Learn how to lead from the best
Leadership is not easy. These insightful books for product managers and other leaders outline different approaches on how to manage and develop people.
The Coaching Habit
Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever
by Michael Bungay Stanier
Why this book might be interesting for you…
Coaching is an essential skill for leaders. But for most busy, overworked managers, coaching employees is done badly, or not at all. They’re just too busy, and it’s too hard to change.
But what if managers could coach their people in 10 minutes or less?
227 pages, Bertrams Print on Demand 2006
Leadership is an Art
by Max Depree
Why read?
In what has become a bible for the business world, the successful former CEO of Herman Miller, Inc., explores how executives and managers can learn the leadership skills that build a better, more profitable organization.
176 pages, Crown Business 2004
Death by Meeting
A Leadership Fable — About Solving the Most Painful Problem in Business
by Patrick Lencioni
Why read?
Death by Meeting is nothing short of a blueprint for leaders who want to eliminate waste and frustration among their teams and create environments of engagement and passion.
272 pages, Jossey-Bass 2004
The Manager’s Path
A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change
by Camille Fournier
Why read?
Managing people is difficult wherever you work. But in the tech industry, where management is also a technical discipline, the learning curve can be brutal — especially when there are few tools, texts, and frameworks to help you. In this practical guide, author Camille Fournier (tech lead turned CTO) takes you through each stage in the journey from engineer to technical manager.
244 pages, O’Reilly Media 2017
Lean In
Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
by Sheryl Sandberg
Why read?
The #1 international best seller: In this book, Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook, reignited the conversation around women in the workplace.
240 pages, Knopf 2013
How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge
Leveraging Influence When You Lack Authority
by Clay Scroggins & Andy Stanley
Why read?
One of the greatest myths of leadership is that you must be in charge in order to lead. Because every road of leadership forks at the intersection of authority and influence, learning to cultivate influence without authority is foundational to navigate culture today.
240 pages, Zondervan 2017
The Captain Class
The Hidden Force That Creates the World’s Greatest Teams
by Sam Walker
Why read?
Because this might be one of THE business books of 2018. From the founding editor of The Wall Street Journal’s sports section comes a bold new theory of leadership drawn from the elite captains who inspired their teams to achieve extraordinary success.
368 pages, Random House Trade Paperbacks 2018
The Amazon Way
14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company
by John Rossman
Why read?
If you are interested in innovating and creating a customer-focused culture like Amazon? Read this book!
172 pages, Clyde Hill Publishing 2016
Product Leadership
How Top Product Managers Launch Awesome Products and Build Successful Teams
by Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, Nate Walkingshaw
Why read?
In this book, you get insights from 50 interviews of the world’s top product managers how to launch great products and build successful product teams.
248 pages, O’Reilly Media 2017
Disruptive Leadership
Apple and the Technology of Caring Deeply — Nine Keys to Organizational Excellence and Global Impact
by Rich Kao
Why read?
In this highly engaging book, Rich Kao proposes a disruptive leadership framework in which caring deeply is placed at the centre of the model. Kao, therefore, uses practical examples of disruptive leadership practised at big players around the world.
190 pages, Productivity Press 2017
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
A Leadership Fable
by Patrick Lencioni
Why read?
In The Five Dysfunctions of a Team Patrick Lencioni once again offers a leadership fable that is as enthralling and instructive as his first two best-selling books, The Five Temptations of a CEO and The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive. This time, he turns his keen intellect and storytelling power to the fascinating, complex world of teams.
229 pages, Jossey-Bass 2002
Yes to the Mess
Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz
by Frank J. Barrett
When should I read this book?
… when you want to know what Duke Ellington and Miles Davis can teach us about leadership and when you want to learn how to cope when you are faced with complexity and constant change at work. In this insightful book, Frank J. Barrett gives you a seminar on collaboration and complexity and on how to improvise.
240 pages, Harvard Business Review Press 2012
The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
by Ben Horowitz
Why read?
A lot of people talk about how great it is to start a business, but only Ben Horowitz is brutally honest about how hard it is to run one.
