Fans pick 100 books like Leading Change

By John P. Kotter,

Here are 100 books that Leading Change fans have personally recommended if you like Leading Change. 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 Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships

Kate Vitasek Author Of Vested: How P&G, McDonald's, and Microsoft are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships

From my list on creating successful business deals.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an international authority for my award-winning research on the Vested® business model for highly collaborative relationships. I began my research in 2003 researching what makes a difference in successful strategic business deals. My day job is being the lead faculty and researcher for the University of Tennessee’s Certified Deal Architect program; my passion is helping organizations and individuals learn the art, science, and practice of crafting highly collaborative win-win strategic business relationships. My work has led to seven books and three Harvard Business Review articles. I’ve also shared my advice on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR, and on Fox Business News.

Kate's book list on creating successful business deals

Kate Vitasek Why did Kate love this book?

I recommend this book because Tamm and Luyet provide useful, common-sense ideas that will help you put collaboration into practice. Their approach includes themes such as truthfulness, intent to collaborate, self-awareness and awareness of others, accountability, and negotiation. Collaboration begins with people and their attitudes individually and within the organization. I often say, “Change the people or change the people,” and this book reflects that approach to instilling true organizational collaboration.

By James Tamm, Ronald Luyet,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

The second edition of the essential guide, updated with new research and observations to help twenty-first century organizations create models for effective collaboration.

Collaborative skills have never been more important to a company's success and these skills are essential for every worker today. Radical Collaboration is a how-to-manual for creating trusting, cooperative environments, and transforming groups into motivated and empowered teams. James W. Tamm and Ronald J. Luyet provide tools that will help you increase your ability to work successfully with others, learn to be more aware of colleagues, and better problem-solve and negotiate.

Radical Collaboration is an eye-opener for…


Book cover of The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything

Marianne Broadbent Author Of The Agile Executive: Embracing Career Risks and Rewards

From my list on aspiring women leaders.

Why am I passionate about this?

My passion for leadership and aspiring women leaders comes from my own leadership experiences and working with women and men executives and aspiring executives, every day. I had to make some difficult work choices in my 20s and 30s (with four young children) and was wonderfully supported by some wise women. Many of my choices were different from my peers and we continue to have to make more difficult choices than our male colleagues. We need to help each other, every day. I lead a blended life co-leading an executive search and leadership advisory firm, while also being a mother, grandmother, wife, mentor, friend, and lover of good music, theatre, food, wine, and curious people. 

Marianne's book list on aspiring women leaders

Marianne Broadbent Why did Marianne love this book?

Covey’s book unlocks the nature of Trust and its critical value in life and leadership.

He explains that trust is about confidence in a person or relationship. To be trusted we need to be credible and he illuminates the four cores of credibility in two categories – our confidence in someone’s Character and our confidence in their Competence. The two core attributes of Character are Integrity and Intent. The two core attributes of Competence are Results and Credibility.

This clear explanation, and some of Covey’s diagnostics, have been very helpful to me in really understanding the notion of Trust and then working with executive to enable them to build greater trust and vulnerability with each other. Trust is the bedrock of great teams and great relationships. 

By Stephen M. R. Covey, Rebecca R. Merrill,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

From Stephen R. Covey's eldest son come a revolutionary book, now in handy B-format, that will guide business leaders, public figures and their organizations towards unprecedented productivity and satisfaction. Trust, says Stephen M. R. Covey, is the very basis of the 21st century's global economy, but its power is generally overlooked and misunderstood. Covey shows you how to inspire immediate trust in everyone you encounter - colleagues, constituents, the marketplace - allowing you to forego the time-killing and energy-draining check and balance bureaucracies that are so often relied upon in lieu of actual trust.


Book cover of Building Secure and Reliable Systems: Best Practices for Designing, Implementing, and Maintaining Systems

Adam Shostack Author Of Threat Modeling: Designing for Security

From my list on application security for builders.

Why am I passionate about this?

Being able to understand and change reality through our knowledge and skill is literal magic. We’re building systems with so many exciting and unexpected properties that can be exploited and repurposed for both good and evil. I want to keep some of that magic and help people engineer – build great systems that make people’s lives better. I’ve been securing (and breaking) systems, from operating rooms to spaceships, from banks to self-driving cars for over 25 years. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if security is not infused from the start, we’re forced to rely on what ought to be our last lines of defense. This list helps you infuse security into your systems.

Adam's book list on application security for builders

Adam Shostack Why did Adam love this book?

