Elevate Your Leadership Skills: Must-Read Books for Summer 2023
My friend and colleague George Raine, founder of Montana HR, distinguishes books into two categories. Those worth investing your time and money in, and those to read while standing at an airport bookstore.
I recently came across a great HBR article on how to read a business book by organizational anthropologist Tim Clark (and author of the notable The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety) that seeks to help us read books worth our time while ensuring we maximize the time spent reading. Clark’s article gives credence and a method for differentiating George’s airport books from worthwhile ones.
One of the purposes of my twice-a-year book list articles is in service to Clark’s objective to help you make informed and helpful choices for your reading regimen. His article reminds us of a few useful tips for choosing books and then tips on how to read them to advance our professional development.
Here are a few that stood out for me:
Read to learn about something challenging for you, be it a capability you want to strengthen, enlighten or examine a choice you must make or better understand a circumstance you’re facing.
Focus first on the introduction. If the book is worth your time, the intro will pique your interest by summarizing the subject, contextualizing the issue, and describing the central concept.
Scan the table of contents, titles and captions, and chapter summaries. Then skim the book’s conclusion. If the introduction and the preceding book sections don’t do it for you, consider Raine’s recommendation of skimming it at the airport bookstore.
Now, here are my top reading recommendations for Summer 2023:
Must-Read Books for Summer 2023
Dear Work: Something Has to Change by Sara Ross, Page Two Books, January 2023. The book starts with a compelling and highly relatable letter from the Canadian author to her work which she signs, “Exhausted, but still yours.” Chapter one opens with “Frazzled. Fried. Fed up.” and goes on to examine our relationship with our work, how we define success, and the critical questions of stress and energy. She explores the difference between working excessively and working efficiently, investigates a vitality score, and challenges the beliefs of those who are swept up in the ways of workplaces that insidiously propagate burnout culture.
The Resilience Roadmap: 7 Guideposts for Charting Your Course in a Chaotic World by Mark Black, Publish Your Purpose, June 2023. Full disclosure: Mark is a friend, colleague, and an inspiration. From his website: “Born with a life-threatening heart defect, Mark underwent two open-heart surgeries before age one. Twenty-two years later, he survived a perilous heart and double-lung transplant. Three years later, Mark became the only man in history to run a marathon with someone else’s heart and lungs. Then he did it three more times. Mark doesn't just teach resilience; he embodies it. The author of Live Life from the Heart, Mark has travelled the globe as an author, speaker, and coach, sharing strategies and tactics for building resilience.”
Culture Shock: An Unstoppable Force Has Changed How We Work and Live. Gallup's Solution to The Biggest Leadership Issue of Our Time by Jim Clifton and Jim Harter, Gallup Press, May 2023. When it comes to employee engagement and what leaders and managers need to know, Clifton and Harter, backed by Gallup’s science, global reach, and data-driven rigour, provide guidance and the necessary insight to lead and manage in the new post-pandemic workplace.
Magic Words: What to Say to Get Your Way by Jonah Berger, Harper Business, March 2023. The Wharton School’s Professor Jonah Berger is an expert in influence, word of mouth, and change and an internationally best-selling author who wants to help you have more impact by choosing your words, conveying confidence and asking the right questions.
In case you missed them:
You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate Our Power of Persuasion, and Why It Matters by Vanessa Bohns, Norton & Company, 2021. Rather than teach you how to influence as many other authors do, professor and social psychologist Bohns helps you realize and tap into your already influential self. The book is blurbed by the most credible of influence experts, Robert Cialdini.
The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stainer, Page Two Books, 2019. Highly recommended and with good reason by my friend, colleague, certified coach and coaching champion Mary D’Arcy.
The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious and Change The Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stainer, Page Two Books, 2020.