Blog Post

As the next installment to our reading list, below is information on twelve books on Leadership that were submitted by our colleagues.  Please note that we tried to assign ownership to the description/review wherever possible.

Background: As we have deployed more and more 360 assessments, many of our customers have requested that we include a reading list for participants who would like to explore ideas for increased management effectiveness.  I thought it would be interesting to ask clients and colleagues to share what they considered the best articles, books and online resources for the current business marketplace.  What I received was an amazing list of books, articles and websites.  We organized these into specific topic areas, and I will be sharing some of these resources in this blog.

What Leaders Really Do
by: John Kotter published in HBR 1990
Product Description: This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint R0111F, originally published in December 2001. HBR OnPoint Articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources. This enables you to scan, absorb, and share the management insights with others. Leadership and management are two distinctive and complementary systems of action, each with its own function and characteristic activities. Management involves coping with complexity, while leadership involves coping with change. Most U.S. corporations actively seek out people with leadership potential and expose them to career experiences designed to develop that potential.

Leading Quietly
by: Joseph Badaracco
Product Description: Editorial review from Publishers Weekly: When we think of great leaders, it’s usually the charismatic, globally influential Churchill, Patton, Jack Welch who spring to mind. But as Harvard Business School professor Badaracco (Defining Moments: When Managers Must Choose Between Right and Right) correctly points out, everyday leadership is not so dramatic, and daily leadership decisions are rarely carried out at the top of an organization. Badaracco focuses here is on helping the middle- and senior-level managers who make the ordinary decisions that ultimately determine an organization’s success….
Citation: Badaracco, Joseph. Leading Quietly: an Unorthodox Guide to Doing the Right Thing. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School, 2002. Print.
ISBN: 1578514878

Leadership and the One Minute Manager
by: Ken Blanchard
Product Description: In this captivating business parable, number one New York Times bestselling author Ken Blanchard, with coauthors Susan Fowler and Laurence Hawkins, tells the story of Steve, a young advertising executive who is about to lose his job. During a series of talks with a gifted magician named Cayla, Steve comes to realize the power of taking responsibility for his situation and not playing the victim. Passing along the knowledge she has learned from the One Minute Manager, Cayla teaches Steve the three skills of self leadership. These three techniques not only empower him to keep his job but show him what he needs to know in order to keep growing, learning, and achieving.
Citation: Blanchard, Kenneth H., Susan Fowler, and Laurence Hawkins. Self-leadership and the One Minute Manager: Discover the Magic of No Excuses! : Increasing Effectiveness through Situational Self Leadership. New York: W. Morrow, 2005. Print.
ISBN: 60799129

New Paradigm of Leadership
by: Ken Shelton (editor)
Product Description: Excellence requires looking at things from fresh perspectives. This compilation offers fresh perspectives on leadership from top CEOs and consultants, who answer questions like: How can leaders make the transition to the new paradigm of continuous change and increased flexibility? How can leaders form partnerships with their employees that allow for increased teamwork and empowerment, for bolder decisions, and for performance-based pay while maintaining the balance between growth and profitability? This compilation includes topics such as change leadership, the qualities of effective leaders, connecting with followers, and leadership vision.
Citation: Shelton, Ken. A New Paradigm of Leadership: Visions of Excellence for 21st Century Organizations. Provo, Utah: Executive Excellence Pub., 1997. Print.
ISBN: 1890009180

Leadership from the Inside Out
by: Kevin Cashman
Product Description: Still framed in seven simple yet profound “mastery areas,” this book serves as an integrated coaching experience that helps leaders understand how to harness their authentic, value-creating influence and elevate their impact as individuals, in teams, and in organizations. Cashman demonstrates that his trademark “whole-person” approach–we lead by virtue of who we are–is essential to sustained success in today’s talent-starved marketplace and provides a measurable return on investment.
Citation: Cashman, Kevin. Leadership from the inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2008. Print.
ISBN: 1576755991

The Leadership Challenge
by: Kouzes and Posner
Product Description: Editorial Review from Publishers Weekly: An inspirational and practical handbook, this expanded revision of a bestselling manual originally published in 1987 offers sound advice to corporate leaders and entrepreneurs, to managers and employees and to aspiring leaders in retail, manufacturing, government, community, church and school settings. Drawing on interviews and a questionnaire survey of more than 3000 leaders, the authors identify five fundamental practices of exemplary leadership…This new edition has been substantially updated to reflect the challenges of shrinking work forces, rising cynicism and expanded telecommunications.
Citation: The Leadership Challenge. Pfeiffer & Co, 2010. Print.
ISBN: 470559721

