In our experience, if a business book has three ideas that are worthwhile considering and adopting, it is a good read. That isn’t a very high threshold, to be sure, but it seems to fit for us – there aren’t many books with even three good ideas!
Here are two:
“The Trust Edge”, by David Horsager. A couple of years old, but it covers what is perhaps an obvious component of successful leadership, yet one that is considered a given by many people. That component is trust.
This book offers some stories, self-assessments, suggestions and tips on how to figure out what sort of trust score you have and how to improve it. If you lead people, read it.
“The Five Tempations of a CEO”, by Patrick Lencioni. This is a book from 1998 and might be seen by some as being not sufficiently current to be useful. One of the most oft-cited books on leadership is “The Prince” by Niccolo Machiavelli. It remains relevant and instructional 500 years after being published. So … read this book. It is set in a style and manner that is reminiscent of “It’s a Wonderful World”; it’s a fable and a bit corny perhaps, but it talks about the most important leadership characteristics: results, accountability, clarity, conflict, trust. See, I tied the two books together!
Read them and let me know how they work for you.
Leadership, Change and Performance - Michael's View 