Are you into the business or reading? Have you read the “best” books for managers and leaders? If you had to guess how many of the top 75 books do you think you have read?
Jurgen Appelo is Chief Information Officer at ISM eCompany (www.ism.nl), recently rated as the #1 fastest growing technology company in The Netherlands. He took the time to create a list of the top 100 best books for managers, leaders, and humans. Here is the first 14 books:
| 1 | The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be Jack Canfield, Janet Switzer (personal growth, self-help, success, achievement, coaching) |
| 2 | The Elements of Style: 50th Anniversary Edition William Strunk, E. B. White (style, writers reference, writing) |
| 3 | How to Win Friends & Influence People Dale Carnegie (personal development, communication skills, self improvement) |
| 4 | Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Chip Heath, Dan Heath (marketing, communication, ideas, persuasion, business) |
| 5 | Peopleware: Productive Projects and Teams (Second Edition) Tom DeMarco, Timothy Lister (management, project management, software development) |
| 6 | Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion Robert B. Cialdini (persuasion, psychology, influence, marketing, sales) |
| 7 | What Got You Here Won’t Get You There Marshall Goldsmith, Mark Reiter (leadership development, executive coaching, leadership) |
| 8 | Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies Jim Collins, Jerry I. Porras (business, management, leadership development, leadership) |
| 9 | Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery Garr Reynolds (presentations, communication, public speaking) |
| 10 | Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity David Allen (management, productivity, time management) |
| 11 | The Magic of Thinking Big David Schwartz (positive thinking, personal development, self improvement) |
| 12 | Leading Change John P. Kotter (change management, leadership, organizational behavior) |
| 13 | The Goal: A Process of Ongoing Improvement Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox (theory of constraints, professional development, operations) |
| 14 | Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t Jim Collins (business, leadership, management, success, excellence) |
Click here to find out about the other 61 books Jurgen listed. If you want to know the top 100 you have to request a PDF version of the list directly from Jurgen (I was okay with just the first 75). I have either read or looked at about 53 of the books on the list and I found a few books that I was unaware of that I will now seek out.
These are great books above I cant wait to check them out. I’m a supervisor hoping to become manager soon. A book that I bought today I finished in less then an hour.
I read A Dog’s Advice to Leaders, and I thought to myself, “My leader at work could sure use this book!”
I think 7 habits of highly effective people should’ve been more to the top. Almost every manager/Project Manager swears by this book.
Hi David,
Great list you have got here. How about setting up a list on Squidoo and letting us vote stuff up and down?
I agree with the previous comment that perhaps 7Habits should be up there, but have not read all the books you mention…
I’d also nominate Rich Dad, Poor Dad for inclusion in the top 14 list…
Best wishes,
David Hurley
Dear David,
You have given a very post,
but I think the ageless book I must say it is evergreen and his core thoughts on “The Human Side Of An Enterprise” by McGregor.
To my knowledge he wrote just one book , but he opened up the whole Human Nature.
It’s like Bible for all effective leaders.
With Warm Regards,
Debashish Brahma
I agree that the books in this list are top books in management. However, I truely believe and am well aware of the fact that most of these thinkers are either directly or indirectly are inspired by the ideas of Peter Drucker who is regarded as “the man who invented management” by Businessweek in 2005 when he died. When someone reads “The Effective Executive” of Drucker, one can see that the basic ideas of effectiveness are given there. In “7 habits of effective people”, Covey highlights these factors so successfully (or effectively) that, most of the people do not even recognize that these ideas and concepts are first introduced by Drucker.
Ironic that your 14 books don’t include on from W. Edward Demmings the father of statistical process control and know for his 14 points. All else is irrelevant once you read his teachings
Dale