Best Leadership Books: 46 Picks Recommended by CEOs

Ben Horowitz writes about the decisions no business school prepares a chief executive for, such as firing friends, poaching recruits from rivals and knowing when to sell. Larry Page praises its uncomfortable truths about how to lead a company.

Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle argues that leaders who inspire begin with purpose, the why, before explaining how and what, and he contrasts inspiration with manipulation through examples such as the Wright Brothers and Southwest Airlines. Lex Na Wei Ming used it to align employees and investors around one purpose.

Ray Dalio sets out the rules he built for running Bridgewater Associates, grounded in radical truth and radical transparency, and how people and organizations decide, face problems and build strong teams. Reed Hastings says it reshaped his leadership style by pushing him to live more honestly.

Ed Catmull, co-founder of Pixar, explains how a leader builds and protects a culture where creative work thrives, opening up the studio’s Braintrust sessions, story meetings and postmortems. Brene Brown ranks it among the leadership books that matter most today.

Andrew S. Grove turns his years running Intel into a working manual for managers, covering objectives and key results, performance reviews, training and how to build teams that produce. Mark Zuckerberg credits it with shaping his own management style.

The Arbinger Institute argues that self-deception keeps leaders from seeing how they hurt their own and others’ performance, and links it to most problems of trust, accountability and commitment at work. Verne Harnish says it had an immediate effect on the fast-growth CEOs he works with.

Patrick Lencioni tells the story of Kathryn Petersen, a new chief executive facing a divided leadership team, to explain five dysfunctions, from absence of trust to inattention to results, and how to fix them. Holger Seim says it taught him that strong team performance takes conscious effort.

Julie Zhuo became a manager at 25 and wrote a field guide to the job, from hiring and firing to running meetings and earning the trust of reports. Stewart Butterfield says Slack gave it to its new managers.

Former Navy SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin draw on combat in Ramadi to argue that a team wins or fails on the leadership shown at every level, with one principle per chapter, such as Decentralized Command and Leading Up the Chain. Tim Ferriss says he loved it.

Bill Walsh, who took the San Francisco 49ers from the worst franchise in sports to a dynasty, explains his leadership philosophy of high standards, ethics and the leader as teacher. Garrett Moon calls it the first book he recommends to newly promoted managers.

Eric Schmidt and Jonathan Rosenberg share the management lessons from helping build Google, from hiring smart creatives and giving them room to maxims on culture, decisions and innovation such as Think 10X. Andreas Zhou says it made him study what Google does differently.

Frederic Laloux studied more than fifty organizations, among them Buurtzorg and Morning Star, to describe the Teal model of running a company on self-management, wholeness and evolutionary purpose. Elaine Wherry calls it a thorough work of organizational theory that avoids self-promotion.

Michael Bungay Stanier gives managers seven questions, among them the Focus, Lazy and Learning questions, to make coaching a daily habit of saying less and asking more. Armina Sirbu recommends it to anyone who needs to coach a team.

Kim Scott draws on her executive years at Apple and Google to make the case that a good boss must care personally while challenging directly, and sorts feedback into four types, with radical candor as the goal. Daniel Pink praises its guidance on giving and receiving feedback.

Bob Chapman and Raj Sisodia describe how Barry-Wehmiller treats employees like family, avoiding mass layoffs in the Great Recession through steps such as a month of unpaid leave. Simon Sinek holds up Chapman as an example of a company run by putting people first.

L. David Marquet took command of the submarine Santa Fe, then ranked worst in the fleet, and replaced the habit of giving every order with leadership at every level of the crew. Jason Fried calls it his favorite business book.

Marshall Goldsmith, an executive coach, lists twenty habits that hold back already successful leaders and offers a systematic way to change behavior. James Clear recommends it to people who are successful yet know they are not perfect.

Seth Godin defines a tribe as people connected to an idea, a leader and one another, and argues the web has created a shortage of leaders willing to rally such groups. Andrew Youderian drew on it while learning to lead a community.

Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle record the methods of Bill Campbell, the coach behind leaders at Google, Apple and Intuit, drawing on interviews with more than eighty people about building trust and resolving team tensions. Adam Grant calls Campbell Silicon Valley’s best-kept secret.

John C. Maxwell describes five levels of leadership, from Position, where people follow because they must, through Permission, Production and People Development to Pinnacle, and how to master each before climbing. Ed Bastian says Maxwell taught the levels to leaders at Delta with strong results.

Robert Iger recounts his 15 years running Disney, when he committed to quality, embraced technology and thought globally, and lays out leadership principles such as optimism, courage, decisiveness and fairness. Daniel Coyle calls it a playbook for leading through the key challenges of the age.

Sam Walker ranked thousands of sports teams to find the sixteen most dominant and found their common factor was a type of captain, whose seven traits include doggedness and emotional control. Ryan Holiday calls it the best leadership book he read that year.

Phil Jackson explains how he coached Chicago and Los Angeles to eleven championships by leading through authenticity and ego-free teamwork, drawing on Zen meditation and Native American philosophy, and persuading stars to put the team first. Ryan Holiday calls it his favorite leadership book in years.

