10 Best Leadership Books [Updated 2025]
- Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader ( Get this book )
- On Becoming a Leader ( Get this book )
- Leadership and Self-Deception ( Get this book )
- Turn The Ship Around ( Get this book )
- Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust & Get Extraordinary Results ( Get this book )
- The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable ( Get this book )
- Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance ( Get this book )
- Manās Search For Meaning ( Get this book )
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You ( Get this book )
- Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business ( Get this book )
Let us discuss each leadership book in detail and its key takeaways and reviews.
#1 - Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader
by Herminia Ibarra
Book Review
An unorthodox book on leadership with some bold advice for managers to enhance their management skills. The author strongly advocates that leaders must experiment and learn from experience instead of being too cautious about taking risks. Itās been said too often that a leader needs to act and think like a leader, but interpretations can differ, and this author offers an interesting take on how to follow this mandate.
This leadership book stands out for the kind of practical advice afforded to the readers with stress on taking risks calculated to achieve more and motivate others to do better. It is a complete work on how to stand out and be recognized for your dynamic approach as a leader or in a position where you are entrusted with managing people and resources.
Key Takeaways
A book on leadership with a difference advocates more than usual experimentation and learning about things based on direct experience. The author offers useful, practical insights on how to be original and make it work while avoiding the fallacies of always āgoing by the rulebookā. A must-read for anyone who aspires to be a leader in business or any other sphere of life.
#2 - On Becoming a Leader
By Warren G. Bennis (Basic Books, 1989)
Book Review
This book seeks to redefine leadership and analyzes what goes into making a true leader. The author attempts to separate management from leadership and defines some of the core qualities required for leadership and how anyone can embark on the journey to become a leader with a determined effort in the right direction. He opines that people often tend to confuse āmanagingā for āleadingā when, in fact, these are two completely separate domains. As subjective as the subject might seem, he adopts a systematic approach for the readers to follow the advice with relative ease. An interesting and inspiring leadership book offers valuable insights into how leaders are āmadeā rather than āborn.ā
Key Takeaways
A thought-provoking work defines the fundamentals of leadership with almost a practiced finesse. Readers would understand better how leadership is unique and distinct from management, which is easy to mistake for the former. An essential read for prospective leaders, managers, and laypeople alike.
#3 - Leadership and Self-Deception
By Arbinger Institute (Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002)
Book Review
Developed by the Arbinger Institute, offers an interesting view of how we tend to deceive ourselves, which, in turn, limits what we can envision and achieve. The fundamental idea is that often we regard others merely as objects which either help or hinder our path to success or realize certain goals instead of treating them as real people with their hopes and aspirations. These two states of mind are defined as being āin the boxā where we are boxed in by our limited vision, which restricts our ability to grow as an individual or a leader. This book is about the self-deception that one needs to break away from and move āout of the boxā and adopt more of an inclusive view towards others. An eye-opening revelation into the psychology of leadership and its role in the success of a leader.
Key Takeaways
A path-breaking leadership book on how self-deception can come in oneās way of realizing their true potential as a leader. It offers an important lesson in how we need to stop looking at others as merely āresourcesā to be used for some purpose and start looking upon them as real people with goals to achieve. An interesting read on leadership for those who aspire to become leaders in the true sense of the word.
#4 - Turn The Ship Around
By L. David Marquet (Portfolio, 2013)
Book Review
A powerful book by a former commander of a US Navy submarine based on the real-life story of how he turned things around on their head and went ahead to realize his potential. Drawing on the lessons learned during his tenure, the author lays down the philosophy of developing leaders instead of followers who are not afraid to question and challenge authority when needed. It explores how the idea of leadership evolves from āleadingā to helping others āleadā in their own right and rewrite the rules in the processāa recommended read for managers and leaders in business or any other sphere of life.
Key Takeaways
Challenging conventional notions of leadership, the author shares his unique understanding of what it means to be a leader based on his real-life experience of leading the crew of a US Navy submarine. Learn why it is important for a leader to make the right choices and inspire others to lead for themselves, resulting in a better team effort on the whole.
#5 - Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust & Get Extraordinary Results
by Judith E. Glaser
Book Review
This leadership book discusses how building up the right conversations can lead to desired change and results. Based on neuroscientific research, the author expands the idea to suggest three levels of conversations, transactional, positional, and transformational, which play specific roles in interactions with the people around us. Unfortunately, most of our conversations are limited to the first two levels, either transactional, where we exchange information or data, or positional, where we tend to advocate certain views or inquire about others and rarely get to the transformational level of conversation where real change can happen. A fascinating book opens up new possibilities to discover oneās potential and be a leader with a difference.
