100 books like Leadership and Self-Deception

By Arbinger Institute,

Here are 100 books that Leadership and Self-Deception fans have personally recommended if you like Leadership and Self-Deception. Shepherd is a community of 12,000+ authors and super readers sharing their favorite books with the world.

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Book cover of Man’s Search for Meaning

Kate Truitt Author Of Keep Breathing: A Psychologist's Intimate Journey Through Loss, Trauma, and Rediscovering Life

From my list on inspirational memoirs for finding courage, healing, and hope in the darkness.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am passionate about exploring trauma, resilience, and healing because they are deeply intertwined with my personal and professional life. As a clinical psychologist and neuroscientist, I have dedicated my career to understanding and alleviating trauma's impact on the mind. My journey through profound trauma and loss has given me a unique perspective on finding strength and meaning in the darkest moments. The books I recommend resonate with my belief in the resilience of the human spirit and the brain's incredible capacity to heal. These personal stories of courage and recovery inspire and empower others to find hope and growth even in their most challenging times.

Kate's book list on inspirational memoirs for finding courage, healing, and hope in the darkness

Kate Truitt Why did Kate love this book?

This book is an enduring classic that delves into the depths of human suffering and the remarkable capacity for finding meaning amidst despair. Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, draws upon his harrowing experiences in Nazi concentration camps to explore the psychological and spiritual resilience of the human spirit.

His profound insights into the pursuit of purpose, even in the darkest of times, offer timeless wisdom for anyone facing adversity. Frankl's logotherapy, the therapeutic approach he developed, emphasizes the importance of finding meaning as a cornerstone of mental health and well-being.

I first encountered Frankl’s book as a young teenager. The title drew me in because I was searching for meaning amidst my own pain and dark thoughts. This early encounter provided the reassurance I needed that I was not alone, profoundly influencing my formative years.

This memoir is not only a gripping narrative of survival but also a powerful philosophical treatise…

By Viktor Frankl,

Why should I read it?

45 authors picked Man’s Search for Meaning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.


Book cover of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment

Jackie Jarvis Author Of Go Slow to Grow: How to Stop Stressing and Start Living

From my list on help you reduce stress.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a busy businesswoman and coach, I felt like I had always been pushing for what I thought represented success, racing from task to task, project to project almost without stopping to take a breath. Eventually that caught up with me and I found myself feeling over-stressed and unfulfilled. This was the catalyst that ignited a need to make some changes in my own life. I read these books to both learn and heal myself. They are all now books I refer to–to keep focused on a more mindful way of being and maintain my own self -awareness. 

Jackie's book list on help you reduce stress

Jackie Jarvis Why did Jackie love this book?

This is one of my favorite books of all time. I read it at least once a year to remind myself to be more present. I have found that when I allow my thoughts to silence and focus on the now, I feel a strong sense of freedom—freedom from self-created stress. 

Reading this book has helped me to let go of many unhelpful thoughts and realize that I am so much more than the thoughts swirling around in my head. This is a simple yet profound book for which I am truly grateful. 

By Eckhart Tolle,

Why should I read it?

26 authors picked The Power of Now as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

**CHOSEN BY OPRAH AS ONE OF HER 'BOOKS THAT HELP ME THROUGH'**

The international bestselling spiritual book, now with a new look for its 20th anniversary. Eckhart Tolle demonstrates how to live a healthier, happier, mindful life by living in the present moment.

************

'I keep Eckhart's book at my bedside. I think it's essential spiritual teaching. It's one of the most valuable books I've ever read.' Oprah Winfrey

To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart…


Book cover of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

Mark A. Biggs Author Of Love Letters From Dresden

From my list on stories that help shape who we are.

Why am I passionate about this?

Storytelling wields the power to transcend time and place, connecting us through shared experiences and emotions. It shapes our understanding of the world and ignites the imagination, making it an essential part of the human journey. As a psychologist, I understand how the stories we tell about ourselves are crucial in defining who we are and that books and good people can help shape our character. The books I've chosen celebrate the human spirit and our ability to face adversity, adapt, and ultimately choose our destiny. As Stephen Covey wisely stated, “Our ultimate freedom is the right and power to decide how anybody or anything outside ourselves will affect us.”

Mark's book list on stories that help shape who we are

Mark A. Biggs Why did Mark love this book?

I've added this one by Stephen Covey to my Favorites because its insights impacted me. Though some of its terms may show their age, the timeless wisdom within resonates powerfully.

