Each quarter I list a group of books from my current personal reading list which will make you a better leader. This quarter’s collection will help you with personal growth, business leadership, spiritual development, creativity, communication, and learning the secrets of championship teams.
The following are The Top 10 Books Leaders Need To Read In Spring 2023 listed alphabetically by author with a special request listed first:
***Special Request*** Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress by Brian Dodd – Yes, this is my latest book and I hope you purchase copies if you haven’t already. Production. Passion. Resilience. Teamwork. Contentment. Courage. Faith. These seven skills were embodied over three thousand years ago by a group of elite warriors known as David’s Mighty Men. These highly-capable individuals helped take David, the man who had previously defeated Goliath, from a wilderness experience to leading a nation. Did 2020 feel like a wilderness experience for you? So many people lost loved ones, opportunities, financial resources, careers, time, and much, much more during COVID. The worst thing many people lost was hope. COVID stripped away the non-essentials in our lives. It revealed how foolish pride, ego, and narcissism are. It made us question almost everything in our lives, including God himself. COVID brought us all to our knees in one form or fashion. I want you to know the same skills used by David’s’ Mighty Men still work today. In my new book Mighty: 7 Skills You Need to Move from Pandemic to Progress, I show you how applying these skills can help you become Mighty and move from the Pandemic to Progress.
- Inspired Every Day: Three Indispensable Ingredients to Connect With Your Passion by Kevin Paul Scott – The word inspiration can sound, well, less than substantial, but it’s much more than a momentary flash of enthusiasm or an isolated brilliant idea. The genius of a flashbulb moment happens much more often when a person has developed a lifestyle that blends three indispensable ingredients: a purpose to live for, a problem to tackle, and a partnership with likeminded people. One or two won’t do. It takes all three. Living inspired every day isn’t limited to certain personality types. Everyone can cultivate an inner fire that ignites creativity, instills lasting determination, and brings more fulfilment than we ever thought possible. In this book, Kevin Paul Scott is both engineer and coach: he carefully explains the interwoven elements of an inspired life and he encourages us in our pursuit. Kevin knows that an inspired life is one that’s worth living that will outlast us.
- How Leaders Create Chaos: And Why They Should by Dr. Sam Chand – “Every innovative idea creates chaos.”When every innovation you make as a leader is followed by chaos, how can you get anything done? The answer isn’t to prevent chaos-it is to conquer it!In How Leaders Create Chaos, international leadership expert and consultant Sam Chand will empower you with the strategies you need to intentionally innovate, conquer chaos, and take your organization to the next level.Through this powerful leadership guide, you will be able to: Better innovate and more accurately understand the effects your innovations will have within your organizationGain a more thorough understanding of the nature of chaos and how it should be dealt withBe empowered in your leadership capabilities and encouraged in your journeyChaos doesn’t have to stop your organization from innovating, growing, and becoming better. It’s your responsibility as a leader to understand chaos and learn how to help your organization navigate its ambiguous seas!
- Relentless: From Good to Great to Unstoppable by Tim Grover – For more than two decades, legendary trainer Tim Grover has taken the greats—Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and hundreds of relentless competitors in sports, business, and every walk of life—and made them greater. Now, for the first time ever, he reveals what it takes to achieve total mental and physical dominance, showing you how to be relentless and achieve whatever you desire. Direct, blunt, and brutally honest,Grover breaks down what it takes to be unstoppable: you keep going when everyone else is giving up, you thrive under pressure, you never let your emotions make you weak. In “The Relentless 13,” he details the essential traits shared by the most intense competitors and achievers in sports, business, and all walks of life. Relentless shows you how to trust your instincts and get in the Zone; how to control and adapt to any situation; how to find your opponent’s weakness and attack. Grover gives you the same advice he gives his world-class clients—“don’t think”—and shows you that anything is possible. Packed with previously untold stories and unparalleled insight into the psyches of the most successful and accomplished athletes of our time, Relentless shows you how even the best get better…and how you can too.
- Burn the Boats: Toss Plan B Overboard and Unleash Your Full Potential by Matt Higgins – Executive fellow at Harvard Business School, Guest Shark on Shark Tank, and famed angel investor Matt Higgins reveals the counterintuitive formula for a life of perpetual growth that has been practiced for thousands of years by military leaders and serial entrepreneurs alike—forget the Plan B and burn the boats. From Sun Tzu to Julius Caesar, the ancient Israelites to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, there’s a bold and highly effective tactic seen throughout history—when leaders want to motivate their troops for success, they destroy all opportunities for retreat, and go all-in on the mission. They burn their boats; it’s win or perish, and the clarity of sheer desperation propels them to victory. Serial entrepreneur, brilliant investor, and television personality Matt Higgins makes the case that burning the boats isn’t just advantageous in times of war or crisis, but a strategy we can all use to achieve our greatest dreams. Conquerors don’t have a Plan B, knowing intuitively what science bears out: the mere contemplation of a Plan B weakens our resolve and diminishes our chances for breakout success.
