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 high-performance, personal growth, spiritual development, financial literacy, and learning the secrets of championship teams.
Also, I can’t recommend enough that you become a reader and continual learner. There are issues you are facing today which can be solved in 48 hours by simply purchasing one or more of the books listed below.
The Top 10 Leadership Books I’m Reading in the Spring of 2024
The following are The Top 10 Leadership Books I’m Reading in the Spring of 2024 listed in author alphabetical order. Click the link of each book to learn more and order your copies.
- The 12-Week MBA: Learn the Skills You Need to Lead in Business Today by Bjorn Billhardt and Nathan Kracklauer – Getting an MBA takes time and money, making it inaccessible to many people who want to take charge in the business world. The 12-Week MBA offers an alternative way to learn business essentials by focusing on the skills and knowledge required to succeed as both a manager and a business leader. The 12-Week MBA’s unique premise is that business leaders in any industry, any function, and at any level need the same core knowledge, skills, and attitudes to effectively manage and lead. That core consists of working through and with other people to create value while using financial concepts and metrics to maximize the value created for all company stakeholders.
- Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection by Charles Duhigg – Communication is a superpower and the best communicators understand that whenever we speak, we’re actually participating in one of three conversations: practical (What’s this really about?), emotional (How do we feel?), and social (Who are we?). If you don’t know what kind of conversation you’re having, you’re unlikely to connect. Supercommunicators know the importance of recognizing—and then matching—each kind of conversation, and how to hear the complex emotions, subtle negotiations, and deeply held beliefs that color so much of what we say and how we listen. Our experiences, our values, our emotional lives—and how we see ourselves, and others—shape every discussion, from who will pick up the kids to how we want to be treated at work. In this book, you will learn why some people are able to make themselves heard, and to hear others, so clearly.
- Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table: It’s Time to Win the Battle of Your Mind by Louie Giglio – In Don’t Give the Enemy a Seat at Your Table, bestselling author and pastor Louie Giglio shares practical ways to overcome the Enemy’s lies and instead find peace and security in any challenging circumstance or situation.
- Living in the Daze of Deception: How to Discern Truth from Culture’s Lies by Jack Hibbs – We live in a time when falsehoods assault us from every direction. Packaged with just enough truth to make them appear trustworthy, these counterfeits have grown more and more difficult to detect and avoid. Living in the Daze of Deception explores the many ways error is masquerading as truth—and how you can discern the difference.
- The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness by Morgan Housel – I have just finished Morgan’s incredible new book Same as Ever: A Guide to What Never Changes. I immediately ordered his previous one after doing so. In The Psychology of Money, award-winning author Morgan Housel shares 19 short stories exploring the strange ways people think about money and teaches you how to make better sense of one of life’s most important topics. This is a must-read!!!
- Hero on a Mission: A Path to a Meaningful Life by Donald Miller – In this book, bestselling author Donald Miller uses his own experiences to help you recognize if the character you are currently surfacing is helping you experience a life of meaning. He breaks down the transformational, yet practical, plan that took him from slowly giving up to rapidly gaining a new perspective of his own life’s beauty and meaning, igniting his motivation, passion, and productivity, so you can do the same.
- Once a Giant: A Story of Victory, Tragedy, and Life After Football by Gary Myers – The 1986 New York Giants are legendary. A championship team coached by Bill Parcells and his wunderkind assistant Bill Belichick, featuring future Hall of Famers and All-Pros like Phil Simms, Lawrence Taylor, Mark Bavaro, and Harry Carson. They were dominant on the field and formed a unique and lasting bond off of it. More than thirty years later, it’s the friendships that have proved more important–a matter of life and death. In Once a Giant, bestselling football writer Gary Myers tells the story of that team and what became of it. Gridiron glory eventually faded; chronic pain, addiction, and in some cases crimes have followed. Many football players face these harsh realities, but the Giants have confronted and survived them together.
- When Everyone Leads: How The Toughest Challenges Get Seen And Solved by Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride – Because, leadership is an activity―small actions taken in moments of opportunity. And as you start to look around, you can begin to see more of those moments, seize the opportunity in those moments. Most importantly, you can help others see those opportunities too. That’s why everyone can lead and the real power to solve our most important challenges is when everyone leads.
- 7 Rules Of Power: Surprising – but True – Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career by Jeffrey Pfeffer – If fully understood and harnessed effectively, power skills and understanding become the keys to increasing salaries, job satisfaction, career advancement, organizational change, and, happiness. In 7 Rules of Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, provides the insights that have made both his online and on-campus classes incredibly popular—with life-changing results often achieved in 8 or 10 weeks. Rooted firmly in social science research, Pfeffer’s 7 rules provide a manual for increasing your ability to get things done, including increasing the positive effects of your job performance.
- Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations by Ron Shaich – Shaich is a business visionary who has been part of building three iconic restaurant brands: Au Bon Pain, Panera Bread, and now Cava. Along the way, he developed “fast casual,” a $100 billion–plus segment of the industry. Now he reveals what he learned about entrepreneurship, running large enterprises, business transformation, and life itself. He illustrates these lessons with his experiences turning a 400-square-foot cookie store into 2,400 restaurants with $5 billion in revenue, delivering annual investor returns of 25 percent over two decades, and outperforming both Starbucks and Chipotle. How did Shaich succeed repeatedly in such a notoriously tough industry? By discovering today what will matter tomorrow and never hesitating to undertake sweeping transformations in order to get the job done.
***Bonus 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. 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.