Outliers
by: Malcolm Gladwell
Product Description: Amazon Review: Malcolm Gladwell poses a more provocative question in Outliers: why do some people succeed, living remarkably productive and impactful lives, while so many more never reach their potential? Challenging our cherished belief of the “self-made man,” he makes the democratic assertion that superstars don’t arise out of nowhere, propelled by genius and talent: “they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot.” Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, he builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, “some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.”…
Citation: Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: the Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. Print
ISBN: 316017922

First, Break All the Rules
by: Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
Product Description: Amazon Review: Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman expose the fallacies of standard management thinking in First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. In seven chapters, the two consultants for the Gallup Organization debunk some dearly held notions about management…”This book will take you inside the minds of these managers to explain why they have toppled conventional wisdom and reveal the new truths they have forged in its place.” … “The point is to focus people toward performance,” they write. “The manager is, and should be, totally responsible for this.”
Citation: Buckingham, Marcus, and Curt Coffman. First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently. New York, NY.: Simon & Schuster, 1999. Print.
ISBN: 684852861

Five temptations of a CEO
by: Patrick Lencioni
Product Description: Amazon Review: Designed to be read in a single sitting, this book uses the unexpected meeting between troubled high-tech honcho Andrew O’Brien and a mysterious old man named Charlie to explore a series of common traps that can unwittingly ensnare any hard-driven executive. Lencioni hones in on the five “temptations” of the workplace: desires to jealously guard career status, consistently remain popular with subordinates, unfailingly make correct decisions, constantly strive for an atmosphere of total harmony, and always appear invulnerable. A discussion of the story’s events and their real-world implications follows, as Lencioni shifts from screenwriter mode to business coach to help answer some of the questions he raises.
Citation: Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Temptations of a CEO: a Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1998. Print.
ISBN: 470267585

Know-How
by: Ram Charan
Product Description: Amazon Review: In Know-How, Ram Charan, coauthor of the bestseller Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, gives readers a bold new approach to understanding leadership. Charan suggests that when it comes to choosing our business leaders, we don’t recognize the crucial difference between the appearance of leadership and the actual ability to run a business. We focus too much on superficial things, like raw intelligence or a commanding presence, and don’t pay near enough attention to the skills leaders need. In his new book, Charan identifies the eight skills leaders must develop and refine, and explains how personal traits factor in.
Citation: Charan, Ram. Know-how: the 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don’t. New York: Crown Business, 2007. Print.
ISBN: 307341518

The Leadership Pipleline
by: Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter, and James Noel
Product Description: Amazon Review: Written by three genuine experts in management development (one of them helped design GE’s deservedly famous succession-development process), The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership Powered Company finally shows organizations how to undo the knots and clogs in their in-house “leadership pipeline” so they can constantly groom the best people at every level to move up to the next rung of leadership…
Citation: Charan, Ram, Stephen J. Drotter, and James L. Noel. The Leadership Pipeline: How to Build the Leadership-powered Company. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2001. Print.
ISBN: 787951722

Resonant Leadership
by: Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee
Product Description: Amazon Review: Unlike most other books, Resonant Leadership undersells itself… The work’s modest title, though, takes nothing away from its grand ambition: to explain what makes leaders effective amid unrelentingly stressful situations. The authors, Richard Boyatzis and Annie McKee, will be familiar to many businesspeople and management theorists…With this latest book, Boyatzis and McKee have continued developing their holistic view of management. It’s an attractive one. Resonant Leadership begins with recognition of leaders’ essential humanity and analyzes the physical, mental, and emotional triggers that make men and women strong or weak as leaders. …Whereas the authors’ earlier book focused on the initial ingredients for leadership effectiveness, their interest now is in ongoing, enduring resonance–leaders who can be effective today, but also maintain their edge into tomorrow, as well.
Citation: Boyatzis, Richard E., and Annie McKee. Resonant Leadership: Renewing Yourself and Connecting with Others through Mindfulness, Hope, and Compassion. Boston: Harvard Business School, 2005. Print.
ISBN: 1591395631