Roger D'Aprix: Communicating for Change
This little volume by the redoubtable Roger D'Aprix laid the foundation for approaching organizational communication as a process. It is mandatory reading for anyone in an advisory capacity on communication to senior executives.
John P. Kotter: Corporate Culture and Performance
It wasn't all that long ago that corporate culture was pooh-poohed as academic and irrelevant to a company's real work. We now know just how important it is and, thanks to this book, just how difficult it is to manage.
James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner: Credibility: How Leaders Gain and Lose It, Why People Demand It
Though somewhat dated by now, my original copy of this book is heavily underscored and still instructive. It emphasizes the importance of a leader's credibility as perceived and judged by potential followers.
Linda Ellinor and Glenna Gerard: Dialogue: Rediscover the Transforming Power of Conversation
This provocative volume features a deep dialogue with the likes of Peter Senge and Meg Wheatley. The thesis distinguishes between rich dialogue and chaotic discussion, and it calls for more humanity, creativity, and collaboration in the workplace.
George Lakoff: Don't Think of an Elephant: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate--The Essential Guide for Progressives
Set aside the partisan politics of this little book. Read it for the insights it offers on framing, a powerful forensic device for recasting discussions, dialogues, and debates.
Daniel Goleman: Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
This book is a classic in its own time. Absolutely must reading for every leader and aspiring leader. (****)
Jim Collins: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't
Some books are iconic in their genre, and this is one of them. I have always had some reservations as to the research framework behind this book, but its lessons make so much common sense, I set aside any doubts I may have.
John Baldoni: Great Communication Secrets of Great Leaders
I have issues with Baldoni's narrow construction of communication; he thinks primarily in terms of words and only secondarily in terms of the behaviors that confirm or undermine the words. Moreover, he seems to regard as leaders only those individuals at the very summit of an organization. Aside from that, however, Baldoni has few peers as an authority on how highly visible leaders convey their vision of the future.
Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey: How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work: Seven Languages for Transformation
I really like the architecture of this book. It sets forth seven fundamental shifts in perspective and language, which the authors believe will make our companies better places to work and all of us better colleagues to work alongside.
Dale Carnegie: How to Win Friends & Influence People
Almost 75 years old, this book is the epitome of a modern classic. I have read it three times and I'll probably read it again some day. Everyone should read it and re-read it. Its advice is timeless.
David McCullough: John Adams
History buffs will tear through this 700-page book in a week. McCullough has crafted a masterpiece, a compulsively readable historical portrait of a little-understood founding father. Read it before you watch the HBO series.
Warren Bennis and Burt Nanus: Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge
I have some qualms with the facile notion that managers do things right while leaders do the right thing. Nevertheless, Bennis and Nanus offer up a feast of provocative thinking. The structure they offer for leadership is partly responsible for our own at Arceil Leadership.
James M. Burns: Leadership
This is another classic of the genre. To understand leadership, you simply must read this book, which earned its author both a Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award.
Max Depree: Leadership Jazz
It's hard to go wrong with anything that Max DePree has written. My well-worn copy had print the size of a roadside billboard, which made it easy to read even on a bumpy airplane flight. "Leadership Is an Art" is another terrific read by DePree.
John P. Kotter: Leading Change
Harvard professor John Kotter is that rare academic who understands how communication works--and so often fails to work--in the real world of business. This is an important read.
Red Auerbach: Let Me Tell You a Story: A Lifetime in the Game
Red Auerbach, legendary coach of the Boston Celtics during their glory years, appreciates the zenlike importance of a team as more than the sum of the individual players. Given a choice between starting a team of the five best players or a team with five players who played their best basketball together, he would take the latter.
Donald T. Phillips: Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times
This is a marvelous little book. You may have to look pretty hard for it as it may be out of print, but your search will be well-rewarded.
Tim Sanders: Love Is the Killer App: How to Win Business and Influence Friends
Tim Sanders, a former Yahoo! executive, offers a lively and compelling antidote to business as cutthroat, take-no-prisoners competition. He calls for more compassion, more cooperation, and more collaboration in the workplace, and he presents a compelling business and moral case for it.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath: Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
This breezy read is jam-packed with astute observations and clever suggestions for better communication.
Viktor E. Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning
What can you say about a book that has sold 12 million copies? Anyone who is serious about leading a life of soulful meaning must read this book. 'Nuff said.
Albert Mehrabian: Nonverbal Communication
Both the nature and the impact of nonverbal communication are frequently misunderstood. This book has the original science. Before you parrot the counterfeit currency that 55 percent of all interpersonal communication is a function of body language and facial expression, another 38 percent a function of tone of voice, and only 7 percent from words, read this book.
John W. Gardner: On Leadership
I first read this book in graduate school almost 20 years ago, and I continue returning to it for timeless wisdom on leadership.
Edgar H. Schein: Organizational Culture and Leadership
Edgar Schein's name is synonymous with the work he explores in this seminal book. This book is mandatory reading.
Aristotle: Rhetoric
Aristotle articulated three basic modes of rhetoric: logos, or logic and reason; pathos, or emotion and feeling; and ethos, or character and deed.
Stephen R. Covey: Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic
One of the all-time best-selling books, 7 Habits is a breezy, inspiring, and instructive read. If ypou have never read it, you should read it now. If you read it years ago, you should read it again. Oh, and if you're a fustrated wanna-be author, you should take note that more than 50 publishers rejected Covey's book proposal.
