The first hints of autumn are in the air, and for me that means that months of hibernating await me. I don’t hibernate in the sense that I sleep all day, however I do slow down my active lifestyle and embrace a more contemplative approach to life. During the cold, dark months of late autumn and winter I like to retreat to my favorite chair with a cup of hot tea and a delicious book.
While reviewing the endless selection of books I can devour during the cold months ahead, I compiled a collection of 12 exceptional leadership books that look too good to keep to myself, so I’m sharing those 12 leadership books here with you. If you’re looking for exceptional leadership books to read this fall, check out these 12 options:
1. The Amazon Way: 14 Leadership Principles Behind the World’s Most Disruptive Company
Summary: In The Amazon Way, Rossman introduces readers to the unique corporate culture of the world’s largest Internet retailer, with a focus on the fourteen leadership principles that have guided and shaped its decisions and its distinctive leadership culture.
Peppered with humorous and enlightening firsthand anecdotes from the author’s career at Amazon, this revealing business guide is also filled with the valuable lessons that have served Jeff Bezos’s “everything store” so well—providing expert advice for aspiring entrepreneurs, CEOs, and investors alike.
2. Bold
Summary: From the coauthors of the New York Times bestseller Abundance comes their much anticipated follow-up: Bold—a radical, how-to guide for using exponential technologies, moonshot thinking, and crowd-powered tools to create extraordinary wealth while also positively impacting the lives of billions.
3. Disrupt You
Summary: In Disrupt You!, Jay Samit, a digital media expert who has launched, grown, and sold start-ups and Fortune 500 companies alike, describes the unique method he has used to invent new markets and expand established businesses.
4. Team Genius: The New Science of High-Performing Organizations
Summary: Offering vivid reports of the latest scientific research, compelling case studies, and great storytelling, Team Genius shows managers and executives that the planning, design, and management of great teams no longer have to be a black art. It explores solutions to essential questions that could spell the difference between success and obsolescence. Do you know how to reorganize your subpar teams to turn them into top performers? Can you identify which of the top-performing teams in your company are reaching the end of their life span? Do you have the courage to shut them down? Do you know how to create a replacement team that will be just as effective—without losing time or damaging morale? And, most important, are your teams the right size for the job?
5. Triggers: Creating Behavior That Lasts–Becoming the Person You Want to Be
Summary: In his powerful new book, bestselling author and world-renowned executive coach Marshall Goldsmith examines the environmental and psychological triggers that can derail us at work and in life.
6. Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking
Summary: “The most influential thinker, in my life, has been the psychologist Richard Nisbett. He basically gave me my view of the world.” -Malcolm Gladwell, New York Times Book Review
Scientific and philosophical concepts can change the way we solve problems by helping us to think more effectively about our behavior and our world. Surprisingly, despite their utility, many of these tools remain unknown to most of us. In Mindware, the world-renowned psychologist Richard E. Nisbett presents these ideas in clear and accessible detail.
7. How We Learn: The Surprising Truth About When, Where, and Why It Happens
Summary: In How We Learn, award-winning science reporter Benedict Carey sifts through decades of education research and landmark studies to uncover the truth about how our brains absorb and retain information. What he discovers is that, from the moment we are born, we are all learning quickly, efficiently, and automatically; but in our zeal to systematize the process we have ignored valuable, naturally enjoyable learning tools like forgetting, sleeping, and daydreaming. Is a dedicated desk in a quiet room really the best way to study? Can altering your routine improve your recall? Are there times when distraction is good? Is repetition necessary? Carey’s search for answers to these questions yields a wealth of strategies that make learning more a part of our everyday lives—and less of a chore.
8. The Creator’s Code: The Six Essential Skills of Extraordinary Entrepreneurs
Summary: The Creator’s Code unlocks the six essential skills that turn small notions into big companies. This landmark book is based on 200 interviews with today’s leading entrepreneurs including the founders of LinkedIn, Chipotle, eBay, Under Armour, Tesla Motors, SpaceX, Spanx, Airbnb, PayPal, Jetblue, Gilt Groupe, Theranos, and Dropbox.
9. Performing Under Pressure: The Science of Doing Your Best When It Matters Most
Summary: Performing Under Pressure draws on research from over 12,000 people, and features the latest research from neuroscience and from the frontline experiences of Fortune 500 employees and managers, Navy SEALS, Olympic and other elite athletes, and others. It offers 22 specific strategies each of us can use to reduce pressure in our personal and professional lives and allow us to better excel in whatever we do.
10. The Future of Work: Attract New Talent, Build Better Leaders, and Create a Competitive Organization
Summary: Throughout the history of business employees had to adapt to managers and managers had to adapt to organizations. In the future this is reversed with managers and organizations adapting to employees. This means that in order to succeed and thrive organizations must rethink and challenge everything they know about work. This is a book about how employees of the future will work, how managers will lead, and what organizations of the future will look like.
11. Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential Within Us All
Summary: In an incredibly entertaining and inspiring narrative that draws on countless stories from their work at IDEO, the Stanford d.school, and with many of the world’s top companies, David and Tom Kelley identify the principles and strategies that will allow us to tap into our creative potential in our work lives, and in our personal lives, and allow us to innovate in terms of how we approach and solve problems. It is a book that will help each of us be more productive and successful in our lives and in our careers.
12. Shareology: How Sharing is Powering the Human Economy
Summary: Sharelogy explores the history, art and science of sharing, and illustrates why sharing is what gives us a unique competitive advantage as individuals and brands. It is meant for entrepreneurs and marketers who want to make their content more valuable, shareable, and for individuals who want to understand the power of sharing to grow their personal brand.
Question: What books are you planning to read this fall and winter?
