Skip the business books and just study the lives of great leaders. Personally I recommend Napoleon, Orson Welles, Kurosawa, Fellini and Hitchcock. Basically anyone that was consistently productive in a group-based endeavor.
The Prince - Machiavello. Just kidding, if you are in the technology business I strongly reccomend The Manager's Path. It is a very good book to learn how people interacts with the leaders and how to manage your own leadership.
I would recommend books. Psychology (Deep Work Rules, Thinking fast and slow) , sociology, theology (Buddhist, Confucianism, Tasoism, Alan Watts), Ethics and Philosophy (Stoicism, Ego is the Enemy, Bruce Lee), Communication Techniques (Non-Violent Communication, Brief)
etc, etc. Eventually, constant shared truths that you will find in all of these fields will occur to you, and you will develop an organic leadership based on grounded knowledge of yourself.
Everything else is either a band aid or supplementary, in my opinion.
It doesn't matter where you are in the org chart. Being a good leader is about prestige and respect, not dictatorial power.
With prestige comes attention to what you say and do, and ability to influence decisions.
If you feel like the middle manager is powerless, these are exactly the types of books to read. Other recommendations include High Output Management, Drive, How To Talk So Kids Will Listen (I'm serious), Turn the Ship Around, Out of the Crisis, and more.
Fantastic list. I would also add The Manager's Path by Camille Fournier to really hone those people management skills. And The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni is a nice quick read on organizational politics.
I second the nomination of "Good to Great" by Jim Collins <http://www.jimcollins.com/lib/books.html>. It's the best general business book I've read. Most popular business books were written by one manager who was successful one time at one company, but often their advice isn't generally applicable. "Good to Great" is actually based on quantitative economic and sociological research across many companies and it shows compelling evidence for how certain factors often lead to success.
This isn't on the list, but I highly recommend reading 'The Leader Who Had No Title' by Robin Sharma. It's a leadership book that will keep you grounded while in pursuit of success/wealth.
I worked with my organization's leadership development team for the past few years, here are two recommendations to get you started:
the leadership challenge by kouzes and posner (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008DM2MK8) - the canonical book on business leadership, well worth the investment. it's research-driven and full of case studies and examples; many MBA programs will teach an entire semester on this bad boy. not much to say here that isn't in the reviews.
it's okay to be the boss by bruce tulgan (http://www.amazon.com/dp/0061121363) - if the leadership challenge feels a little too high-brow or abstract ('transformational vs. transactional,' in leadership jargon), this little book can scratch the itch for tactical management tips. tulgan can seem a bit directive and simplistic at times, and his advice may not fit with every organizational culture, but he's a savvy student of organizational leadership, and a quick read.
leadership, especially in a remote environment, isn't trivial - congratulations on being willing to invest in this skill. best of luck.
2) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, Daniel H. Pink
3) The Alliance: Managing Talent in the Networked Age, Reid Hoffman & Ben Casnocha & Chris Yeh
[!] 4) It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy, Michael Abrashoff
5) Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness, Frederic Laloux
6) Immature People with Power How to Handle Them, Larry Mullins
7) Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships, Eric Berne
In no particular order. That kind of list could be endless, but 1-7 I consider the most important ones (you can throw away (5) if you aren't interested in how to simplify corp structures) regarding shaping anyone into a reasonable leader. It's all about: attitude, values, understanding oneself and other people.
The only reason I'm putting all of this here is because it's a good investment. I hope you will read those, because I don't recommend stuff I know nothing about to random people ;) This world desperately needs better managers, not another infantile prick who thinks he gets it (I'm not pointing that to @OP directly, it's a more general problem). Again, I can only hope that the 10 minutes I've spent here are going to blossom in the future as at least one good guy who knows what he is doing because he thinks about what he's going to do beforehand. If that's not going to happen that's going to be on you (and I will find you and then we're going to have an unpleasant conversation). Meanwhile, I highly recommend the mentioned books and reading in general. This is how you can easily distinguish yourself from a herd of management sheeple who consider reading to be harmful for their egos ;) Howk!
A general tip: I've written "books, obviously", because management is on of those disciplines where there ARE good books, as well as good trainings available. The books route is far less expensive, it's as good as let's say expensive couching, and there's some space between the lines in books in general one can utilize for thinking for oneself!
- Turn The Ship Around (Marquet) - make everyone a leader
- The Effective Engineer (Lau) - leadership for engineers
- Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics (Jocko) - leadership in military/business
- Good To Great (Collins) - good companies vs great ones
How to get better at everything:
- Mindset (Dwek) - growth vs fixed mindset
- Atomic Habits (Clear) - automate good decisions w/habits
- Change Your Habits, Change your life (Corley) - data driven selection of which habits matter
- Ultralearning (Young) - how to learn anything faster
- Anything You Want (Sivers)
How to talk to humans
- Difficult Conversations (Stone) - how to talk to humans
- Never Split the Difference (Voss) - every conversation is a negotiation
- Death By Meeting (Lencioni) - short fable
- anything else by Patrick Lencioni
Prioritization and focus:
- The One Thing (Keller) - prioritization
- Deep Work (Calport) - focus
- Indistractable (Li) - focus
See also anything by: Jason Friedman, Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Peter Drucker and biographies in general
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