Pat Riley, the basketball coach, sets out his approach to teamwork, drawn from years leading champion players, as a plan for success at work, at home and in personal goals. Ryan Holiday counts it among the best coaching and leadership books he read that year.

Jerry Colonna, the coach nicknamed the CEO Whisperer, asks leaders to examine themselves radically, mixing Buddhism and Jungian therapy with blunt talk to help founders confront old patterns. Angela Duckworth says it explains why growing a company requires its founder to grow as a person.

Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall take apart nine beliefs about work, arguing that the strength of a team counts for more than company culture and that people want useful attention more than a stream of feedback. Ali Abdaal recommends it to anyone who leads a team.

Dave Ramsey builds on the company he started at a card table to argue that a team never outgrows its leader, covering ownership, unity, goals, time and debt-free growth. Andrew Youderian calls it a guide to being a good, empathetic manager.

Brene Brown defines a leader as anyone who takes responsibility for developing potential in people and ideas, and draws on two decades of research to show how to build courage into a culture through curiosity, shared power and hard conversations. Sheryl Sandberg calls it a practical guide to courageous leadership.

John Wooden pairs his Pyramid of Success with his 12 Lessons in Leadership and notes kept since 1948, judging success by full effort in service of the team. Jim Sinegal says the pyramid is where competitive greatness for any organization begins.

Kristen Hadeed describes learning to lead at Student Maid, the cleaning company she started in college, through mistakes such as fixing staff errors herself rather than holding the team to account. Seth Godin praises it as a remedy for the pretense that leaders must be perfect.

Alden Mills, a former SEAL platoon leader and founder of Perfect Fitness, argues that winning teams in combat and business rest on trust, empathy, care and service to others. Arne Sorenson takes from it that teams who look after their members deliver results.

Ron A. Carucci and Eric C. Hansen draw on a ten-year study of leaders moving into executive roles to map the transitions where new executives most often fail. Dave West calls it a roadmap for leaders climbing into the executive ranks.

Archie Brown, an Oxford scholar of politics, challenges the idea that dominant leaders achieve most, surveying a century of heads of government to show the value of collegial leadership. Bill Gates notes that the leaders Brown credits most tend to collaborate and delegate.

Ajaz Ahmed uses the stories of Ford, Rudkin, Chanel and other business founders to describe a lasting philosophy of leadership, arguing that the most enduring companies were run by people who looked past business convention. Richard Branson includes it on his lifetime reading list.

Dave Logan, John King and Halee Fischer-Wright treat every organization as a set of tribes of up to 150 people and give leaders tools to raise a group’s culture one stage at a time. Tony Hsieh says it codifies what Zappos did by instinct.

David Cottrell tells a short business fable about a manager whose operation is failing and whose job is at risk, as he works through lessons on leadership and motivating staff with a mentor. Dan Amos calls it a clear roadmap to becoming a better manager.

Eric Chester interviewed more than 25 founders and chief executives at companies such as Wegmans, Marriott and The Container Store to show how leaders build passion in staff rather than settling for engagement. Steve Caldiera praises its strategies for getting employees to work like co-owners.

Randy Grieser writes for the people who lead small organizations and teams, setting out ten insights that include vision, self-awareness, hiring for culture fit, delegation and organizational health, backed by a survey of over 1,700 leaders and staff. Dave Lloyd values its practical strategies.

Jim Collins and his researchers compared companies that made a lasting leap in performance with similar firms that stalled, and drew out ideas such as the hedgehog concept. Chandini Jain points to its rule of getting the right people on the bus before choosing a direction.

Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography, built on more than forty interviews with Jobs, follows the perfectionism and drive he brought to running Apple without softening his flaws. Ryan Holiday says it captures Jobs at his best, determined and creative, as well as his pettiness.

Sheryl Sandberg, writing as Facebook’s operating chief, examines why so few women reach the top in government and business, mixing her own choices with data on negotiation, mentorship and careers built like a jungle gym. Jim Collins argues that society cannot afford to lose half its ablest people from leadership.

Frank Herbert’s novel follows young Paul Atreides after his noble family takes charge of Arrakis, the desert planet that alone produces the spice melange, as rival factions close in. Tim Ferriss says everything about leadership is in it, and Michael Arrington praises its view of strategy in crisis.

Peter Drucker defines an executive by whether the right things get done and names five learnable practices: managing time, choosing a contribution, using strengths, setting priorities and making effective decisions. Tim Ferriss rates it above nearly every so-called time management book.

Jack Welch tells, with John A. Byrne, how he spent twenty years turning General Electric into an engine of growth, returning again and again to people and to demanding the best from them. Annika Falkengren took from it that facts must be faced however brutal.

William N. Thorndike profiles eight modest chief executives, at firms such as Teledyne and Capital Cities, who beat the market by allocating capital and people well and by focusing on value per share. Michael Dell recommends it to leaders willing to chart their own course.

Dan Shapiro, a four-time founder, walks through five phases of running a startup, including a leadership section on strategy and culture and a management section on the board, team disputes and playing the CEO card. Kristen Hamilton calls it realistic advice from someone who knows the job.