Deborah Tannen: Talking from 9 to 5: How Women's and Men's Conversational Styles Affect Who Gets Heard, Who Gets Credit, and What Gets Done at Work
Chapter 3, on indirect communication, is especially helpful for the clarity it brings to a common workplace dynamic.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln
Perhaps the United States is too riven by partisan politics to allow a 21st Century president to assemble and consult a team of rivals as Lincoln did. But the essential lesson of vibrant collaboration and broad constituencies is as valuable today as ever, and it is as applicable in business as in government and politics.
John C. Maxwell: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership Workbook: Revised & Updated
The author is an unabashedly Christian advocate of servant leadership, the doctrime that leaders serve their followers, not vice versa. More business leaders should embrace this core concept.
Charles Handy: The Age of Paradox
One of the great management thinkers of the 20th century, Charles Handy offers a tour guide through the complexities of paradox. I took delight in the entire book, but I have especially used the inside-out doughnut (explained in Chapter 4) to think through and collaborate on some fundamental paradoxes in leadership and management.
Deborah Tannen: The Argument Culture: Moving from Debate to Dialogue
This is a terrific start. I would take it another step further, from dialogue to collaboration.
Terry J. Fadem: The Art of Asking: Ask Better Questions, Get Better Answers
Fadem offers dozens of insights and strategems for asking more penetrating questions. I have long believed that leaders can lead more effectively through good questions, and Fadem provides the technical ballast to do just that.
Ronald E. Riggio, Ira Chaleff, and Jean Lippman-Blumen, eds.: The Art of Followership: How Great Followers Create Great Leaders and Organizations
Followership is an underappreciated and understudied counterpoint to leadership. It needs more attention, and it gets it here. This volume consists of 23 carefully selected essays on followers and followership.
Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton: The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action
With this book Kaplan and Norton introduced the twin arguments that P&L is scarcely the only financial metric of importance, and that financial metrics are scarcely the only metrics of importance, for business. They open the book with a compelling metaphor you cannot forget: An airplane pilot flying with only a single instrument gauge--for altitude, perhaps--without instruments for direction or speed or air pressure. Similarly, by focusing only on profit, companies undervalue the importance of other metrics such as customer satisfaction, inventory, quality, and the costs of packaging, shipping, training, and so much more.
Peter F. Drucker: The Daily Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done
I keep this book on my nightstand. (No cracks about my personal life, please.) Drucker is perhaps the most incisive thinker in the history of the modern corporation. This book is a compilation of a year's worth of sublime insights. For each, you will spend a great deal of productive time in reflection.
William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White: The Elements of Style, Third Edition
Yes, the co-author (E.B. White) also wrote "Charlotte's Web." This book belongs at the fingertips of anyone who writes anything, even a Twitter tweep. Period. End of discussion. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see the end of "I" in prepositional phrases. (I have used my copy since college. It cost me $7.95 then. Expect to pay more now.)
James M. Kouzes and Barry Posner: The Leadership Challenge: How to Keep Getting Extraordinary Things Done in Organizations
This is a well-structured book that lays out a multi-stage process for leadership that millions of readers have found useful. Moreover, it emphasizes the emotional component of leadership. I heartily recommend it.
Ken Follett: The Pillars of the Earth
One of the few novels I can recommend for its insights on leadership, "The Pillars of the Earth" is a rip-roaring historical thriller set in medieval England. Be forewarned: This book is long, 973 pages to be precise. But it stakes a claim on your mind and doesn't let go. Ken Follett knows how to transport a reader to a different time and place, and he does it magnificently here. Trust me, once you begin Pillars, you won't put it down.
Stephen Denning: The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (J-B US non-Franchise Leadership)
I found this book compulsively readable and very enlightening. For any senior manager who doubts the importance of clear, compelling, credible communication, begin here.
Joshua Ferris: Then We Came to the End: A Novel
Anyone who has ever populated an office of cubicles and worked under the threat of imminent layoff will resonate to this novel. I'd love to see it as a movie. (Note: The paperback has different cover art.)
Seth Godin: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
Seth Godin demolishes the myth that leadership is only for the C-suite. It's for anyone who is tired of being a drone and who has a compelling idea for the future. This little book reads like a blog, probably because Godin is one of the most successful bloggers out there. Besides, he has a great haircut.
David Maraniss: When Pride Still Mattered: A Life Of Vince Lombardi
I am a lifelong Green Bay Packers fan, having grown up just 23 miles from Lambeau Field. In my youth Vince Lombardi was an icon. This book explains his compelling approach to leadership. You need not enjoy American football to appreciate it, but if you do, you will love it.
Frank Luntz: Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear
Dr. Luntz's focus is on rhetoric in American political debate, but many of his principles and even some of his examples are applicable to business here and abroad. He is an engaging writer, too.
Noah J. Goldstein: Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive
This book is as readable as one of Malcolm Gladwell's hotcakes, and I hope it sells as fast as they do. You can read it in a couple of nights, it is so well-written, and yet it is a summary of academic research. A real gem.
Excellent learning...Thanks for sharing it...I'll be following you
Posted by: Rashmi Athlekar | Wednesday, 04 November 2009 at 00:34
Dear Thomas, that was very insightful. So many of us will say that we know that, but how often have we worked for or with so called leaders who essentially said "do as I say, no as I do." I know that I too have not always let my decisions reflect my values, instead bowing to pressures of one sort or another. Thanks for the kick in the pants!
Posted by: Steve Johnson | Wednesday, 04 November 2009 at 08:55