People say that in order to become an excellent leader, you need to be born as one – however, it’s only partly true. It is very rare for a person to be born with all the necessary skills and the right mindset; that’s why knowledge and experience are so vital to success. Leadership and management fields are no different here, no matter the organization or industry.
There are some incredibly intuitive people who seem to know all the essential answers without looking for them, and they indeed constitute the right material for becoming excellent leaders. However, the gut feeling is not enough; you will also need some specifics, e.g., strategies. The in-depth knowledge about the company and its people, as well as the right management techniques, are crucial to maintaining efficiency, productivity, and a good atmosphere within any team.
The traits you were born with or gained throughout your life are vital, but you also need to know how to use them to your and your organization’s benefit. And that’s when books and courses come in handy.
In this article, we share our list of the best books on leadership and management that we recommend, and you will also learn why we find them helpful for honing your skills.
Can you really learn something useful from a leadership book? Can it change the way you think and how you manage your team? Read on to find out!
What Are Leadership and Management?
Leadership has nothing to do with position and seniority; sometimes, a leader may not even be a manager. Leadership means leading others to a common goal, inspiring and motivating people to achieve it. Of course, a good manager will need all the essential leadership skills to succeed, combining authority with affability.
Management, on the other hand, is simply the process of dealing with and controlling people, tasks, and other things involved in an organization’s daily work. Every manager organizes the work, plans and distributes the tasks, as well as oversees the progress. It’s highly helpful and more beneficial for an organization when a manager is also a good leader.
The Best Leadership and Management Business Books
1. On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis
Warren Bennis supports the same conviction we do – that leaders are made, not born, hence becoming in the title of his book. The book has been serving as a source of knowledge and inspiration for decades now, and you can still find a lot of useful information there. From the qualities of the perfect leader, through specific examples of successful people, to particular strategies, Bennis’s book keeps educating more and more future leaders and managers.
2. First, Break All the Rules. What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman
Precisely as suggested by the subtitle, this book presents different management styles based on the most successful leaders and organizations researched and analyzed by the authors. An advisory company called Gallup has studied over 80,000 managers to answer the most commonly asked questions and back the solutions with relevant data. The title comes from the conclusion that, even though there are many different management styles, all successful managers have one thing in common – they aren’t afraid to first break all the rules (or at least some of them).
3. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change is even more advantageous due to the fact its content can be …
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