Father’s Day is one week away but thanks to Amazon, there is still time to order some great leadership books which will arrive just in time to honor your dad.
The following are 10 recommendations I have for you. I will break them down into categories of Best Of, Family, Christianity, Business, Sports, and Personal Growth.
The Best Book I’ve Read In 2020
- Jesus: The God Who Knows Your Name by Max Lucado – Let’s start the Father’s Day shopping with a book about our Heavenly Father and the greatest leaders who has ever existed.For thirty-three years Jesus felt everything you have ever felt. Weakness. Weariness. Sadness. Rejection. His feet got tired. And his head ached. He was tempted and his strength was tested. And you know why? Because in becoming human, Jesus made it possible for us to see God. His tears, God’s tears. His voice, God’s voice. Want to know what matters to God? Find out what matters to Jesus. Want to know what in the world God is doing? Ponder the words and life of Jesus. This book describes both the person Jesus was on earth and how to live in a personal relationship with him and is divided into six sections:
- Immanuel
- Friend
- Teacher
- Miracle Worker
- Lamb of God
- Returning King
By exploring Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection as well as specific details like how he interacted with his friends and his enemies, what he did with time alone, how he acted at a party, this compilation from Max Lucado—now with original never-before-read content from Max—gives readers the chance to become more familiar with the man at the center of the greatest story ever told.
Church Leadership
- Confident Leader!: Become One, Stay One by Dan Reiland – In Confident Leader!, Dan Reiland draws from his 39 years of leadership experience to share a practical, workable, and transformational process that results in your ability to become a more self-assured leader and achieve maximum success. Building unshakable confidence will positively impact your personal work performance, your belief in self, your support and approval from others, and your trust and reliance on God. In this book you will learn how to:
- Make deep foundational decisions about your core identity
- Implement practical steps for deliberate character development
- Incorporate daily, practical disciplines that transform your leadership ability
Together these essentials present a step-by-step plan to greater confidence, increased influence, less uncertainty, and more significant accomplishments.
Family Leadership
- The Dad Difference: The 4 Most Important Gifts You Can Give to Your Kids by Bryan Lorrits – The world is full of examples of men who weren’t there for their kids. But there are good and even great dads out there, who inspire their children and the men around them to reach for more. How do you become a dad like that—even if your own dad wasn’t such a good example? In The Dad Difference, Bryan Loritts explores the four gifts every kid needs from their dad: relationship, integrity, teaching, and experiences. He walks you through what each of these mean and how to put them into practice. He also shares stories of fathers, including his own dad, who were examples of this to him. Full of biblical wisdom, simple truths, and practical advice, this book will empower you to become a dad who makes a difference in the lives of your children.
Business Leadership
- The Motive: Why So Many Leaders Abdicate Their Most Important Responsibilities – New York Times best-selling author Patrick Lencioni has written a dozen books that focus on how leaders can build teams and lead organizations. In The Motive, he shifts his attention toward helping them understand the importance of why they’re leading in the first place.
- The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company – In The Ride of a Lifetime, Robert Iger shares the lessons he learned while running Disney and leading its 220,000-plus employees, and he explores the principles that are necessary for true leadership, including:
• Optimism. Even in the face of difficulty, an optimistic leader will find the path toward the best possible outcome and focus on that, rather than give in to pessimism and blaming.
• Courage. Leaders have to be willing to take risks and place big bets. Fear of failure destroys creativity.
• Decisiveness. All decisions, no matter how difficult, can be made on a timely basis. Indecisiveness is both wasteful and destructive to morale.
• Fairness. Treat people decently, with empathy, and be accessible to them. - The Leader’s Greatest Return: Attracting, Developing, and Multiplying Leadersby John Maxwell – Number one New York Times bestselling author John C. Maxwell is often identified as the most influential leadership expert in the world. In the last twenty-five years, he has grown from equipping a handful of leaders in one organization to developing millions of business, government, and nonprofit leaders in every country around the world. In The Leader’s Greatest Return, Maxwell shares the most important lessons he’s learned about the leadership development process over the last quarter century. He instructs readers in how to
- Recognize potential leaders
- Attract leaders by creating a leadership “table”
- Work themselves out of a job by equipping and empowering leaders
- Position leaders to build a winning team
- Coach leaders to higher levels and make them leadership developers themselves
Sports Leadership
- Gridiron Genius: A Master Class in Building Teams and Winning at the Highest Level by Michael Lombardi – Former NFL general manager and three-time Super Bowl winner Michael Lombardi reveals what makes football organizations tick at the championship level. From personnel to practice to game-day decisions that win titles, Lombardi shares what he learned working with coaching legends Bill Walsh of the 49ers, Al Davis of the Raiders, and Bill Belichick of the Patriots, among others, during his three decades in football.
- The Victory Machine: The Making and Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty by Ethan Sherwood Strauss – The Golden State Warriors dominated the NBA for the better part of a decade. Since the arrival of owner Joe Lacob, they won more championships and sold more merchandise than any other franchise in the sport. And in 2019, they opened the doors on a lavish new stadium. Yet all this success contained some of the seeds of decline. Ethan Sherwood Strauss’s clear-eyed exposé reveals the team’s culture, its financial ambitions and struggles, and the price that its players and managers have paid for all their winning. From Lacob’s unlikely acquisition of the team to Kevin Durant’s controversial departure, Strauss shows how the smallest moments can define success or failure for years.
Personal Growth
- Raise Your Game: High-Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best – High achievers are at the top of their game because of the discipline they have during the unseen hours. They have made a commitment to establish, tweak, and repeat positive habits in everything they do. RAISE YOUR GAME examines the top leaders in sports and business and proves that success is a result of the little things we do all the time. The basic principles provided in RAISE YOUR GAME are simple, but not easy. We live in an instantly downloadable world that encourages us to skip steps. We are taught to chase what’s hot, flashy and sexy and ignore what’s basic. But the basics work. They always have and they always will.
- Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear – No matter your goals, Atomic Habits offers a proven framework for improving–every day. James Clear, one of the world’s leading experts on habit formation, reveals practical strategies that will teach you exactly how to form good habits, break bad ones, and master the tiny behaviors that lead to remarkable results. If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you. The problem is your system. Bad habits repeat themselves again and again not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems. Here, you’ll get a proven system that can take you to new heights.
BONUS – Military And Political Leadership (The Best Book I Read In 2018)
- Leadership: In Turbulent Times by Doris Kearns Goodwin – Are leaders born or made? Where does ambition come from? How does adversity affect the growth of leadership? Does the leader make the times or do the times make the leader? In Leadership, Goodwin draws upon the four presidents she has studied most closely—Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon B. Johnson (in civil rights)—to show how they recognized leadership qualities within themselves and were recognized as leaders by others. By looking back to their first entries into public life, we encounter them at a time when their paths were filled with confusion, fear, and hope.
Leadership tells the story of how they all collided with dramatic reversals that disrupted their lives and threatened to shatter forever their ambitions. Nonetheless, they all emerged fitted to confront the contours and dilemmas of their times.
My book Timeless: 10 Enduring Practices Of Apex Leaders is available for purchase. If you have ever wanted to become the leader God created you to be, this book is for you! By combining leadership lessons from biblical heroes like Jesus, Daniel and Joseph, along with modern day leaders like Bill Gates, Nick Saban, Kobe Bryant and multiple pastors, Timeless will equip and inspire you. This book is not to be read alone. Discussion questions are included in each chapter allowing you to develop those in your circle of influence. Click HERE or on the image provided and order your copies TODAY.