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Best Books for Managers: You Need to Manage People If You Start Your Company
While some of us are naturally good at being leaders and managers, some of us are put into a situation where we need to be leaders and, hopefully, good managers. Thus, it’s best to brush up on your management skills to help manage employees and businesses without causing too many issues. While experience is one method to learn how to manage people, books can also be beneficial.
Similar to attending a class, books give you the basic knowledge you need to know how to keep everything in check. A good leader will know how to manage a large number of employees while also learning to delegate the work towards other people. If you’re going off of just experience, you can see how quickly this method could cause problems.
By picking up a good read on management skills, you can easily avoid issues that may occur off of learning by experience. Plus, you can develop long term strategies that can help you keep investors and business partners.
So, why should we read the best manager books? I find that leadership skills change every two to three years, so being ready for the upcoming years is essential.
I’ve tried to get away with pushing back books or avoiding extra classes. However, once I started to read the best books for managers, I noticed a massive difference in the way I was able to strategize.
What I’ve found in the books is that they teach you valuable skills. Some of these include ones that aren’t so obvious. Skills that they teach you are Networking, teamwork exercises, verbal skills, and how to recover from failure.
So, if you’re sick of attending classes, seminars or don’t have the time or patience for other forms of education, a book can definitely help. I find it more productive to learn at your own pace, especially for business. You can easily pick up a book on management and really focus on what it’s telling you.
Best Books for Managers
Raving Fans: A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service
High Output Management
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success
Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World With OKRs
Blue Ocean Strategy
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World
The Strategy Paradox: Why Committing to Success Leads to Failure (And What to do About It)
The Accounting Game: Basic Accounting Fresh from the Lemonade Stand
The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success
In his 2012 shareholder letter, Buffett praises The Outsiders as "an outstanding book about CEOs who excelled at capital allocation."
Berkshire Hathaway plays a major role in the book. One chapter is on director Tom Murphy, who Buffett says is "overall the best business manager I've ever met."
Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative
The Alchemist
Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind (The 99U Book Series)
Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn
The Copywriter’s Handbook: A Step-By-Step Guide To Writing Copy That Sells
From Impossible To Inevitable: How Hyper-Growth Companies Create Predictable Revenue
Question: What books would you recommend to young people interested in your career path?
Answer:
- Rework, Getting real and Remote - The combo from Fried and DHH.
- Girlboss by Sophia Amoruso
- From Impossible To Inevitable by Aaron Ross & Jason Lemkin
- How To Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
- Predictable Revenue by Aaron Ross
- Content Machine by Dan Norris
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
- Contagious by Jonah Berger