Regardless of the different preferences in leadership styles, true leaders are naturally curious individuals. At which point, learning is a constant commitment for oneself.
We now embrace various tools and techniques to help sharpen our perspective and holistic self. Signing up for online courses, reading books, and watching tutorial videos becomes a norm for professionals seeking to perform better at work. It's such a breath of fresh air to perceive developing leadership skills as an essential tool for self-growth; instead of a necessity for managerial positions in the corporate world.
So, if you are working on improving your leadership skills, you may want to check this list and read your favorites. For sure, your future self may thank you for doing such a habit.
1. How to Win Friends & Influence People by Dale Carnegie
One of the tough responsibilities a leader needs to face is handling different individuals with unique traits. How to Win Friends & Influence People is a book that teaches you how to manage a team without snatching their control over themselves. Dale Carnegie emphasizes the value of getting to know people and letting them feel important; by also avoiding resentment to foster.
Based on its wide-range audience testimonies, their lives improved by applying the teachings of Dale Carnegie. Additionally, the book's major idea is that changing one's character is possible to happen by changing one's reaction towards them. This classic books guarantees to turn relationships of any kind into a blossoming one; constantly improve them over time.
2. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
In 2002, the author, Daniel Kahneman won the prestigious Nobel prize in economic science. The book spans these three phases: Thinking, Fast and Slow. These phases work hand in hand to influence our decisions and judgments. Apparently, with Daniel Kahneman’s thorough explanation, this complex system is easy to understand only by knowing how it works.
Daniel makes it to a point to revolve his book to a profound and rich of intellectual surprises of self-value. Then, Kahneman exposes exceptional capabilities of our brain to think fast and also its tendency to biases and faults. He offers a practical guide to have wise decisions both in our personal and business lives.
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3. SPRINT by Jake Knapp, John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz
Where do you focus your effort to? How do you start? How to determine the right solution? These are several questions that leaders and entrepreneurs face every day. Thankfully, the three partners from Google Ventures have found a way to get us out of this dilemma.
Unlike the previous books, this serves as a practical guide for professionals, specifically, to solve critical problems in the most strategic and time-efficient way. Regardless of the size of an organization, this book comes in handy to test out new ideas within five days and come up with answers in a short period.
4. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
A handsome, celebratory edition of Peter Drucker is a highly recommended book to working professionals who wish to step up their leadership skills. It centralizes on the thought of getting the right things done.
Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge are key factors that are often overlooked by other people. For Peter, these extraordinary skills should not be put to waste, so he identifies five practices to make this useful. Time-management, valuable contribution, and metacognitive strategies are a few of his empirical approaches that are deemed useful in almost all business situations.
5. Start with Why by Simon Sinek
Think of the great leaders that the world has witnessed. What separates them from the rest? It's that they start with asking WHY. In this particular book, Simon Sinek expounds on the implicitness of this approach. Most companies know WHAT and HOW they do certain things. However, only a few know how to project their WHY. This is the company's cause, purpose, belief, or reason of existence. Simon advocates to start with WHY, talk over the HOW, and conclude with WHAT.
All these mentioned books are just the tip of the iceberg. It's quite astonishing that books about leadership are becoming a trend among all ages. Although it centralizes around the theme of leading, each book exists for a reason and is unique. So, whichever book you think that greatly resonates with your passion— begin with that. After all, honing leadership skills doesn't happen overnight.