Covey's message about personal responsibility and the power of choice seems even more relevant today amidst a landscape of growing self-entitlement. His words ring true: "We are free to choose our actions, but we are not free to choose the consequences." This stark reminder amplifies the book's significance and enduring relevance. I

found it an essential read for my personal growth and character.

By Stephen R. Covey,

Why should I read it?

15 authors picked The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

New York Times bestseller - over 25 million copies sold
The No. 1 Most Influential Business Book of the Twentieth Century

"[Thirty] years after it first appeared, the wisdom of The 7 Habits is more relevant than ever. On an individual level people are burning out, and on a collective level we are burning up the planet. So Dr. Covey's emphasis on self-renewal and his understanding that leadership and creativity require us to tap into our own physical, mental, and spiritual resources are exactly what we need now." Arianna Huffington

One of the most inspiring and impactful books ever written,…


Book cover of The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results

Anna Dearmon Kornick Author Of Time Management Essentials: The Tools You Need to Maximize Your Attention, Energy, and Productivity

From my list on how to live your best life.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’m a time management coach, author, keynote speaker, host of the top 1% ranked time management podcast It’s About Time, and founder of the It’s About Time Academy (a community of people who want to make time for what matters most). I help busy professionals and business owners struggling with overwhelm manage their time with my signature HEART Method. I’ve been devouring time management books for over a decade now—so I hope you enjoy these time management reads as much as I did!

Anna's book list on how to live your best life

Anna Dearmon Kornick Why did Anna love this book?

This book was amazing for helping me when I felt stuck and wanted to make a change in my life. This book is all about the power of focus (and not just about avoiding distractions when you’re working). It gave me a focus for my life, and it gave me the tools, examples, and inspiration to break that big-picture focus into smaller pieces… so everything suddenly felt doable.

I loved using the book’s Focusing Question to identify the ONE thing that would make everything in my life easier.

By Gary Keller, Jay Papasan,

Why should I read it?

9 authors picked The ONE Thing as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what's the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions-and lots of stress. AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends. NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH-LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you'll learn…


Book cover of Scaling Leadership: Building Organizational Capability and Capacity to Create Outcomes That Matter Most

Lyssa Adkins Author Of Lead Together: The Bold, Brave, Intentional Path to Scaling Your Business

From my list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business.

Why am I passionate about this?

For over a decade I helped people develop their skills and expand their leaderful-ness in Agile Coaching and I kept hearing the same blocker: “This is great and all, but my leaders don’t get it. They are the impediment.” After working with many thousands of Agilists I decided to go into the “belly of the beast” and personally coach leadership teams. What I found were not beasts or even garden variety egomaniacs. Instead, I found well-meaning people who are genuinely confounded by the complexity of today’s business landscape and who struggle with performance-killing team dynamics. Good news: the human technology to “solve” these issues is widely available. We know how.

Lyssa's book list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business

Lyssa Adkins Why did Lyssa love this book?

This book posits that the most important function of an organizational leader is to create other leaders throughout the organization. That’s right…not problem-solving, not clever strategy, not vision but leadership development. That’s because those other aspects are “table stakes” for the game of leadership in today’s complex business world. What I like about this book is that it is based on a huge pool of data about what makes leaders effective in the 21st-century and many of the insights are drawn from leaders themselves….from the feedback they give when they evaluate other leaders using the Leadership Circle Profile 360° assessment. It’s a nice marriage of relatable info “from the horse’s mouth” and decades of leadership theory borne out by insights from the assessment of hundreds of thousands of leaders. If you want to very specifically know what it takes to be a 21st-century leader, this book is a…

By Robert J. Anderson, William A. Adams,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Scaling Leadership as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Transform Your Organization by Scaling Leadership

How do senior leaders, in their own words, describe the most effective leaders-the ones that get results, grow the business, enhance the culture and leave in their wake a trail of other really effective leaders? Conversely, how do senior leaders describe the kind of leader that undercuts the organization's capacity and capability to create its future? This book, based on groundbreaking research, shows how senior leaders describe and develop leadership that works, that does not, that scales, and that limits scale.

Is your leadership built for scale as you advance in today's volatile, uncertain,…


Book cover of Evolvagility: Growing an Agile Leadership Culture from the Inside Out

Lyssa Adkins Author Of Lead Together: The Bold, Brave, Intentional Path to Scaling Your Business

From my list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business.

Why am I passionate about this?