- Beyond Disruption: Innovate and Achieve Growth without Displacing Industries, Companies, or Jobs by Blue Ocean Strategy, the #1 global bestseller, forever changed how the world thinks about strategy. Now W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne offer up a bold, new idea that will transform how we all think about innovation and growth. Disruption dominates innovation theory and practice. But disruption, for all its power, is destructive—displacing jobs, companies, and even entire industries. Are we missing an alternative approach to innovation and growth? With three decades of research, the #1 global bestselling authors of Blue Ocean Strategy, W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, reveal another way to innovate and grow. Just as Blue Ocean Strategy redefined the essence of strategy as creating not competing, Beyond Disruption redefines and expands the existing view of innovation by introducing a new approach, nondisruptive creation, that is free from the destructive displacement that happens when innovators set out to disrupt.
- Do Hard Things: Why We Get Resilience Wrong And The Surprising Science Of Real Toughness by Steve Magness – Toughness has long been held as the key to overcoming a challenge and achieving greatness, whether it is on the sports field, at a boardroom, or at the dining room table. Yet, the prevailing model has promoted a mentality based on fear, false bravado, and hiding any sign of weakness. In other words, the old model of toughness has failed us. Magness, a performance scientist who coaches Olympic athletes, rebuilds our broken model of resilience with one grounded in the latest science and psychology. In Do Hard Things, Magness teaches us how we can work with our body – how experiencing discomfort, leaning in, paying attention, and creating space to take thoughtful action can be the true indications of cultivating inner strength.
- The 16 Undeniable Laws Of Communication: Apply Them And Make The Most Of Your Message by Dr. John Maxwell – It’s been said that public speaking is the number one fear of most people, with death being second. “This means,” said comedian Jerry Seinfeld, “if you have to be at a funeral, you would rather be in the casket than doing the eulogy.” How can you overcome fear or ineffectiveness as a speaker? Learn the Laws of Communication! John C. Maxwell has been a public speaker and motivational teacher for more than fifty years. He is one of only eight people on the planet who have been awarded Toastmaster’s Golden Gavel and been inducted into the National Speakers’ Association Hall of Fame. In The 16 Undeniable Laws of Communication: Apply Them and Make the Most of Your Message, he shares everything he’s learned from a lifetime of communication.
- Culture Is the Way: How Leaders at Every Level Build an Organization for Speed, Impact, and Excellence by Matt Mayberry – In Culture Is the Way: How Leaders at Every Level Build an Organization for Speed, Impact, and Excellence, former NFL Pro, world-renowned keynote speaker, and management consultant Matt Mayberry delivers an incisive and hands-on blueprint to employee engagement and peak productivity. In the book, you’ll explore how leaders, at every level, can build a workplace culture that drives organizational excellence and unleashes the full potential of every employee.
- Culture Rules: The Leader’s Guide To Creating The Ultimate Competitive Advantage by Mark Miller – In every organization, people either love their work or loathe it; they contribute or coast. Your culture can be soul enriching or soul crushing. Your culture gives life or takes it. Your employees care deeply or couldn’t care less. Your organization’s culture can become the most valuable intangible asset you steward. You can build a high performance culture—a place where people and the organization win. In Culture Rules, leaders will learn the three simple rules that determine the health, vitality, and sustainability of culture, enabling them to build organizations that uncover untapped potential and transform it into performance.
- Real- Time Leadership: Find Your Winning Moves When the Stakes Are High by David Noble and Carol Kauffman – The hardest part of leadership is mastering the inevitable high-risk, high-stakes challenges you will face. Whether you’re making a split-second decision when your business is knocked sideways or you’re finding the best strategy to navigate business-critical long-term circumstances, how can you be in peak form in those most crucial moments? Leadership coaching legends David Noble and Carol Kauffman show you how with their innovative new framework—MOVE—which equips you with the tactics you need to slow down high-stakes situations before they speed you up. You’ll learn to master the moment, generate response options, and quickly evaluate those options before acting. As you get better and better at using the framework, you’ll find you can recognize these moments as they arrive, like a great athlete who can read the field as a play unfolds or a great conductor who anticipates what’s needed to deliver a great performance.
What other great books are you reading?
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