empathy is not about being nice. It's not about pity or sympathy either. It's about understanding - your consumers, your colleagues, and yourself…
I have always been fascinated by psychology and the science behind why people are the way they are. This is probably why as a journalist, I’ve always been drawn to writing personal profiles of fascinating people, digging deeper into how they overcame various obstacles and setbacks. I have read so many leadership books that focus on success, but really found a gap when it came to those in-depth stories, which is why I wrote The Setback Cycle, a career advice book that focuses specifically on that messy middle part of leadership. My goal was to share the stories of people who overcame setbacks while offering an actionable framework that guides us through our own.
I loved Morra’s fresh take on reframing something previously perceived as a weakness and turning it into a superpower. She writes intelligently about how anxious people are equipped to lead and backs up her argument with rigorous research and quotes from credible experts.
I especially liked how she pointed out that anxious people are great at leading through crises because they spend so much energy preparing for the worst.
A timely and compelling guide to managing the anxiety that comes with succeeding and leading-from entrepreneur, mental health advocate, and top-rated podcaster Morra Aarons-Mele.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illnesses in the world. But in our workplaces, anxiety has been a hidden problem-there in plain sight but ignored. Until now.
The Anxious Achiever is a book with a mission: to normalize anxiety and leadership. As leadership expert and self-proclaimed anxious achiever Morra Aarons-Mele argues, anxiety is built into the very nature of leadership. It can-and should-be harnessed into a force for good.
As an organizational consultant, and a business writer, I’ve always been fascinated by Mark Twain’s comment that he would've written a shorter letter if he had more time. It’s a wonderful reminder that simplicity and clarity require hard work and won’t happen by itself. As part of the consulting team that worked with Jack Welch to transform GE in the 1990s, I saw firsthand that leaders actually have the power to simplify their organizations, and that it can make a huge difference. What they need is a playbook for how to do this, and that was my intention when I wrote Simply Effective. Since then I’ve seen “simplicity” become a driving force for business success.
Lisa Bodell is a fanatic about eliminating mundane and unnecessary tasks from your everyday routines.
In Why Simple Wins, Lisa provides a playbook to help you do just that – from getting control of your calendar to setting priorities to cutting back on meetings and emails. Having worked on some common clients with Lisa, I’ve seen the power of what she helps managers do – and I’ve seen how much synergy there is between our approaches.
It’s the kind of book that you’ll have no regrets about buying.
Imagine what you could do with the time you spend writing emails every day. Complexity is killing companies' ability to innovate and adapt, and simplicity is fast becoming the competitive advantage of our time. Why Simple Wins helps leaders and their teams move beyond the feelings of frustration and futility that come with so much unproductive work in today's corporate world to create a corporate culture where valuable, essential, meaningful work is the norm. By learning how to eliminate redundancies, communicate with clarity, and make simplification a habit, individuals and companies can begin to recognize which activities are time-sucks and…
For decades, I have sought to understand how and why people stay committed to social justice over the long haul. During the 1960s and ‘70s, I was a journalist covering education, anti-poverty efforts, and public affairs mainly in Georgia and Maryland. I had a stint in government as a gubernatorial press secretary and speechwriter in Wisconsin and Minnesota. In the mid 1980s, I joined the Reflective Leadership Center at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, and have taught and written about leadership ever since. I have helped groups in the US, Britain, Poland, Ukraine, New Zealand and Australia develop their own leadership in a variety of fields.
Ira Chaleff has long focused on “followership” and how followers can foster humane leadership and fight back against abusive leaders. I appreciate his dispelling the view of followers as necessarily passive. He clearly presents ways that active followers can short-circuit bad leadership by “speaking truth to power.” I definitely endorse his advice to leaders who want to foster courageous followership in their organizations and beyond. I’m also eager to read Ira’s recent book, To Stop a Tyrant: The Power of Political Followers to Make or Brake a Toxic Leader.
All too often, scholars and commentators emphasize the successes and failures of highly visible leaders and neglect followers, the other part of the leadership equation. Ira’s many years of researching, writing, and speaking about the crucial work of followership have gone a long way toward remedying that neglect.
Many significant failures—from FEMA's response to Hurricane Katrina to the recent economic collapse—could have been prevented or mitigated if those lower in the hierarchy were successful at communicating to leaders the risks they saw in the system. Ira Chaleff's Courageous Follower model has facilitated healthy upward information flow in organizations for over 15 years. The Harvard Business Review called Chaleff a pioneer in the emerging field of followership—this new edition shares his latest thinking on an increasingly vital topic. The updated third edition includes a new chapter, “The Courage to Speak to the Hierarchy.” Much of Chaleff's model is based…
