100 books like The Leadership Challenge

Cialdini is a social psychologist who set out to explore what makes us comply with requests from strangers.

He did this from the inside by taking jobs where he was trained by various organisations to sell their wares. What makes this book so valuable is that Cialdini not only identifies six key methods of persuasion that are routinely deployed but also offers guidance on how to defend yourself against them. This has huge relevance for personal finance.

As banks and other financial institutions increase their fraud detection systems, criminals increasingly see you, the individual, as the weak link they can exploit to defraud you. Cialdini’s book is a great tool to help you detect and rebuff scammers intent on parting you from your money.

Having read so very many books on body language (and having written a couple myself), I love finding a book that provides much broader cross-cultural research and deeper insights on a specialized, important aspect like facial expressions!

How shocking to learn that there are more than 500 micro-facial expressions, telling people exactly what we feel about any given situation! To be able to read such facial expressions would give leaders an incredible advantage as they communicate—negotiating around the conference table, . . . conducting a job interview, . . . or strategizing with a potential partner, . . . or choosing a spouse!

For more than three decades now, we’ve seen corporations, nonprofits, and governments go under because one or more of their executive leaders proved emotionally unstable. Those leaders were either narcissistic, paranoid, bipolar, impulsive, or immature (temper tantrums, poor coping skills, crying, withdrawing, pouting).

Without self-awareness—and the awareness to identify emotional instability in others—leaders cannot hope to connect genuinely and build personal influence and loyalty among colleagues and staffers.

I love this book because of its research and real-life case studies. With almost every chapter, you’ll say, “Oh, I know that guy or gal!”

Better: You learn how to cope with them (or maybe more importantly, you learn if it will be impossible to ever cope with them).

In diving into this book, I couldn't help but draw parallels between Maxwell's teachings and our foundational principles of Organizational Behavior Management (OBM). Although Maxwell isn't exactly a card-carrying behavior scientist, his wisdom on topics like vision, influence, and commitment resonates deeply with OBM practices I've come to advocate for.

He's revamped the book with modern examples, making it all the more relevant in today's business world. Yet, the core truths—those unshakeable leadership tenets—remain. Through my lens, blending Maxwell's insights with OBM's evidence-based strategies can empower anyone navigating the complex world of leadership.

This isn't just another leadership book; it's a bridge between traditional leadership wisdom and the pragmatic, results-driven approach of OBM. Highly recommended for those with a passion for melding theory with real-world solutions.

This book was so helpful that reading it inspired our company to actually hire Lencioni to coach us for the first couple of years of my tenure.

The book analyzes why teams fail and what can be done to prevent it. The causes Lencioni identifies are almost universal and his suggestions for avoiding these pitfalls are both practical and effective.

This book can help any leadership team improve.

If you are like me and want to figure out how to help your team become unstuck, you are not alone!

Through his real-life journey, you’ll discover how Captain Abrashoff transformed the crew of the USS Benfold from being low in morale and underperforming to one of the most engaged and high-performing crew in the Navy! I found his story impressively illustrates behaviors that anyone can adopt to build a team’s culture.

After reading the book, I had the privilege of meeting Abrashoff and hearing him talk about his Navy experience, which exemplified the value of his book even more. Abrashoff’s examples and stories can be your call to action that helps you transform a group of employees into a high-performing team!

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. 

I discovered Liz Wiseman's book by accident and consider it to be one of my most influential references.

Wiseman writes about two distinct leadership styles: Diminishers, who unintentionally drain employees’ energy and intelligence, and Multipliers, who empower others to excel and engage. Reflecting on my career, the diminisher/multiplier distinction helped me make sense of the negative and positive behaviors of management.

The book can help you adopt multiplier behaviors that enable you to foster an environment where your employees feel challenged, trusted, and valued. What I also value is how Wiseman writes about practical techniques and shares a self-assessment, which can enable you to recognize your own limitations but then empower you to change how you lead.

People often ask themselves, why study literature. What’s the use?

This is the only book I have ever read that attempts to show how literature applies to leadership and management. The authors, one a professor of Shakespearian literature, and the other a management consultant, attempts to show how Shakespeare’s play contain practical lessons for leaders.

The chapter I liked most talks about how and why the CEO doesn’t always want their successor to succeed, and how they sometimes sabotage their successor’s success.

This book is both a recounting of White’s career as an educator and a consultant, peppered with practical advice.

The advice he offers stems from both his life experience and from the experience of others. The experiences of others and the recommendations they offer are based on the many other books on leadership White has read, and on his and his students' interactions with the scores of leaders he invited to speak in the classes on leadership he taught.

This book covers all major topics and presents a compendium of opinions.