Leaders are readers. My book recommendations for you >>

The Creative Act: A Way of Being | Rick Rubin

Rick Rubin is known for: creating a space where artists of all different genres and traditions can home in on who they really are and what they really offer. Over the years, as he has thought deeply about where creativity comes from and where it doesn’t, he has learned that being an artist isn’t about your specific output; it’s about your relationship to the world. Creativity has a place in everyone’s life, and everyone can make that place larger. 

Build | Tony Fadell

An unorthodox guide to making things worth making, from 'the father of the iPod and iPhone' and the creator of Nest. Everyone deserves a mentor.
For every career crisis, every fork in the road, you need someone to talk to. Someone who's been there before, who knows exactly how wobbly and conflicted you feel, who can give it to you straight.

The Earned Life | Marshall Goldsmith

“We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort we make in each moment align with an overarching purpose in our lives, regardless of the eventual outcome.”

That’s the definition of an earned life. But for many of us, that pesky final phrase is a stumbling block: “regardless of the eventual outcome.” Not being attached to the outcome goes against everything we’re taught about achievement and fulfillment in modern society.

On The Way To New Work | Allmers, Magnussen, Trautmann

What is behind New Work, what are the benefits and how does it work? "On The Way to New Work" aims to empower people for their working lives. It is a companion on the path to New Work and provides a sound overview as well as concrete tools to bring the term to life. The book inspires people to try out new things and rethink their way of thinking, while offering numerous starting points for what this can look like in everyday life.

Emotion By Design | Greg Hoffman

Innovative strategies for success from former Nike CMO Greg Hoffman, who had a major hand in crafting Nike’s singular brand and was instrumental in its most high-profile breakthrough campaigns. Hoffman shares lessons and stories on the power of creativity drawn from almost three decades of experience within Nike. A celebration of ingenuity and a call-to-arms for brand-builders to rediscover the human element in forming consumer bonds.

Grow | Jim Stengel

Ten years of research uncovers those who center their business on improving people’s lives have a growth rate triple that of competitors and outperform the market by a huge margin. They dominate their categories, create new categories and maximize profit in the long term.

The Decision Maker: Unlock the Potential of Everyone | Dennis Bakke

How giving decisions to the people closest to the action can transform any organization. When leaders put real control into the hands of their people, they tap incalculable potential.

What Technology Wants | Kevin Kelly

A sweeping vision of technology as a living force that can expand our individual potential. By adopting the principles of pro-action and engagement, we can steer technologies into their best roles. And by aligning ourselves with the long-term imperatives of this near-living system, we can capture its full gifts.

Fanocracy | David Meerman Scott, Reiko Scott

A bold guide to converting customer passion into marketing power. For anyone who seeks to harness the force of fandom to revolutionize his or her business.

The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters | Priya Parker

At a time when coming together is more important than ever, Parker sets forth a human-centered approach to gathering that will help everyone create meaningful, memorable experiences, large and small, for work and for play. This book will forever alter the way you look at your next meeting, industry conference and dinner party --and how you host and attend them.

Strategy for Sustainability: A Business Manifesto | Adam Werbach

More than ever before, consumers, employees, and investors share a common purpose and a passion for companies that do well by doing good. The definitive work on business strategy for sustainability by the most authoritative voice in the conversation.

Zero to One | Peter Thiel, Blake Masters

Zero to One presents a new way of thinking about innovation: it starts by learning to ask the questions that lead you to find value in unexpected places. Tomorrow’s champions will not win by competing ruthlessly in today’s marketplace. They will escape competition altogether, because their businesses will be unique.

How to Raise Successful People | Esther Wojcicki

This book offers essential lessons for raising, educating, and managing people to their highest potential. Change your parenting, change the world. The Godmother of Silicon Valley, legendary teacher, and mother of a Super Family shares her methods for raising happy, healthy, successful children using Trust, Respect, Independence, Collaboration, and Kindness: TRICK.

Working Backwards: Insights from Inside Amazon | Colin Bryar, Bill Carr

Working Backwards gives an insider's account of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time, top-level Amazon executives. It shows how success is achieved by commitment to and execution of a set of well-defined, rigorously-executed principles and practices that you can apply at your own company, no matter the size.

Holacracy: The Revolutionary Management System | Brian J. Robertson

In traditional companies, managers make decisions, and workers execute the plan. But Holacracy is a revolutionary and tried-and-tested new system which turns everyone into a leader. The organisation looks like a nest of circles, not a pyramid. Brian Robertson explains how to adopt this system across your organisation, within your department or for yourself.

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? | Louis V. Gerstner

Only one company has been at the pinnacle of an industry, fallen to near collapse, and then, beyond anyone's expectations, returned to set the agenda. The first-hand story of IBM’s extraordinary turnaround, a unique case study in managing a crisis, and the principles of leadership. CEO Gerstner tells the story of IBM's competitive and cultural transformation.

How Brands Grow: What Marketers Don't Know | Byron Sharp

This book provides evidence-based answers to the key questions asked by marketers every day. Tackling issues such as how brands grow, how advertising really works, what price promotions really do and how loyalty programs really affect loyalty. This is contra to most marketing texts.

The Art of War | Sun-tzu, Sunzi

Preserved in China for more than 2,000 years. This book offers principles of strategy, tactics, maneuvering, and communications, the treatment of soldiers, the importance of strong troops and well-trained officers, and the administration of rewards and punishments. More recently, it has also been viewed as a valuable guide to competing successfully in business.

HBR's 10 Must Reads on Emotional Intelligence | Harvard Business Review Press

If you read nothing else on emotional intelligence, read these 10 articles by experts in the field. This book will inspire you to: monitor and channel your moods and emotions, make smart, empathetic people decisions, manage conflict and regulate emotions within your team, react to tough situations with resilience, better understand your strengths, weaknesses, needs, values, and goals, develop emotional agility.

How the Mighty Fall | Jim Collins

Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. By understanding the stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom. Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover.

The Laws of Simplicity | John Maeda

John Maeda offers ten laws for balancing simplicity and complexity in business, technology, and design—guidelines for needing less and actually getting more. "Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful."

Trillion Dollar Coach | Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, Alan Eagle

Bill Campbell played an instrumental role in the growth of several prominent companies, such as Google, Apple, and Intuit, fostering deep relationships with Silicon Valley visionaries, including Steve Jobs, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt. This business genius mentored dozens of other important leaders leaving behind a legacy of growing companies, successful people, respect, friendship, and love after his death in 2016.