This year’s reading list is geared towards helping people develop as leaders. To me, being a good leader requires a variety of skills: self awareness and empathy (understanding yourself and those you lead and follow), clear thinking, strategic thinking (including systems thinking), an understanding of your context (the environment within which you are working), a robust understanding of your work, and some flare. The books below don’t cover all of these characteristics, but they are a good start. “Thinking about Thinking” helps leaders understand why they and others think the way they do. Strategic Thinking helps leaders understand where their problems exist within a larger context, and gives insight into what external things may be influencing your problems.
The section labeled “Leadership” touches on mentorship, motivation and creativity in leadership. If you are looking for a basic primer on straightforward techniques on leadership you can do a lot worse than the basic Army doctrine manual, Field Manual 6-22 Army Leadership.
“Thinking About the World” introduces some different opinions about some emerging areas influencing society. Data, social networks, different views that challenge conventional wisdom… the point is to question the accepted views on a variety of topics, not to change your mind but to exercise your ability to consider different views.
“Just to be Different” section is really about introducing and exercising divergent thinking. How might this make you a better leader? Look, everyone is trying to do the same things as everyone else, only better. The way I figure, everyone is trying so hard to be “normal” that we are missing out on the things that can really make a difference in our organizations. If you look throughout history for those folks who really made a difference you don’t find too many conformists. Yes, you have to figure out which rules you need to follow, but following the herd isn’t going to make you a great leader. Think differently.
The final section is geared towards my own organization and our specific context. You should develop a short reading list for your place as well. One of the best ways to get folks socialized is to send them a book that helps them understand their new firm before they arrive.
I know it’s a long list… but you have as long as it takes. I recommend reading one from each category, taking a break (read some fiction… I’ll recommend some in a later post), and then looping back through.
Thinking about Thinking
Future Bable: Why Expert Predictions Fail and Why We Believe them Anyway by Dan Gardner
Think! Before it’s too Late by Edward De Bono
A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink
Don’t Believe Everything You Think: The 6 Basic Mistakes We Make in Thinking by Thomas E. Kida
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
The Organized Mind: Thinking Straight in the Age of Information Overload by Daniel J. Levitin
Strategic Thinking
The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge
The Systems View of the World by Ervin Laszlo
The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations by Dietrich Dorner
Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement by William Duggan
Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything by Don Tapscott
Leadership
Grey Eminence: Fox Conner and the Art of Mentorship by Edward Cox
Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
Jamming: Art and Discipline of Business Creativity by John Kao
At Ease: Stories I Tell to Friends by Dwight D Eisenhower
Thinking about the World
The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined by Steven Pinker
Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell
Antifragile: Things that Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World by Bruce Schneier
Social Physics: How Social Networks Can Make Us Smarter by Alex Pentland
The Post-American World: Release 2.0 by Fareed Zakaria
Just to be Different
On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation by Alexandra Horowitz
The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom by Jonathan Haidt
Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace by Gordon MacKenzie
Deskbound: Standing Up to a Sitting World by Starrett, Kelly
Seeing What Others Don’t: The Remarkable Ways We Gain Insights by Gary Klein
Thinking about our Work (Corps of Engineers)
Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do And Why They Do It by James Wilson
Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water, Revised Edition by Marc Reisner
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Barry
Unquenchable: America’s Water Crisis and What To Do About It by Glennon J.D. Ph.D, Dr. Robert Jerome
The Road Taken: The History and Future of America’s Infrastructure by Henry Petroski