For over a decade I helped people develop their skills and expand their leaderful-ness in Agile Coaching and I kept hearing the same blocker: “This is great and all, but my leaders don’t get it. They are the impediment.” After working with many thousands of Agilists I decided to go into the “belly of the beast” and personally coach leadership teams. What I found were not beasts or even garden variety egomaniacs. Instead, I found well-meaning people who are genuinely confounded by the complexity of today’s business landscape and who struggle with performance-killing team dynamics. Good news: the human technology to “solve” these issues is widely available. We know how.

Lyssa's book list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business

Lyssa Adkins Why did Lyssa love this book?

This book gives the philosophical underpinning for why creating a leadership development culture in all parts of your organization is essential for working in our VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, ambiguous) business landscape. And, it shows you how to do it with specific practices and new-mindset concepts. It is geared toward organizations with Agile ways of working in the environment, but is also useful if Agile is not present. I especially enjoy the way several theories of adult development are interwoven in this book which makes using them to guide leadership development strategies (your own and others) simpler and more immediately applicable.

By Michael Hamman,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Evolvagility as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Organizations around the globe are struggling to adapt to an increasingly complex and turbulent social, economic, technological, and business environment—whether they be banks, product development companies, or city councils. Many are responding by embracing agility as a way of working—some with a primary orientation around operational agility (Agile software development methods such as Scrum and SAFe), others focusing on customer development agility (e.g., Lean Startup), while others are embracing a broader business agility. In almost all of these cases, the prevailing notion of agility is concerned primarily with processes and practices, with systems and structures—a form of outer agility. But,…


Book cover of Systems Inspired Leadership: How to Tap Collective Wisdom to Navigate Change, Enhance Agility, and Foster Collaboration

Lyssa Adkins Author Of Lead Together: The Bold, Brave, Intentional Path to Scaling Your Business

From my list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business.

Why am I passionate about this?

For over a decade I helped people develop their skills and expand their leaderful-ness in Agile Coaching and I kept hearing the same blocker: “This is great and all, but my leaders don’t get it. They are the impediment.” After working with many thousands of Agilists I decided to go into the “belly of the beast” and personally coach leadership teams. What I found were not beasts or even garden variety egomaniacs. Instead, I found well-meaning people who are genuinely confounded by the complexity of today’s business landscape and who struggle with performance-killing team dynamics. Good news: the human technology to “solve” these issues is widely available. We know how.

Lyssa's book list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business

Lyssa Adkins Why did Lyssa love this book?

This one is hot off the presses in 2021. It gathers the powerful principles and processes from Organization and Relationship Systems Coaching and packages them for leaders. It “ups the ante” by showing how a systems-inspired orientation is critical for leaders to take, and why, and how to do it. I especially like that a big portion of the book is meant to be your just-in-time resource when you need to bring forth a specific leadership competency so that you can increase the relationship systems intelligence of the system and lead to much better outcomes. You can just flip to that specific competency and get the juice you need.

By Frank Uit de Weerd, Marita Fridjhon,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Systems Inspired Leadership as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Today’s 21st Century leaders face tremendous pressure in an increasingly complex and fast-changing world, where traditional leadership models have become obsolete. To transform and transcend these challenges a new type of leadership is essential.

THE SOLUTION?

Systems Inspired Leadership (SIL): a powerful alternative for innovative leaders. Instead of an outmoded and ineffective top-down, leader-knows-all style that results in stress, pressure, and anxiety, SIL offers a fresh, proven approach for achieving optimal results for your organization.

This approach helps to overcome barriers and open doors to growth and innovation by tapping the collective wisdom of the organization. Instead of trying to…


Book cover of Perseverance

Lyssa Adkins Author Of Lead Together: The Bold, Brave, Intentional Path to Scaling Your Business

From my list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business.

Why am I passionate about this?

For over a decade I helped people develop their skills and expand their leaderful-ness in Agile Coaching and I kept hearing the same blocker: “This is great and all, but my leaders don’t get it. They are the impediment.” After working with many thousands of Agilists I decided to go into the “belly of the beast” and personally coach leadership teams. What I found were not beasts or even garden variety egomaniacs. Instead, I found well-meaning people who are genuinely confounded by the complexity of today’s business landscape and who struggle with performance-killing team dynamics. Good news: the human technology to “solve” these issues is widely available. We know how.

Lyssa's book list on for leaders scaling themselves for their business

Lyssa Adkins Why did Lyssa love this book?

