Lately I’m always the oldest guy in the room when I am meeting with leaders. I’m the one who has two pairs of reading glasses in his pocket, just in case. I’m the one smiling and nodding at cultural references I don’t understand. I’m the one who never passes up the opportunity for a bathroom break. One thing I’ve noticed between fumbling for my glasses and Googling “almond mom” is what might be the lack of a solid foundation of leadership development among some newer leaders. They migh know the right phrases, but they don’t always understand the concepts behind the phrases. (Team work does make the dream work, but what I really need to know is why no one locked the building last night.) I know what I’m talking about because I was exactly like them when I was a 28 year old youth pastor.
I’ll never forget my first Prevailing Church Conference at Willow Creek Community Church. It was the first time I’d heard things like the 3 C’s of team selection and the importance of leadership as a spiritual gift. My mind was spinning as I walked through the airport on my way to my plane home. In the window of a bookstore I saw a just released book called, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. I had never read a secular leadership book, so this seemed as good a place as any to start. I swallowed hard when I saw the $9.95 price tag, that was a lot of money on a youth pastor’s salary, but I decided to splurge. Who knew, maybe I could even learn something from a Mormon.
And, like Alice following the White Rabbit down the rabbit hole, I began my journey of leadership development. Below are a few of the books that have been pivotal on my path of discovery. Most of these books are now old, maybe even outdated, but they form the foundation of my leadership. Many of the ways I lead go back to principles I first learned in these books, and I find that many of the newer books I read and podcasts I listen to are built on these same principles. If you are close to my age you likely have many of these books in your library, and if you are younger you probably should at least check them out. The writers may be of a different generation, but the foundation they build is timeless. So let me introduce you to the faculty in my personal school of leadership.
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Covey’s habits are so ingrained in leadership culture many people don’t know he first coined the terms “paradigm shift”, “begin with the end in mind’, and “think win/win.” Long before James Clear wrote Atomic Habits Covey wrote, “private victories precede public victories…making and keeping promises to ourselves precedes making and keeping promises to others.”
The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard
One of the best principles from The One Minute Manager is catching people doing something right and praising them for it. There is so much more power in praising people for what they are doing well than in correcting them when they mess up.
Developing the Leader Within You by John Maxwell
This is the Bible of leadership development. If you are a leader and haven’t read this book you are probably doing it wrong. (Don’t panic, almost every leadership book you’ve read is somewhat based on the principles in this 1993 classic.) This is where we learned that “leadership is influence”, “the price tag of leadership is self-discipline”, and “people do not care how much you know until they know how much you care.”
Good to Great by Jim Collins
This is the first of Collins’ trilogy of influential studies on the difference between companies that succeed and companies that fail. (Built to Last and How the Mighty Fall complete the set. Good to Great in the Social Sectors is a good sequel as well.) Two enduring principles are the Hedgehog Concept (What are we the best in the word at?” and the Flywheel Effect (Consistent effort over time produces huge results.)
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
I have a love/hate relationship with Lencioni. I am not a fan of the fable format, even though The One Minute Manager also made this list. On the other hand I’ve read every one of Lencioni’s books because the leadership principles are so spot on. Five Dysfunctions of a Team was my gateway drug to Death by Meeting, The Advantage, and The Working Genius. 22 years after publication these are still the five dysfunctions that cripple all bad teams.
The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Leaders working IN the business rather than working ON the business is still the number one thing I find that keeps organizations from growing. Leaders like to tinker, fiddle, fix, and do deep dives into the weeds rather than lead.
The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan, Stephen Drotter and James Noel
The term leadership pipeline has become so commonplace that most leaders don’t realize it was first coined in 2001 by these authors. I remember being at a Leadership Network event with my brother Greg and Mac Lake when we heard one of the authors outline the idea of a pipeline connected to competencies. It was a game changer for how to think about leadership development.
Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
It was hard to pick this book over Switch, but Made to Stick came first. I think about Commanders Intent and the Curse of Knowledge almost every week in my own leadership, but I also analyze change through the paradigm of the elephant, the rider, and the path. You should read both just to be safe.
Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald Clifton
Discover Your Strengths fits in a stream of personal leadership development books that began for me with Please Understand Me, and includes titles like The Road Back to You, and Working Genius. I find that tools like Strength Finders, DISC, Meyers-Briggs, and Ennegram help me understand myself and others, and helps us work together more effectively.
These are just nine of the books that make up my leadership foundation. I’ve left out The Essential Drucker, The Leadership Challenge, The First 90 Days, and dozens of other books. I’ve also omitted most of the books I’ve read in the past few years, not because they aren’t good, but because they are building on the foundation of the first 30 years of reading on leadership.
What books did I leave out that have been foundational in your leadership development?