This book captures lessons from many authors at Google, some of whom I’ve worked with over the years. The chapters on availability (7, 8, 9) were a revelation to me. I had no idea how Google approaches the topic of resilience and recovery in their systems, and I now think of the whole topic very differently. The biggest takeaway is how to think about the design of systems.

By Heather Adkins, Betsy Beyer, Paul Blankinship , Ana Oprea , Adam Stubblefield

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Can a system be considered truly reliable if it isn't fundamentally secure? Or can it be considered secure if it's unreliable? Security is crucial to the design and operation of scalable systems in production, as it plays an important part in product quality, performance, and availability. In this book, experts from Google share best practices to help your organization design scalable and reliable systems that are fundamentally secure.

Two previous O'Reilly books from Google-Site Reliability Engineering and The Site Reliability Workbook-demonstrated how and why a commitment to the entire service lifecycle enables organizations to successfully build, deploy, monitor, and maintain…


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Book cover of The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever

The Coaching Habit By Michael Bungay Stanier,

The coaching book that's for all of us, not just coaches.

It's the best-selling book on coaching this century, with 15k+ online reviews. Brené Brown calls it "a classic". Dan Pink said it was "essential".

It is practical, funny, and short, and "unweirds" coaching. Whether you're a parent, a teacher,…

Book cover of Agile Application Security: Enabling Security in a Continuous Delivery Pipeline

Adam Shostack Author Of Threat Modeling: Designing for Security

From my list on application security for builders.

Why am I passionate about this?

Being able to understand and change reality through our knowledge and skill is literal magic. We’re building systems with so many exciting and unexpected properties that can be exploited and repurposed for both good and evil. I want to keep some of that magic and help people engineer – build great systems that make people’s lives better. I’ve been securing (and breaking) systems, from operating rooms to spaceships, from banks to self-driving cars for over 25 years. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if security is not infused from the start, we’re forced to rely on what ought to be our last lines of defense. This list helps you infuse security into your systems.

Adam's book list on application security for builders

Adam Shostack Why did Adam love this book?

When I worked in application security at Microsoft, we still had products that shipped every few years. I learned to scale application security in that world, but many people live in a different world now. AAS helped me understand which of our approaches translated well, which had to be transformed, and which needed to be discarded or replaced. I regularly refer back to it, even a few years later.

By Laura Bell, Michael Brunton-Spall, Rich Smith , Jim Bird

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Agile continues to be the most adopted software development methodology among organizations worldwide, but it generally hasn't integrated well with traditional security management techniques. And most security professionals aren't up to speed in their understanding and experience of agile development. To help bridge the divide between these two worlds, this practical guide introduces several security tools and techniques adapted specifically to integrate with agile development.

Written by security experts and agile veterans, this book begins by introducing security principles to agile practitioners, and agile principles to security practitioners. The authors also reveal problems they encountered in their own experiences with…


Book cover of Designing Secure Software: A Guide for Developers

Adam Shostack Author Of Threat Modeling: Designing for Security

From my list on application security for builders.

Why am I passionate about this?

Being able to understand and change reality through our knowledge and skill is literal magic. We’re building systems with so many exciting and unexpected properties that can be exploited and repurposed for both good and evil. I want to keep some of that magic and help people engineer – build great systems that make people’s lives better. I’ve been securing (and breaking) systems, from operating rooms to spaceships, from banks to self-driving cars for over 25 years. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if security is not infused from the start, we’re forced to rely on what ought to be our last lines of defense. This list helps you infuse security into your systems.

Adam's book list on application security for builders

Adam Shostack Why did Adam love this book?

Loren’s been contributing to security for over 40 years, and this book captures his hard-won wisdom in a way that’s both humble and accessible. It scales from principles and design approaches to in-depth explanations of exactly how things go wrong and how to avoid those problems. (Also, I was honored to write the foreword.)

By Loren Kohnfelder,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Designing Secure Software consolidates Loren Kohnfelder's more than twenty years of experience into a concise, elegant guide to improving the security of technology products. Written for a wide range of software professionals, it emphasizes building security into software design early and involving the entire team in the process. The book begins with a discussion of core concepts. The second part, perhaps this book's most important contribution, covers the process of designing and reviewing a software design with security considerations in mind. The final section details the most common coding flaws that create vulnerabilities, making copious use of code snippets written…


Book cover of Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

Adam Shostack Author Of Threat Modeling: Designing for Security

From my list on application security for builders.

Why am I passionate about this?

