- Introduction
- Book #1: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
- Book #2: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
- Book #3: Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead
- Book #4: Developing the leader within you
- Book #5: Leadership: In Turbulent Times
- Conclusion
Introduction
O Captain! My Captain! That’s a compliment every leader wants to hear at least once in their lives, provided they get the reference. Nevertheless, all good leaders want to set examples and become inspirations for their teams, colleagues, and organizations.
However, to master leadership and become that ideal leader is a difficult task. Like every skill that can be perfected with practice, leadership too can be honed. One way of doing this is by turning to humankind’s eternal teacher/friend- books.
Here is a list of the five best leadership books that everyone can benefit from, regardless of the fact they are C-level executives, managers, or even college students making their way into leadership positions in university elections.
#1: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action – A leadership book that answers why we do what we do
If you often wonder why people are loyal to some leaders but not others or why a successful leader can sustain their success over a period of time, this is the book for you.
In the book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek draws parallels between great leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs and shares that although these leaders have nothing in common, they thought the same way.
And, they all began with a ‘why’ to every project/ every decision they took.
Author: Simon Sinek
Goodreads Rating: 4.08 / 5
Available on Kindle: Yes
Ideal read for: Those who are aspiring leaders in C-level positions in businesses, NPO’s or other industries, and aspiring candidates who wish to lead their student union elections in colleges.
#2: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable – A leadership book every team leader should/must read once in their lifetimes
After writing on CEOs and great executives in his first two bestsellers, Patrick turns his eyes on team leaders in this book. In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, a CEO by the name of Kathryn Peterson struggles to unite a team in circumstances that can lead to the shut down of her company. It is a courageous and insightful leadership book, tackling the five problems that every team, no matter how good, has to tackle.
In addition to elucidating the problems, the writer also outlines proactive steps that can be used to solve these issues to build an effective team.
Author: Patrick Lencioni
Goodreads Rating: 4.07 / 5
Available on Kindle: Yes
Ideal read for: Team leaders in intense work environments like trekking, sports, marketing, product, and R&D.
#3: Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead – A leadership book for anyone hesitant about women in leadership positions
Now a fading cultural phenomenon, but when Sheryl Sandberg’s book was published in 2013, she became a global icon who made appearances on major TV shows, opinion pages, on the cover of Time magazine, and whatnot.
Lean in became a catchphrase for women empowerment, especially for women who were toiling in the corporate sector with unequal pay and unlauded/ unrecognized efforts for years.
It is a book that addresses why the very same women, who are all champions of equality at work, lose confidence when they have to ask for a promotion, raise, or even equal pay.
Author: Sheryl Sandberg
Goodreads Rating: 3.94 / 5
Available on Kindle: Yes
Ideal read for: women/men leaders in top positions, mid-level executives, and everyone hesitant about women leadership.
#4: Developing the leader within you – A leadership book that discusses differences between managers and leaders
Having sold more than a million copies, this highly successful and popular leadership book, written by Dr. Maxwell, uses biblical foundations for defining leadership.
Using those foundations, Maxwell defines principles and practices for leaders from all walks of life: leaders of a church, family, business, or NPO. According to the writer, if these eternal positive principles are followed by any leader, they can achieve a lifetime of sustained success over the course of time.
One inspiring quote from the book goes as follows: “Making sure the work is done by others is the accomplishment of a manager. Inspiring others to do better work is the accomplishment of a leader.”
Author: John C. Maxwell
Goodreads Rating: 4.19 / 5
Available on Kindle: Yes
Ideal read for: Leaders of a church congregation, family business, writers, editors and managers.
#5: Leadership: In Turbulent Times – A book that says ‘distinct moral purpose’ make leaders
This leadership book addresses the most basic questions like ‘are leaders born or made’, ‘how does adversity affect leadership’ and ‘what makes a leader-the time one lives in or that the leader makes the times he/she lives in’.
Drawing on the personal and professional lives of 4 American presidents- Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson(during the civil rights era), Goodwin portrays how resilience and fierce ambition make and define the success of anyone in leadership positions.
Author: Doris K. Goodwin
Goodreads Rating: 4.41/ 5
Available on Kindle: Yes
Ideal read for: politicians, powerful people leaders, artists, and activists.
Conclusion
These 5 leadership books have been listed because they address a variety of problems and questions that anyone( not necessarily a leader) faces at some point in their lives. This is why the diversity of context has been chosen.
If you are in a leadership position wanting to explore some of these problem areas and address them, besides investing in these must-reads, you can also invest in a professional development program.
National University of Singapore’s Future Leaders Programme offered in collaboration with Great Learning is one such effective leadership program that all leaders should participate in to enhance their skill set.
Provided by Asia’s No. 1 Business school under a university that is itself ranked 11 by QS World University Rankings, this is a course every aspiring successful leader should take.
