The best leadership books that we’re loving at Human Leaders for the 2023/24 holidays! This is our recommended reading list.
We've been beyond fortunate of late to host some incredible thought leaders on We Are Human Leaders podcast to unpack their recent published works.
Find our full synopsis of each leadership book, and why we loved it below!
The world is growing ever more complex in ways both global and personal. From climate change to the economy, from parenting to choosing a career, life is fraught with complicated challenges. For these issues and many others, navigating failure with aplomb is essential.
But when it comes to a problem-solving mindset, we’re often torn between two failure cultures, says Dr. Amy Edmondson of Harvard Business School. One says “Failure is not an option” and must be avoided at all costs. Another advises “Fail fast, break things” as the path to achievement. They’re each memorable slogans, but neither leads to long-term success.
Instead, we need to reframe how we understand failure —on both a personal and cultural level —and learn to recognize the crucial distinctions that separate good failure from bad. Drawing on decades of original research, Dr. Edmondson shares how we can surpass a superficial approach to failure in RIGHT KIND OF WRONG: The Science of Failing Well.
We love this leadership book and we know you will do. Also, listen to the We Are Human Leaders podcast episode with Professor Amy Edmondson right here.
What does it mean to truly be mindful? This book by Harvard Professor Ellen J. Langer explores the mind-body connection through decades of powerful, trailblazing research with Harvard University Professor and the ‘Mother of Mindfulness’ Ellen Langer.
This book will radically shift your perception around what it means to be mindful, and mindless. From reversing the signs of aging, to healing from dire medial prognosis, through to the illusion of control and how Leaders can better engage workplaces to be more present and mindful - this conversation with Professor Langer covers it all.
Ellen J Langer was the first tenured female in the Harvard Psychology Department, and has since lead decades of ground-breaking research into mindfulness human behaviour, and it’s opposite, earning her the title of ‘Mother of Mindfulness’. She is the author of eleven books, including the international bestseller Mindfulness, which has been translated into fifteen languages, and more than two hundred research articles.
If you love this leadership book you’ll love our We Are Human Leaders podcast converstion with Ellen too, find it here in December 2024.
To do creative work right, teams need to slow down, struggle, and develop a lot of bad ideas to find a rare good one.
All friction fixers start from where they are and use all the influence, talents, money, and tools that they can muster to better their workplaces. They treat wrestling with bad and good friction as their job, not as an orphan problem that really ought to be somebody else’s job (but isn’t). They are the kind of folks who pick up that piece of trash that someone else has dropped, rather than ignoring it, or thinking that someone else ought to do it.
A bedrock belief of friction fixers is that if we focus on what to make easier and faster and what to make harder and slower, life will be better for workers and the people they serve.
We are trustees of how people spend their time.
Trustees take pride in spotting and removing obstacles that squander people’s time and money, frustrate them, and leave them feeling helpless and exhausted. And they take pride in knowing when to slow down, struggle, or stop—in creating constructive friction.
Friction fixing is a craft we need to hone.
This leadership book explores what Leaders need to do to remove Friction from teams, it’s an essential read for all Human Leaders. If you love this book, join us for the We Are Human Leaders podcast conversation with Author Huggy Rao dropping January 2024.
All of us want to be recognized, to be seen and valued, but for many, this is far from our actual experience. Can dignity and respect fix our workplaces and bring a sense of worth for those who feel lost, hopeless, forgotten, and ignored? And, amid countless conversations surrounding inequity and DEI efforts, how can we as leaders truly promote social inclusion?
Harvard professor and sociologist Michèle Lamont has studied dignity and worth for decades. In her inspiring new book SEEING OTHERS: How Recognition Works and How It Can Heal a Divided World, she makes a persuasive research-driven case for prioritizing recognition and respect in an inequitable society.
What can we learn from the change agents who are transforming representation? What is ordinary universalism, and why does it matter? Michèle shares some practical ways we can start to drive recognition today
Michèle illuminates an inclusive path forward with new ways of understanding our world and our humanity.
We loved this leadership book and we know you’ll love the We Are Human Leaders podcast conversation with her too, find it right here.
Do you know what it feels like to be unheard? Most of us know the frustration of feeling unheard and unvalued at work. And many of us don’t stick around for long.
Active listening is the doorway to increased belonging, loyalty, profitability, innovation, and so much more. In this conversation we explore Active Listening with Heather Younger.
She shares with us the five key steps in the Active Listening cycle and how we can create organizational cultures of engagement as a result.
Striving to give a voice to the voiceless, Heather is teaching people at work and in life, how to feel heard, valued, and understood while simultaneously decoding the big picture to expose the important signals and insights to communication. It is the difference between thinking we understand what people want and knowing what they want.
This leadership book will change the way you communicate it, if you loved it we know you’ll love our full conversation with Heather on We Are Human Leaders podcast, find it here.
When it comes to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, often our intentions don’t always have the level of impact we truly want or need..
In this book Lily Zheng deep dive’s into DEI to explore how to drive impactful, systematic change in our organisations and as individuals. Lily’s approach to DEI supports organizations to go far beyond intention into creating measurable, meaningful and quantifiable outcomes in the DEI at work. We learnt an incredible amount from this book and we know you will too.
An alumni of Stanford University, Lily holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology as well as a Master's degree in Sociology. While at Stanford, Lily worked as a columnist for the Stanford Daily, ranking as the most influential student in campus politics by the Stanford Political Journal. Lily’s fascinating journey through the intersections of culture, corporate, and self represents a relevant synergy to the evolving demographics, both societal and at work.
This leadership book really shaped our we view DEI at work, and we know if you love this book you’ll love our recent We Are Human Leaders podcast conversation with Lily too, listen to it here.