This book came recommended to me from one of my current colleagues, who is relatively new to management. He found this book invaluable in juggling the often conflicting priorities of being effective and being compassionate. ​

It drives home the important point that sometimes being compassionate means being honest with someone, which we all need work on doing better (including me). Sugarcoating rarely benefits people in the long run.

This book offers up practical strategies for how to deliver important messages and still remain your and others' dignity.

This book was first introduced to me by one of my mentors when I first stepped into a senior management role. It's been an invaluable guide, and I've now used it multiple times when mentoring aspiring leaders and high performers.

From Amazon:
In The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John C. Maxwell combines insights learned from his 40-plus years of leadership successes and mistakes with observations from the worlds of business, politics, sports, religion, and the military.

Some highlights of the revised edition of this New York Times best-seller, which has sold more than a million copies, include:

• Every chapter has been revised.
• Two chapters - "The Law of Addition" and "The Law of the Picture" - are entirely new.
• Seventeen new stories are included.
• Six chapters are 50% revised.
• Five chapters are 75% revised.
• Application pieces follow every chapter. 

​So whether you reading this book for the first time or re-reading the revised and updated version, as always, you will walk away with a few golden nuggets of impactful leadership truths.

Don't let the title fool you. This book is not just for extreme financial freedom aficionados, this little gem is useful whether you're an 8-5 corporate type, an intrapreneur, or an entrepreneur. The lessons about how to leverage resources, delegate, and grow multiple revenue streams are applicable to all.

I credit this book more than any other in shifting my mindset and accelerating my career. And, it's a fun read. What's not to like?

From Amazon:
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan–there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, or earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint. 

This step-by-step guide to luxury lifestyle design teaches: 
• How Tim went from $40,000 per year and 80 hours per week to $40,000 per month and 4 hours per week
• How to outsource your life to overseas virtual assistants for $5 per hour and do whatever you want
• How blue-chip escape artists travel the world without quitting their jobs
• How to eliminate 50% of your work in 48 hours using the principles of a forgotten Italian economist
• How to trade a long-haul career for short work bursts and frequent “mini-retirements”

The new expanded edition of Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek includes:
• More than 50 practical tips and case studies from readers (including families) who have doubled income, overcome common sticking points, and reinvented themselves using the original book as a starting point
• Real-world templates you can copy for eliminating e-mail, negotiating with bosses and clients, or getting a private chef for less than $8 a meal
• How Lifestyle Design principles can be suited to unpredictable economic times
• The latest tools and tricks, as well as high-tech shortcuts, for living like a diplomat or millionaire without being either

The classic book on being a more effective executive by focusing on the things that matter. One note: you'll need to overlook the obvious sexist references to managers as "he", given that this book was written over a half-century ago. But the advice is sound and timeless for managers from any background.

From Amazon:
The measure of the executive, Peter Drucker reminds us, is the ability to "get the right things done." This usually involves doing what other people have overlooked as well as avoiding what is unproductive. Intelligence, imagination, and knowledge may all be wasted in an executive job without the acquired habits of mind that mold them into results.
Drucker identifies five practices essential to business effectiveness that can, and must, be learned:

• Management of time
• Choosing what to contribute to the practical organization
• Knowing where and how to mobilize strength for best effect
• Setting up the right priorities
• And Knitting all of them together with effective decision making

Ranging widely through the annals of business and government, Peter Drucker demonstrates the distinctive skill of the executive and offers fresh insights into old and seemingly obvious business situations.

This is a must-read. The Innovator's Dilemma explains why large established companies so often fail to compete against new entrants, and what you can to do to avoid this trap.

From Amazon:
​The bestselling classic on disruptive innovation, by renowned author Clayton M. Christensen.

His work is cited by the world’s best-known thought leaders, from Steve Jobs to Malcolm Gladwell. In this classic bestseller—one of the most influential business books of all time—innovation expert Clayton Christensen shows how even the most outstanding companies can do everything right—yet still lose market leadership.

Christensen explains why most companies miss out on new waves of innovation. No matter the industry, he says, a successful company with established products will get pushed aside unless managers know how and when to abandon traditional business practices.

Offering both successes and failures from leading companies as a guide, The Innovator’s Dilemma gives you a set of rules for capitalizing on the phenomenon of disruptive innovation.

Sharp, cogent, and provocative—and consistently noted as one of the most valuable business ideas of all time—The Innovator’s Dilemma is the book no manager, leader, or entrepreneur should be without.

This book was instrumental for me learning how to test ideas using data, fail fast, and keep a beginner's mindset as I approach new markets and products. Hopefully you get as much out of it as I did.

From Amazon:
Most startups fail. But many of those failures are preventable.  The Lean Startup is a new approach being adopted across the globe, changing the way companies are built and new products are launched. 

Eric Ries defines a startup as an organization dedicated to creating something new under conditions of extreme uncertainty. This is just as true for one person in a garage or a group of seasoned professionals in a Fortune 500 boardroom. What they have in common is a mission to penetrate that fog of uncertainty to discover a successful path to a sustainable business. 

The Lean Startup approach fosters companies that are both more capital efficient and that leverage human creativity more effectively.  Inspired by lessons from lean manufacturing, it relies on “validated learning,” rapid scientific experimentation, as well as a number of counter-intuitive practices that shorten product development cycles, measure actual progress without resorting to vanity metrics, and learn what customers really want. It enables a company to shift directions with agility, altering plans inch by inch, minute by minute. 

Rather than wasting time creating elaborate business plans, The Lean Startup offers entrepreneurs - in companies of all sizes - a way to test their vision continuously, to adapt and adjust before it’s too late. Ries provides a scientific approach to creating and managing successful startups in a age when companies need to innovate more than ever.

This book changed my life (well, professional anyway), dramatically improving how I approached building support and delivering on new ideas. If you haven't already checked it out, do so. Now! This one is a must-read for how to be effective in today's business environment. Many thanks to one of my great mentors, Mike S, for introducing me to it.

From Amazon:
Millions worldwide have read and embraced John Kotter’s ideas on change management and leadership.
From the ill-fated dot-com bubble to unprecedented M&A activity to scandal, greed, and ultimately, recession—we’ve learned that widespread and difficult change is no longer the exception. It’s the rule. Now with a new preface, this refreshed edition of the global bestseller Leading Change is more relevant than ever.

John Kotter’s now-legendary eight-step process for managing change with positive results has become the foundation for leaders and organizations across the globe. By outlining the process every organization must go through to achieve its goals, and by identifying where and how even top performers derail during the change process, Kotter provides a practical resource for leaders and managers charged with making change initiatives work. Leading Change is widely recognized as his seminal work and is an important precursor to his newer ideas on acceleration published in Harvard Business Review.

Needed more today than at any time in the past, this bestselling business book serves as both visionary guide and practical toolkit on how to approach the difficult yet crucial work of leading change in any type of organization. Reading this highly personal book is like spending a day with the world’s foremost expert on business leadership. You’re sure to walk away inspired—and armed with the tools you need to inspire others.