Recommended Books and Articles

Many of the books listed below are best-sellers and/or highly recommended by leadership experts and leading practitioners. Below these leadership books are articles that we’ve also found to be exceptional when it comes to understanding leadership. We hope that should you choose to invest the time in these resources, that you will find them valuable as well.

Good to Great by Jim Collins. Harper Business Publishers (2001). New York, NY. This book, written by the co-author of the bestselling book Built to Last, became an instant classic. Like Built to Last, it reads well, and provides research-based insights into what enabled companies that were on the average side to become…great! Jim Collins is an excellent business and leadership development writer. His thoughts in Good to Great on the fundamental characteristics of exceptional leaders, exceptional leadership teams and exceptional organizational cultures are invaluable for today’s leaders.

Leadership from the Inside Out by Kevin Cashman. Executive Excellence Publishing (2000). Provo, Utah. Cashman’s book is rich in insights and opportunities to reflect on what leads to genuine development for leaders. Cashman takes a holistic approach to leadership development emphasizing concepts such as personal mastery, change mastery and purpose mastery as crucial to being a truly effective leader. His style is highly readable and he is an engaging, authentic writer.

Leading Change by John Kotter. Harvard Business School Press (1996). Boston, MA. This is another time-tested book on leading and implementing a significant change in an organization. John Kotter is a Harvard leadership guru who has written a number of highly regarded articles and books on leadership and leadership development. From Kotter’s experience, most leaders tend to underestimate the number of critical variables involved in implementing significant change and how long it actually takes. He also highlights how vital genuine growth can be for a leader during his or her forties to truly become an exceptional leader.

The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge. Currency Doubleday (1990). New York, NY. This book is owned by literally hundreds of thousands, and likely read by just hundreds. It is a big book, but so remarkably worth the read. This book is the established classic in the business world on understanding systems thinking in organizations. Consider starting with the chapter on Personal Mastery or the chapter on Shared Vision to get hooked on the stunning insights and exceptional writing that Senge brings to the table.

The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive by Patrick Lencioni. Jossey Bass (2000). San Francisco, CA. Patrick Lencioni is one of today’s outstanding business writers. He’s written a number of excellent business books. What’s fairly unique about Patrick is how he develops realistic, compelling business scenarios in his books to highlight his message, followed by a concise summary of the model he’s recommending at the end of the book. In this book, he does a stellar job of communicating the vital importance of organizational health, a strong leadership team, and genuine clarity about the primary focus for the organization. The ideas aren’t new, but how he communicates them is powerful.

Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within by Robert Quinn. Jossey Bass Publishers (1996). San Francisco, CA Robert Quinn is a remarkable author. His level of candor and depth of wisdom make him an invaluable resource for someone genuinely committed to growing as a leader. Quinn does a wonderful job weaving together illustrations and insights drawn from his personal experience, teaching experience and consulting experience to illuminate vital leadership truths. His clear delineation of the key distinctions between technical, transactional and transformational leadership styles is worth the price of the book itself.

Fierce Conversations by Susan Scott. The Berkley Publishing Group (2004). New York, NY. At the risk of overstating, this national bestseller is an incredible book. Scott’s unique wisdom and stellar coaching on creating transformational conversations at work and home is straightforward and compelling. Her succinct truisms, captured in notions such as “your relationship is only as strong as your last conversation,” “a problem named is a problem solved,” and “follow the bread crumbs to the CEO” (relating to how the leader shapes the culture), are just glimpses of how good this book is. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in becoming more adept at building a high performance organization or strengthening their most important relationships.

Crucial Confrontations by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler. This honestly ground-breaking book captures the essential skills that are absolutely vital if a person is going to lead in a substantial manner. Why? Because a leader’s ability to skillfully confront in a way that maintains performance standards and strengthens relationships is really the only way for an organization or team not to eventually slide into mediocrity and dysfunction. Clearly this book is highly germane for Pastors and Christian leaders. (The authors also wrote the bestseller, Crucial Conversations, another excellent book.)

Change or Die by A. Deutschman. Fast Company. May, 2005. This is a thought-provoking article on what it takes to sustain long-term change. The author actually tracked medical patients who needed to maintain lifestyle changes post surgery or else they would die. The author connects the insights from successful interventions to ways businesses can successfully sustain significant change efforts. Certainly germane for today’s leaders.

Managing Yourself by S. Ghoshal and H. Bruch. Harvard Business Review. March, 2004. This is a stellar article. In studying hundreds of managers in varied business settings, the authors discovered that the most effective leaders found ways to manage demands, generate resources, and recognize and exploit alternatives. Ghoshal and Bruch provide vital insights into incorporating those qualities. One insight in particular was the key role that slowing down and reflecting played in developing more effective and strategic responses to work demands.

Moments of Greatness: Entering the Fundamental State of Leadership by Robert E. Quinn. Harvard Business Review. July-August, 2005. This is a brilliant article. With real clarity, Quinn differentiates what leadership looks like in a “normal” context, from how we function in “moments of greatness”. One rich idea is his insight that we perform at our highest levels when we are true to the best in ourselves, not when we are trying to copy a leadership guru. He also highlights the fundamental aspects of exceptional leadership, provides rich examples, and includes proven ways to move toward greatness on a more regular basis. Robert Quinn has also written a number of excellent leadership books, including Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within.

Seven Transformations of Leadership by D. Rooke, and W. Torbert. Harvard Business Review. April, 2005. This article is exceptional in its ability to clarify what differentiates minimal leadership up to the level they call transformational leadership. Drawing on their extensive experience, Rooke and Torbert classify the levels of leadership, highlight key distinctions between the levels, and make excellent suggestions on how to move from one level to another. They see your ability to examine and discuss your assumptions or action logic in challenging business situations as critical to growing as a leader.

Growth as a Process: an interview with Jeff Immelt by Thomas Stewart. Harvard Business Review, June 2006. Jeff Immelt is the CEO of GE and successor of larger than life Jack Welch. Five years after taking over GE, Immelt is pursuing aggressive growth goals, namely to grow at two or three times the world GDP. The article is a important read in the way Immelt is framing their growth process, and the way that customer focus, accountability (metrics) and empowerment are at the core of his model. For leaders, Immelt provides an excellent model of “working on the business, and not in the business,” a crucial skill for any leader.