Our 10 best Leadership Books
We were looking through our library of business books recently and were reminded of some of the most important ones that had influenced not only our thought leadership, but also made a huge impression on our clients approach to Leadership.
Here is our Top 10 Leadership Books that we think will help you and your business (and a few other ‘goodies’ listed below that… )
1. Action Centred Leadership – John Adair – The first significant model I came across for Leaders of people to use and implement c1979. Action Centred Leadership is sometimes referred to as The 3 Circles Model. Adair’s Action Centred Leadership model comprises of three elements which are represented as three overlapping circles.
2. Principle Centred Leadership – Stephen R. Covey – A deep dive into the values and principles of great modern day leadership. With an alternative model to Maslow’s Hierarchy ‘The 4 L’s’. How do we unleash the creativity, talent and energy of the vast majority of the work force, whose jobs neither require nor reward such resources?
3. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People – Stephen R. Covey (30 year anniversary!) – Simply the best personal effectiveness/relationship management excellence book I know. Published in 1990, even several years after, it’s still the bible of leadership and modern management.
4. The Leadership Challenge – Kouzner and Posner 5 Characteristics and actions of great leaders in modern times – how to be effective as a leader by what you do and how often you do it. A holistic process and programme of learning for leaders
5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni – A powerful framework and source for teams to assess the functionality. Team Coaches must-read. MPI and UpAGear Coaches use this tool for helping teams achieve breakthroughs and high performance
6. The One Minute Manager – Ken Blanchard – The One Minute Manager gives managers three simple tools, which each take 60 seconds or less, but can tremendously improve how they do their job: getting people to stay motivated, happy and deliver great work.
7. The Total Team – Ralph Peters – One of the best Team Coaches of the last 40 years and the founder of UpAGear Team Programme. Each chapter of Ralphs book sets out the roadmap for Team Coaches and Team Leaders to use in developing their teams
8. Good To Great – Jim Collins 2001 – The book we come across most in C Suite offices. Hedgehog model and how to create a culture of trust and empowerment through selecting the right people to do great and also creative work ‘you don’t need hierarchy’
9. In Search of Excellence – Tom Peters & Robert H Waterman – The best ideas and methodology from America’s top companies 2001’
Here are the 3 most interesting lessons about management from this book:
Sticking with their customers is a consistent habit of top companies.
The best businesses genuinely care about their employees.
Innovation and other values are the fuel for successful companies.
10. Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman – Groundbreaking book on how we lead and behave when running companies or teams of people. Demonstrates how important engaging with the entire company and not just ‘your type’ of people. Greatness in CEO’s comes from their ability to make all of your people feel important and energise them behind the vision
Below are other fantastic books we highly recommend that land just outside our top 10 leadership books list:
- Analysing Performance Problems
- Even Eagles Need a Push
- Who Moved my Cheese!
- Whale Done – Blanchard
- Raving Fans – Blanchard
- Polar Bears (MW)
- Chimp Paradox – Dr Stephen Peters
- Dare to Lead – Brene Brown
- Conflict – Thomas Kilman
- Start With Why – Simon Sinek
- Speed of Trust – Covey
- Minute Manager – Ken Blanchard
Top 10 Leadership Books, written by Jerry Brown