304 pages, HarperBusiness 2014
Leadership BS
Fixing Workplaces and Careers One Truth at a Time
by Jeffrey Pfeffer
Why read?
The author of Power, Stanford business school professor, and a leading management thinker offers a hard-hitting dissection of the leadership industry and ways to make workplaces and careers work better.
272 pages, HarperBusiness 2015
Radical Candor
Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
by Kim Scott
Why read?
“Reading Radical Candor will help you build, lead, and inspire teams to do the best work of their lives.” (Sheryl Sandberg, COO Facebook)
272 pages, St. Martin’s Press 2017
Becoming Steve Jobs
The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader
by Brent Schlender, Rick Tetzeli
Why read?
The #1 New York Times bestselling biography of how Steve Jobs became the most visionary CEO in history.
465 pages, Sceptre 2015
Work Rules!
Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead
by Laszlo Bock
Why this book is a must-read
From the visionary head of Google’s innovative People Operations comes a groundbreaking inquiry into the philosophy of work-and a blueprint for attracting the most spectacular talent to your business and ensuring that they succeed.
416 pages, Twelve 2015
The Outsiders
Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
by William N. Thorndike
What’s this book about?
What makes a successful CEO? Most people call to mind a familiar definition: “a seasoned manager with deep industry expertise.” Others might point to the qualities of today’s so-called celebrity CEOs — charisma, virtuoso communication skills, and a confident management style. But what really matters when you run an organization? What is the hallmark of exceptional CEO performance? Quite simply, it is the returns for the shareholders of that company over the long term.
272 pages, Harvard Business Review Press 2012
Start with Why
How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
by Simon Sinek
Why read?
Simon Sinek shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way — and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.
256 pages, Portfolio 2011
Good Strategy Bad Strategy
The Difference and Why It Matters
by Richard Rumelt
Why read?
This book clears out the mumbo jumbo and muddled thinking underlying too many strategies and provides a clear way to create and implement a powerful action-oriented strategy for the real world
322 pages, Profile Books 2017
Leaders Eat Last
Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t
by Simon Sinek
Why read?
In this book the renowned leadership expert Simon Sinek is continuing his bold movement to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.
368 pages, Portfolio 2017
Redesigning Leadership
Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life
by John Maeda & Rebecca J Bermont
What’s this book about?
Lessons for a new generation of leaders on teamwork, meetings, conversations, free food, social media, apologizing, and other topics.
80 pages, MIT University Press Group Ltd 2011
Emotionally Intelligent Leadership
A Guide for Students
by Marcy Levy Shankman, Scott J. Allen & Paige Haber-Curran
Why read?
…because this is an excellent book for students which explores the connection between emotional intelligence and effective leadership
288 pages, Jossey-Bass 2015
Principles
Life and Work
by Ray Dalio
What makes this book special?
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past forty years to create unique results in both life and business — and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.
592 pages, Simon & Schuster 2017
Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader
by Herminia Ibarra
Why read?
You aspire to lead with greater impact. The problem is you’re busy executing on today’s demands. You know you have to carve out time from your day job to build your leadership skills, but it’s easy to let immediate problems and old mindsets get in the way. Herminia Ibarra — an expert on professional leadership and development and a renowned professor at INSEAD, a leading international business school — show how managers and executives at all levels can step up to leadership by making small but crucial changes in their jobs, their networks, and themselves.
200 pages, Harvard Business Review Press 2015
Zero to One
Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
Why read?
Zero to One presents at once an optimistic view of the future of progress in America and a new way of thinking about innovation.
224 pages, Currency 2014
Permission to Screw Up
How I Learned to Lead by Doing (Almost) Everything Wrong
by Kristen Hadeed & Simon Sinek
Why read?
The inspiring, unlikely, laugh-out-loud story of how one woman learned to lead–and how she ultimately succeeded, not despite her many mistakes, but because of them.
272 pages, Portfolio 2017
Radical Focus
Achieving Your Most Important Goals with Objectives and Key Results
by Christina Wodtke
Why read?
Ready to move your team in the right direction? Read this book together, and learn Wodtke’s powerful system of decision making to create your focus and find success.
166 pages, Cucina Media LLC 2016
