Most great leaders aren’t born knowing how to lead others. Leadership is a skill that can be taught, and one that should continually be worked on. No one will never know everything there is to know; it’s a constant process of improving and being better. While there are thousands of books on leadership, and each serves a purpose, these four should be required reading for everyone currently holding a leadership role, or those looking to step into a higher position.
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
In Drive, Pink examines the most common form of motivation used by leaders, incentives, and why it isn’t the most effective. Instead, he proposes that people respond best to being given a purpose. The best motivation is feeling like you’re working towards something, whether it’s learning something new or improving the world. He uses four decades of scientific research into motivation to illustrate how businesses have been approaching motivation wrong for years.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: The Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
In this book, Lencioni dives into teams and how to successfully lead one. A good team leader has to learn how to get the most out of each team member, which begins with trust. It outlines the cause of five common problems that occur when working in team settings and provides practical advice for solving them.
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier
Stanier has made a career out of teaching leadership skills to over 10,000 managers, making him the perfect person to write a leadership book. In this book, he takes essential leadership skills and applies them to seven core questions. With these seven questions, he demonstrates how to unlock people’s potential by saying less and asking more.
Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke
Very rarely does a leader have all of the information when making crucial decisions. A former World Series of Poker champion and current business consultant, Duke teaches the key to long-term success is to think in terms of making bets. By using examples from business, politics, sports and poker, she illustrates that great decisions don’t necessarily lead to great outcomes, and a bad decision doesn’t mean a bad outcome.