Relevant Books and How to Skim Them

There are said to be 3000 books a year published on leadership and related items. That’s not counting general self-help, personal growth and development nor does it include human resources and organization effectiveness, which are the corporate offshoots.

I update a book list periodically of items I’ve found helpful, but there is no way to keep up with the flood. I’m always thrilled when people suggest new books and I even try to “triage” them (my word for skimming the contents, covers and a few interesting sections). No one could possibly read them all, nor is it easy to keep up with the flood of blogs and communities in your chosen area.

I offer these in the knowledge that they are limited, but in hopes they may stimulate some thinking about how to handle the flood of information we all face:

Related Books and How to Skim Them

Here are the books referred to in the link above, focused on the five skill areas:

Overall Leadership and Balance:
Good To Great (and Built to Last with Jerry Porras -1st book) – Jim Collins – What creates the
greatest success for business (long term core values) and leaders (ability to focus goals not ego).
Winning – Jack Welch – An exceptional, clear view of a top company leader’s thinking and
methods. Written from his view as CEO of GE, but with excellent fundamentals.
The Extraordinary Leader – John (Jack) Zenger and Joseph Folkman – Five fatal flaws.
The Five Patterns of Extraordinary Careers – James M. Citrin & Richard A. Smith –
Outlining the five keys for executives moving through careers – mirroring the five keys to
leadership.
What Works Best – Nitin Nohria – the “4+2” elements of successful, broader, business strategy.
Flight of the Buffalo – James Belasco & Ralph Stayer – Leaders describe how they learned that
the most effective leadership style is to transfer ownership to those led and support them.
Finding Flow – Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi – Interesting view of what creates “happy and effective.”

Feeling Positive:
Learned Optimism – Marty Seligman – Optimists are far more consistently successful.
The Positive Power of Negative Thinking: Using Defensive Pessimism to Harness Anxiety
and Perform at Your Peak – Julie Norem – Identifies negative thinkers who were able to use
that to motivate great work. Imagining all worst cases, they pleasantly surprised themselves.

Creative Thinking/Strategy/Ideas:
Polarity Management – Barry Johnson – Simplifies identifying and using paradoxes
strategically.
Six Hats (and others) – Edward De Bono – The guru of creative thinking.
Time Management for Unmanageable People – Anne McGee-Cooper – Finding a creative,
comfortable style of time management uniquely suited to you.
Time Management from the Inside Out – Julie Morgenstern – Lots of good exercises.
Organizing from the Inside Out – Julie Morgenstern –Organizing to get control of your
situation.

Honesty and Resilience:
The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, is the Key…. – James Loehr’s
new book and Toughness Training for Life – finding ways to rest, recharge and maximize.
Leadership Passages – David Dotlich – Key life/work events that help executives develop.
Geeks and Geezers – Warren Bennis – The essential value for all levels and generations of
executives of learning to overcome adversity, from a world renown author of 22 leadership
books.
The Relaxation Response – Herbert Benson – The classic work on how to relax.
Life Strategies – Phil McGraw – How many ways we sabotage ourselves.
Stop Screaming at the Microwave and I Used to Have a Handle on Life, But It Broke…
Mary LoVerde… not for women only.
Finding a Joyful Life in the Heart of Pain – Darlene Cohen – Surviving even constant pain.
A Path With Heart – Jack Kornfield – A wonderful Zen book for resting and recharging.
How to Change your Entire Life by Doing Absolutely Nothing – Karen Salmansohn – Fun+.

Action and Habits:
The Wealthy Barber – David Chilton – A successful Canadian on financial planning. Notice how
powerfully simple habits you continue over a long time can dramatically improve your results.
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done – Larry Bossidy – business advice.
Practice What You Preach – David Maister – Simple questions that make business leaders great.
Organizing for the Creative Person – Dorothy Lehmkul & Dolores Cotter Lamping
Leadership from the Inside Out – Kevin Cashman – A great leadership/coaching manual.
Learning to Lead – Jay Conger – Leadership can be learned – 4 typical approaches.
The Heart of Coaching – Thomas Crane – How coaching others creates transformation.

Other Possibilities:
Complexity – Mitchell Waldrop – A readable story of how he learned about complexity.
Management of the Absurd: Paradoxes in Leadership – Richard Farson – Fascinating
paradoxes such as “Effective managers are not in control.”
The Big Five Personality Psychology factors: where to find out more –
Regardless of personality preferences, can you develop effective behaviors?
Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion (or Surgency – a tendency toward external action),
appears in the psychiatric form which measures Neuroticism – the opposite end of the scale);
Sample test and more detailed descriptions via Ulrich Schimmak’s page:
http://www.erin.utoronto.ca/~w3psyuli/survey/bigfive/bigfive.htm

More recent books, not necessarily foundation works:

[These will be added periodically as the site grows.]

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