4 Life-Changing Books About Leadership

Strong leadership is critical to the success of a company. In this rapidly changing world, what constitutes a great leader changes constantly, often without warning. Still, some qualities always improve leadership. If you want your employees and your company to grow and improve, you need to stay current on leadership topics. Here are four life-changing books about leadership.

Leadership Is an Art

Leadership Is an Art by Max De Pree explores the idea of leadership as a stewardship. The book addresses leadership concepts concisely and elegantly, stressing the significance of relationship-building, showing initiative, and developing an enduring value system within the workplace. It is one of the clearest books that has been published on the subject and provides many valuable lessons that can help you become a graceful and successful leader.

Conversational Intelligence: How Great Leaders Build Trust and Get Extraordinary Results

This book by Judith Glaser discusses how to develop conversational intelligence and improve conversational skills to help build trust in the workplace. Trust facilitates cooperation, which leads to mutual success. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, and empathy are all important to both leadership and the success of your company. If you want to see extraordinary results, you need the trust of your employees.

Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence

This book by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee is an excellent book about the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership. In fact, the book argues that emotional intelligence is more important to being a successful leader than technical skills or IQ. Your emotions have a profound effect on your employees. If you exhibit enthusiasm and optimism, it will spread to your team members and help them perform better. Overall, this is a great resource for leaders looking to improve their emotional intelligence.

Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership: Practicing the Wisdom of Leading by Serving

Seven Pillars of Servant Leadership by James W. Sipe and Don M. Frick takes a skills-approach to understanding the concepts of servant leadership. Through a variety of incisive questions, case studies, exercises, and anecdotes, the book helps readers develop the principles of servant leadership. Many of the activities have been field-tested by well-known leaders in both the private and the public sectors. This is a great place to start if you are interested in learning the intricacies of servant leadership.

Evolving into a great leader is never as easy as it sounds on paper. There are so many skills and qualities involved in the concept of leadership. These four books are all excellent resources that can help you rethink what it means to be a great leader.

by Nancy Estep