Carver’s Top Five Books for Leaders
I've had the opportunity to work for many great leaders during my career and one of the common denominators among them is the quality of books they read. The information that we regularly consume shapes who we are and how we think. If you're constantly picking up leadership books and working on sharpening your leadership skills, you have a much better chance at becoming a successful leader. Although there are many great leadership books out there, There are many great leadership books out there, I haven't had the chance to read all of them. The point of this blog is to summarize and rank the books that I have read.
Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink, Leif Babin
Extreme Ownership makes the top spot for a few different reasons. One primary reason is that the book's format facilitates easy reading and retention. The authors, Jocko and Leif, start each chapter by recalling a story from their time as a Navy Seal, then tie the lesson learned from that mission to a business application. Our brains are trained to remember concepts by linking one memory to another, and Extreme Ownership does an amazing job of this. Another reason it makes the top of the list is because of the main concept they are driving home throughout the book. Once a leader acknowledges their ultimate accountability for the team's actions and begins to embrace ownership of their roles and responsibilities, they unlock their true potential. Making the switch in your head from being the victim to taking ownership takes a high level of emotional intelligence and is a key to leadership success.
When I was starting out on my leadership journey this was a hard concept for me to grasp. I looked for others to blame when things went wrong and often times complained about things being out of my control. As I slowly made the transition to taking ownership over my team and situation, the chaos I had created began to subside. It begins with acknowledging your responsibility for the issues at hand, even considering the possibility that you might be the root of the problem. There's always going to be obstacles that are going to be beyond your control, but at the end of the day the success or failure of your organization falls on the leaders' shoulders. Effective leaders optimize the things they can control and look for ways to reduce the risk of things that they cannot control.
2. Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork by Dan Sullivan
Who Not How offers a profound exploration of what it truly means to be a leader, highlighting the importance of empowering others to work alongside you rather than tackling everything solo. Although this book is written mainly for entrepreneurs, all of the concepts can be applied to corporate leadership as well. Often, individuals who excel in a particular skill find themselves promoted to lead in that very area of expertise. The first trap that these new leaders fall into is “I'll just do it myself because I can do it better, faster, more efficiently etc.” When I was first starting out I fell into the I'll do it myself trap multiple times, and I've seen seasoned leaders fall into it as well. The concepts in Who Not How help to break down this natural tendency and empower others to contribute to the team as a whole. Once you allow your team to contribute, you create the most important thing of all: time.
In smaller companies it is also common to have many different responsibilities as a leader. The team you're part of might not be sizable enough to assign dedicated individuals to every function of the business. I've found myself in this situation before and instead of looking for great leaders with the skill sets that I didn't posses, I tried to keep doing everything myself. I learned many lessons the hard way through that experience. The most important take away from that experience is that it's much better to invest time finding the right people to solve your problems than it is to try and solve them yourself. Once I changed my strategy and spent time finding the right managers, the challenges that I was facing seemed to go away on their own. Successful leadership starts with the team of "whos" that you have around you. If you surround yourself with effective leaders and develop your team, the "how" solves itself.
3. The Work of Management: A Daily Path to Sustainable Improvement by Jim Lancaster
Creating sustainable systems that keep your team aligned on a daily basis is crucial for success. As a leader, one of your main jobs is to cast clear vision for everyone else to follow. In many cases, high performing teams have a single goal to work towards with authentic leadership leading the charge. The Work of Management tells the story of how Jim Lancaster led his team at Lantec through a transformation by implementing a daily management system. He explains in detail how dedicating 60 to 90 minutes of your day to following up with your team makes all of the difference. This book is more geared towards manufacturing facilities, but the concepts can be applied to many different types of business. If you find it hard to hold your team accountable to goals and milestones then this book is a must read. This will also pave the way for reducing meetings and fostering meaningful communication.
If you're looking for a book on leading in a manufacturing organization,The Work of Management, is one of the best books you can pick up. I've implemented daily management systems like Jim Lancaster describes, and they transformed the organizations I was leading. Personally, whiteboards are my favorite method of communication when it comes to daily management systems. They clearly present the top items of importance in the area they're in and give power to the people within that area to solve their own problems. These whiteboard systems also give individuals a chance to show off their accomplishments on a daily basis and foster quick problem solving.
4. Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud
As an overwhelming optimist, Necessary Endings was crucial book for my leadership development. Many believe that success in leadership hinges on knowing the right actions to take, but often it's equally crucial to discern what not to do. Additionally, it involves swiftly learning how to cease doing the wrong things. As the name suggests, this is the underlying concept in Necessary Endings, and Dr. Cloud explains the many facets behind knowing when to stop doing one thing and move on to another. He dedicates time to explaining the human aspects of these decisions, clarifying how every ending signifies a fresh start.
Over the years, one of my favorite parts of leadership has been hiring new employees and giving them an opportunity to grow and learn. Unfortunately, not all people have fit into the roles that they've accepted. This leads me to one of my least favorite things about leadership, firing employees.
In the early stages of my leadership journey, I struggled with letting go of employees, which ultimately harmed the team more than it benefitted the individual I was hesitant to release. Often times it hurt the employee that was in the wrong role, as they might have a better opportunity elsewhere if I had helped them find a better fit at another company sooner. It takes a high level of emotional intelligence and a lot of courage to follow through on tough conversations with people, but as a leader you have to place the needs of the business above the needs of individuals. Necessary Endings walks through these scenarios, explains what we go through in order to make these decisions and helps clarify what the right decision is.
5. The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety: Defining the Path to Inclusion and Innovation by Timothy R. Clark
The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety breaks town team dynamics at the most basic human level. I have read this book as a part of a few group studies, and each time people tell me it's not the easiest book to read due to the lack of story and the level of the vocabulary used. However, we always seem to have the most in depth conversations surrounding the topics covered in the book. The 4 Stages of Psychological Safety truly makes you think about how you lead and if you are creating an environment that empowers others to lead and make changes.
One key lesson I gained from reading this book is the order in which people go through the four stages. Inclusion is the first of the four stages and is critical to understand as a leader. Building strong relationships with each member of the organization helps people feel appreciated and included. Once people feel included in the organization, the second stage is the learner stage. At this stage the best leaders will start to build up the individual and allow them to gain as much knowledge as possible. Now that the person feels included and has the opportunity to learn, they can begin to contribute.
This marks the moment where you challenge your interpersonal skills, ensuring that each individual is empowered to contribute meaningfully and feels appreciated for their input. The fourth and final stage is the challenger stage. Reaching this stage means that the individual feels comfortable going against the status quo and asking questions that may be uncomfortable for others. As a leader you can't expect people to skip stages and still have the teams' respect. It takes time to go through the four stages while building a team, and it is a process that you can't rush. We all have different DNA at the core, but as humans we all have the same basic needs when it comes to being a part of a team and contributing to an organization in a high capacity.
Best Leadership Books Summary
The leadership books listed above will give you a solid foundation to start or strengthen your leadership skills. Many of them contain practical advice that you can apply immediately in your every day life. As I continue to read more leadership books and improve my leadership skills, I'm sure that my opinion on what the best leadership books are will change. I've read other popular books like Seven Habits of Highly Effective People and Five Dysfunctions of a Team and they are definitely honorable mentions on my list. How to Win Friends and Influence People is on my list of leadership books to read and could make the top five list once I finish it.
