We are constantly asked for book recommendations, so we are publishing a yearly list.
Below are our 10 selected readings for all those women and men who wish to develop their leadership skills, their careers, and make the best of their time, resources, and dreams, this year and beyond. Enjoy!
Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You, by Frances Frei
Frei is one of the world’s foremost authorities on leadership. In Unleashed, she teams up with Anne Morriss — a woman leader in the genomics industry — to teach leaders how to dig deep and empower others.
Leadership takes grit, toughness and the ability to motivate others. Frei and Morriss offer advice from top-performing organizations that can help you raise your game as a leader and pull others up along the way.
Inclusive Leadership, by Charlotte Sweeney and Fleur Bothwick
The most successful organisations are those with the most diverse and engaged workforces. Studies show an 80% improvement in business performance among those with high diversity levels. When people feel included and able to reach their full potential, they are more engaged, more productive and often more creative.
Inclusive Leadership will help you drive culture change using organisational development principles. It takes you through the key components of leading change throughout the employee lifecycle, your supply chain, and through product development. Crucially, it will help you make a genuine impact on your business, through your people, both now and in the future.
HBR’s 10 Must Reads 2021: The Definitive Management Ideas of the Year from Harvard Business Review
his book will inspire you to: Rethink whether constant, candid feedback really helps employees thrive; Move beyond diversity and inclusion to creating a racially just workplace; Adopt connected strategies that anticipate your customers’ needs; Navigate the challenges of dual-career relationships; Understand when data creates competitive advantage–and when it doesn’t; Break through the organizational barriers that impede AI initiatives; Lead in a new era of climate action.
The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are, by Alicia Menendez
Be nice, but not too nice. Be successful, but not too successful. Just be likeable. Whatever that means? Women are stuck in an impossible bind. At work, strong women are criticized for being cold, and warm women are seen as pushovers. An award-winning journalist examines this fundamental paradox and empowers readers to let go of old rules and reimagine leadership rather than reinventing themselves.
Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life, by Jim Kwik
Leaders must train their brains the same way elite athletes train their bodies. World-class brain coach Jim Kwik offers strategies in Limitless that you can use to expand your mind, improve your performance and tackle any obstacle.
From exercises that will help you change your mindset for the better to techniques that will help you read faster, make quicker decisions and easily master new skills, Kwik’s actionable advice makes this book a must-read.
Leading Without Authority, by Keith Ferrazzi
Entrepreneur, coach and author of the game-changing book Never Eat Alone, Ferrazzi presents a daring, research-backed model of collaborative work. Ferrazzi details a new principle, co-elevation, that enables employees at all levels of an organization to connect with colleagues, collaborate freely and inspire their shared growth. Leaders can learn how to use co-elevation in their own organizations to help their teams build trust, manage stress, and improve performance across the entire company.
How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change, by Stacey Abrahms
Convincing others—and yourself—that you are capable of taking charge and achieving more requires insight and courage. Lead from the Outside is the handbook for outsiders, written with an eye toward the challenges that hinder women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ community, and millennials ready to make change. Stacey uses her hard-won insights to break down how ambition, fear, money, and failure function in leadership, and she includes practical exercises to help you realize your own ambition and hone your skills.
Drop the Ball, by Tiffany Dufu
This book recounts how Dufu went beyond the “must do it all” trap. Eventually, she discovered the solution: letting go. learned to reevaluate expectations, shrink her to-do list, and meaningfully engage the assistance of others—freeing the space she needed to flourish at work and to develop deeper, more meaningful relationships at home. Packed with actionable advice, Drop the Ball urges women to embrace imperfection, to expect less of themselves and more from others—only then can they focus on what they truly care about, devote the necessary energy to achieving their real goals, and create the type of rich, rewarding life we all desire.
Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork, by Dan Sullivan and Dr. Benjamin Hardy
This book is for you if: You are a leader or team member looking for ways to optimize your execution, take action on visions you previously didn’t have time for and understand the value of building a team that truly works together.
Friday Forward: Inspiration & Motivation to End Your Week Stronger Than It Started, by Robert Glazer
Leadership depends on your ability to connect with and inspire others. This book from entrepreneur and Wall Street Journal bestselling author, offers actionable advice on how to do just that. It takes the 52 most impactful stories from Glazer’s inspirational newsletter of the same name, which reaches more than 100,000 readers in more than 60 countries.
The Memo, by Minda Harts
The Memo is the much-needed career advice guide for women of color specifically, finally ending the one-size-fits-all approach of business books that lump together women across races and overlook the unique barriers to success for women of color.