Being able to understand and change reality through our knowledge and skill is literal magic. We’re building systems with so many exciting and unexpected properties that can be exploited and repurposed for both good and evil. I want to keep some of that magic and help people engineer – build great systems that make people’s lives better. I’ve been securing (and breaking) systems, from operating rooms to spaceships, from banks to self-driving cars for over 25 years. The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that if security is not infused from the start, we’re forced to rely on what ought to be our last lines of defense. This list helps you infuse security into your systems.

Adam's book list on application security for builders

Adam Shostack Why did Adam love this book?

Boeing used to be a paragon of how engineering-driven companies could deliver amazing products and amazing profits. This book chronicles how that changed, and how Boeing lost its guiding principles. It shows how prioritizing the stock price over the business or the people who flew in its planes led to decisions that literally killed hundreds of people. Engineering concerns were regularly set aside for schedule or cost reasons. Most of us don’t work on products whose failures cause hundreds of deaths, but there’s an important lesson about being proud of the work you do and the products you deliver, and how that can make for a great business.

By Peter Robison,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

NEW YORK TIMES BUSINESS BESTSELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX.

An "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" (New York Times Book Review), from the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg.

Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as…


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Book cover of Trial, Error, and Success: 10 Insights into Realistic Knowledge, Thinking, and Emotional Intelligence

Trial, Error, and Success By Sima Dimitrijev, PhD, Maryann Karinch,

Everything in nature evolves by trial, error, and success—from fundamental physics, through evolution in biology, to how people learn, think, and decide.

This book presents a way of thinking and realistic knowledge that our formal education shuns. Stepping beyond this ignorance, the book shows how to deal with and even…

Book cover of The Evolution of Cooperation

Amit S. Mukherjee Author Of Leading in the Digital World: How to Foster Creativity, Collaboration, and Inclusivity

From my list on global leadership capabilities needed now.

Why am I passionate about this?

Currently a Professor of Leadership and Strategy at Hult, I’ve been on the faculties of other top business schools, and an executive officer of a NASDAQ company. I’ve led “new to the world” technology projects and advised CXOs of global companies. These experiences convinced me that poor leadership is the biggest reason organizational initiatives fail. Two decades ago, I switched from being a technology scholar; I began researching leadership and writing for practitioners, not academics. My first book was on a 2009 “best business books” list. This one is in Sloan Management Review’s Management on the Cutting Edge series—books that its editors believe will influence executive behavior.

Amit's book list on global leadership capabilities needed now

Amit S. Mukherjee Why did Amit love this book?

Read this book if you say, “Let’s find a win-win solution.”

Sadly, most aspiring leaders misuse and abuse the term “win-win.” Instead of considering it a strategic option that should be thoughtfully applied, they treat it as a moral virtue. They then espouse win-win while striving for what I call “win-no-lose”—the hope that “we” win but “they” don’t realize they lost.

This makes building coalitions and collaborating terribly difficult precisely at the time in history when we desperately need to do these well. The book is full of surprising insights (like why turning the other cheek—advocated by most religions—doesn’t work).

It also teaches (aspiring) leaders how a critical mass of people who believe in cooperation can transform their organizations even if their peers don’t agree with them.

By Robert Axelrod,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked The Evolution of Cooperation as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This widely praised and much-discussed book explores how cooperation can emerge in a world of self-seeking egoistswhether superpowers, businesses, or individualswhen there is no central authority to police their actions..


Book cover of The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation

Kate Vitasek Author Of Vested: How P&G, McDonald's, and Microsoft are Redefining Winning in Business Relationships

From my list on creating successful business deals.

Why am I passionate about this?

I am an international authority for my award-winning research on the Vested® business model for highly collaborative relationships. I began my research in 2003 researching what makes a difference in successful strategic business deals. My day job is being the lead faculty and researcher for the University of Tennessee’s Certified Deal Architect program; my passion is helping organizations and individuals learn the art, science, and practice of crafting highly collaborative win-win strategic business relationships. My work has led to seven books and three Harvard Business Review articles. I’ve also shared my advice on CNN International, Bloomberg, NPR, and on Fox Business News.

Kate's book list on creating successful business deals

Kate Vitasek Why did Kate love this book?

When AG Lafley became the CEO of P&G he had an idea that the best way to drive innovation was through collaboration. His book goes behind the scenes on how he encouraged P&Gers to look to suppliers and even competitors' help P&G take innovation to a new level. In fact—Lafley set the lofty goal that 50% of all innovations would not come from P&G—but through P&G by working with strategic partnerships. The book has several examples of how the CPG giant is using collaboration to drive innovation.