Key Takeaways
Learn how the right conversations can change everything there is to being a leader and discover the true power of words with this work. The author has based much of this leadership book on the latest neuroscientific advances and suggests that depending on which level of conversation you are engaged in; one can achieve entirely different results. A must-read book for anyone to hone their communication and leadership skills.
#6 - The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
By Patrick M. Lencioni
Book Review
In essence, leadership is a lot about building great teams and avoiding common pitfalls which can make them underperform. Focusing specifically on that aspect, the author defines five common ills that might plague a team and stunt its growth while outlining ways of addressing these issues effectively to set oneās house in order. Adopting a powerful storytelling style, he conveys the message wonderfully well and later summarizes the pitfalls encountered along with their remedies. A highly useful book on leadership skills and how to build and manage teams that do away with much of the usual rhetoric on the topic.
Key Takeaways
This book is on building teams and managing them the right way while working to enhance efficiency in terms of the outcome. The author effectively utilizes a fictionalized narrative to drive home the message that leadership is not just about having a larger vision but also about being able to identify and address the challenges faced by a team. A commendable book on team building and management for anyone who works in a team or is entrusted with leading one.
#8 - Manās Search For Meaning
By Viktor Frankl
Book Review
A moving real-life story of grit and survival in the face of nothing less than the WWII holocaust will shake you to the core and, simultaneously encourage you to ask the right questions and look for a higher meaning of existence. The first part of this leadership book primarily discusses how the prisoners of a concentration camp found meaning in surviving in the face of unimaginable adversities. The second part is devoted to a unique psychotherapeutic approach developed by the author, which he calls logotherapy, as in 'meaning as a therapy.' An unusual work has inspired and motivated millions of readers worldwide to find meaning to strive and survive in the face of impossible odds.
Key Takeaways
If leadership is about the survival and triumph of the human spirit in the face of fearful odds, then this work is nothing less than a prized possession for anyone who aspires to lead or even simply to survive. Based on his own real-life experience, the author surmises that searching for meaning and being able to identify it is the key to surviving under almost any conditions. It gives you the most important thing needed for survival, purpose, and hope.
#9 - The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
by John C. Maxwell, Zig Ziglar (Foreword)
Book Review
A highly distilled version of a standard work on leadership that gets down to the task straight away and lays down specific principles one can apply diligently and consistently to excel as a leader. This leadership book shares the accumulated wisdom of nearly three decades of experience in the field, and most of it is rather unconventional compared to commonly held views on leadership. For instance, he suggests that 'leaders add value by serving others as they acquire greater value from others by being of value to them. In addition, his 'law of process' is based on the fundamental idea that 'leadership develops daily, not in a day.' Herein lies a complete philosophy of leadership, which is simple yet highly effective but rarely spelled out with such clarity. In short, a recommended read for leaders and managers faced with new challenges every day is looking for a fresh perspective on what leading is all about.
Key Takeaways
To lead might not be simple, but now you can learn to lead without any rhetoric in this elegant yet powerful work on leadership. Instead, the author has brought on board expertise in the field and presented well-formulated principles, which with a diligent application, would help nurture the leader within you. A must-read for aspiring leaders in business life, politics, or elsewhere.
#10 - Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business
by Charles Duhigg
Book Review
A standalone best book on leadership, enhancing productivity levels at work, pinpoints precise solutions to leadership challenges based on the latest findings in neuroscience, behavioral economics, and psychology. Important insights are offered based on leaders' experiences from diverse fields and how they discovered solutions to the challenges faced in their respective domains. A powerful guide to effectively managing how you think instead of focusing on what you think can make all the difference to the decision-making process. The author has done a beautiful job of bringing out the finer aspects of the science of productivity, which continue to elude so many. This book is a highly acclaimed work on what makes for a leader's good thought process and how to acquire it.
Key Takeaways
A detailed treatment of the art and science of productivity can serve as an invaluable guide for those aspiring to be tomorrow's leaders. The author has made painstaking efforts to synthesize scientific insights into thought processes with minute observations made by leaders in different areas of life to support the idea that it is how we think rather than what we think which can drive us to make some of the most impactful decisions possible. A marathon guides thinking with a difference so that we might make a difference.
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