Amazon tells me I have bought this book 8 times. Honestly, I’m surprised it’s that few. I tend to give Perseverance to colleagues and leaders I am coaching. We all need a little help “keepin' on keepin’ on” when we are doing the heavy lifting of inner development and this little book does that. Perseverance manages to be simple and profound, short and deep, and oh, so helpful for functioning in the midst of chaos. You can open it to any “random” page and get the message you need in the moment, or to prepare your mind and heart for the day ahead. Given the permanent whitewater we leaders find ourselves in, the need for this kind of inner resourcefulness is essential, and the need to replenish it constantly.

By Margaret J. Wheatley,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Perseverance as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

In this inspiring and beautifully illustrated book, bestselling author Margaret Wheatley offers guidance to people everywhere for how to persevere through challenges in their personal lives, with their families, at their workplaces, in their communities, and in their struggles to make a better world. She provides hope, wisdom, and perspective for learning the discipline of perseverance.

Wheatley does not offer the usual feel-good, rah-rah messages. Instead, she focuses on the situations, feelings, and challenges that can, over time, cause us to lose heart or lose our way. Perseverance is a day-by-day decision not to give up. We have to notice…


Book cover of The Celestine Prophecy

Andrew P M Yiallouros Author Of The Dragon and The Princess

From my list on spiritual allegory.

Why am I passionate about this?

I have been thinking about spiritual things since I was around 9 years old, and as soon as I was old enough, I was off learning experientially in the world. This has allowed for deep learning and understanding of a wide range of subjects, particularly spirituality and ultimate reality. I teach philosophy, religious studies, and politics in my day job, and so, now on the cusp of 46 years, I can truly say I love spiritual and philosophical thought. I also think it’s hard to write books about these topics and I love how allegory and fable can be so accessible.

Andrew's book list on spiritual allegory

Andrew P M Yiallouros Why did Andrew love this book?

I was blown away when I read this book! I loved the adventure and twists and turns and how it made me think. I couldn’t believe what I was reading, and I think I’ve spent all my time since then trying to figure out what it was talking about. 

This book is the reason I have been inspired into my own spiritual journey and adventure, and I have also done a lot of traveling, all because of this book. I also know lots of other people who quote this book as the book that started it all.

By James Redfield,

Why should I read it?

6 authors picked The Celestine Prophecy as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This extremely readable and addictive parable has become a breakout word-of-mouth hit for its uncanny ability to renew your understanding of life, connections and perspective with fresh vigour. From the multimillion-bestselling author, James Redfield, and perfect for fans of Paulo Coelho and Eckhart Tolle.

'The Celestine Prophecy has already reached cult status... It homes in on the deepest, most urgent search of our times - the search for meaning... This is a book like no other.' - THE TELEGRAPH

'If you've ever wondered what the formula is for an "inspirational" bestseller, with promising potential for cult status, look no further'…


Book cover of The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts

Leslie Becker-Phelps Author Of The Insecure in Love Workbook: Step-by-Step Guidance to Help You Overcome Anxious Attachment and Feel More Secure with Yourself and Your Partner

From my list on helpful books for developing securely attached relationships.

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve had a life-long desire to help others, so it’s no surprise that I chose to become a psychologist. In my search for underlying causes and potential healing agents for emotional suffering, I have learned (and deeply feel) the importance of self-awareness, connection, and compassion for a sense of well-being. I’ve also found that attachment theory provides a great framework for pulling all of this together. Driven by my commitment to help people, I use my writing, YouTube channel, speaking, and therapy to share what I’ve learned. Just as my list of books has helped me on my path, I hope it helps you on yours!

Leslie's book list on helpful books for developing securely attached relationships

Leslie Becker-Phelps Why did Leslie love this book?

I really appreciate the guidance this book offers for how to think about the ways people try to meet their need for love in relationships. It made me reflect not just on my own patterns for expressing and receiving love, but it offered a way for me to better understand others in my life.

Though it was written with romantic couples in mind, I have found that it can help with other relationships, too. When I have shared this book with patients, they have frequently found that it was an effective tool for providing insight and for helping to improve their love relationship. 

By Gary Chapman,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The 5 Love Languages as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Over 20 million copies sold!

A perennial New York Times bestseller for over a decade!

Falling in love is easy. Staying in love—that’s the challenge. How can you keep your relationship fresh and growing amid the demands, conflicts, and just plain boredom of everyday life?

In the #1 New York Times international bestseller The 5 Love Languages, you’ll discover the secret that has transformed millions of relationships worldwide. Whether your relationship is flourishing or failing, Dr. Gary Chapman’s proven approach to showing and receiving love will help you experience deeper and richer levels of intimacy with your partner—starting today.

The…


Book cover of Man’s Search for Meaning
Book cover of The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
Book cover of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

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