By A.G. Lafley, Ram Charan,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Game-Changer as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

It is by making innovation an intimate, intentional part of the business that A. G. Lafley - the Jack Welch of the 21st century - has recently transformed Procter & Gamble from a $39 into a $76 billion dollar company that touches more than 3 billion people around the world. On the brink of collapse when he joined in 2000, it became a model for growth and innovation. In this inspiring and practical book Lafley explains how making innovation more than just a stand-alone activity enabled him to turn around growth, productivity and the bottom line.

As this book shows,…


Book cover of Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don't

Rusty Komori Author Of Superior: Creating a Superior Culture of Excellence

From my list on building excellence in leadership.

Why am I passionate about this?

I was the Head Coach of the Punahou School Boys Varsity Tennis Team for 22 years, and we were fortunate to win 22 consecutive State Championships. Since retiring as head coach in 2015, I felt compelled to become an author and share my system of coaching excellence which led to this unprecedented winning streak. I know there are distinct differences between great and superior which can be applied to everyone in business, sports, and life. I want to inspire everyone to maximize their potential and have peak performance as a parent, son or daughter, coach or player, leader or team member.

Rusty's book list on building excellence in leadership

Rusty Komori Why did Rusty love this book?

I loved this book because we all want to achieve greatness, and it clearly identifies practices, strategies, and habits that can take a good team and make them great. It’s a reminder for me to be disciplined as a person, control myself with disciplined thoughts, and exhibit disciplined actions.

I like how Jim Collins emphasizes strategic focus, disciplined decision-making, and the importance of sustained excellence for long-term success. His "Hedgehog Concept" is a great reminder for me to reflect on what I’m deeply passionate about, what I can be the best at, and what drives my economic engine.

By Jim Collins,

Why should I read it?

16 authors picked Good to Great as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

________________________________
Can a good company become a great one? If so, how?

After a five-year research project, Jim Collins concludes that good to great can and does happen. In this book, he uncovers the underlying variables that enable any type of organisation to make the leap from good to great while other organisations remain only good. Rigorously supported by evidence, his findings are surprising - at times even shocking - to the modern mind.

Good to Great achieves a rare distinction: a management book full of vital ideas that reads as well as a fast-paced novel. It is widely regarded…


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Book cover of The Managing People Practice Manual

The Managing People Practice Manual By Neil Thompson,

This manual addresses the need to ensure that people are at the centre of the organisation. There has never been a timelier reminder of the need to ensure that leading, supporting and developing staff are critical aspects of creating the right organisational culture to grow and develop. Written with sensitivity,…

Book cover of Humane Capital: How to Create a Management Shift to Transform Performance and Profit

Bruno R. Cignacco Author Of The Art of Compassionate Business: Main Principles for the Human-Oriented Enterprise

From my list on conscious business.

Why am I passionate about this?

As a consultant, author, and researcher, for several years I have been very passionate about the study of companies that are very successful in the marketplace, but that are also human-oriented. In other words, I am very interested in companies that are profitable, but at the same time, are kind, compassionate, and caring with their main stakeholders. I like that these companies continually aim to foster robust long-term relationships with these stakeholders, and look for win-win agreements with them. What I love about these companies is that they focus on the quantitative aspects of business (e.g., profitability, growth, etc.) but also in its qualitative aspects (empathy, support, gratitude, generosity, etc.).

Bruno's book list on conscious business

Bruno R. Cignacco Why did Bruno love this book?

I really like that this book discusses, in detail, the relationship between acting well in business and being successful. It grabbed my attention that this book thoroughly explores the main reasons that underpin the need for more human-focused organisations, such as: the value of humanised management, the upsurge of disruptive technologies, demographic changes, and others. It is very valuable that this text also provides the reader with very actionable ways to develop more humanised organisations. I found it interesting that various meaningful examples from the public, private, and non-profit sectors are dissected in a thorough manner, accompanied by a myriad of strategies to bring about significant shifts in these sectors.  

By Vlatka Hlupic,

Why should I read it?

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

What is this book about?

Featuring a foreword by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Despite decades of research and evidence, there is still extreme scepticism that businesses can combine a more humane style of management with superior shareholder returns, or that busy managers can be guided effectively by both their heads and their hearts. Vlatka Hlupic has spent 20 years investigating this paradox, developing an insightful critique of why such strong evidence has had limited impact and providing an alternative, practical approach that any employer can implement in order to overcome the unique challenges faced by their organizations. A clear correlation exists between companies that…


Book cover of Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships
Book cover of The Speed of Trust: The One Thing That Changes Everything
Book cover of Building Secure and Reliable Systems: Best Practices for Designing, Implementing, and Maintaining Systems

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