Best Leadership Books Recommended by World’s Top Entrepreneurs

Most recommended by leaders

The books from this collection and the Management & Leadership category that the most leaders on The CEO Library recommend (two or more), ranked by the number of distinct recommenders.

1. 1. The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz 37 recommenders

   Every management guide presumes that all great companies follow a formula. But successful startups don't imitate; they build innovations that can't be copied. Ben Horowitz knows no recipe guarantees success. He has written the first true guide for protecting a startup from self-sabotage.

2. 2. Principles: Life and Work by Ray Dalio 21 recommenders

   Ray Dalio has provided me with invaluable guidance and insights that are now available to you in Principles.

3. 3. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek 20 recommenders

   This book was my very first introduction to Simon and since reading it I’ve had him on the podcast three times, because I can’t get enough.

4. 4. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman 20 recommenders

   A few months ago, Mr. Obama read “Thinking, Fast and Slow,” by Daniel Kahneman, about how people make decisions — quick, instinctive thinking versus slower, contemplative deliberation. For Mr. Obama, a deliberator in an instinctive business, this may be as instructive as any political science text.

5. 5. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins 19 recommenders

   "Collins briefed Amazon executives on his seminal management book before its publication. Companies must confront the brutal facts of their business, find out what they are uniquely good at, and master their fly wheel, in which each part of the business reinforces and accelerates the other parts," Stone writes.

6. 6. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton Christensen 19 recommenders

   Brad Stone's new book, The Everything Store, describes how Bezos developed this strategy after reading another book called The Innovator's Dilemma by Harvard professor Clayton Christensen.

7. 7. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson 17 recommenders

   It’s unusual for modern biographies to be this good. It’s especially unusually for the subject of the biography to approach the biographer in the way that Steve Jobs did (thinking that he was the intellectual heir of Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein). But despite those two things, this bio is and will likely forever be a classic. It shows Jobs at his best–determined, creative, prophetic–and at his worst–petty, selfish, tyrannical and vicious. You can learn just as much about what kind of leader you probably don’t want to be from this book as you can from anything else. That’s what is so strange about Jobs and this biography. You read it and you’re blown away and impressed but I think very few of us think: yeah, I want to be that guy. I want to treat my kids that way, I want to be obsessed with trivial design things that way, I want to hate that way, and so on. You admire him but you also see him as a tragic figure. That’s how you know that Isaacson did an amazing job with this book. TC mark

8. 8. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg and Nell Scovell 15 recommenders

   For the past five years, I've sat at a desk next to Sheryl and I've learned something from her almost every day. She has a remarkable intelligence that can cut through complex processes and find solutions to the hardest problems. Lean In combines Sheryl's ability to synthesize information with her understanding of how to get the best out of people. The book is smart and honest and funny. Her words will help all readers - especially men - to become better and more effective leaders.

9. 9. Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely 15 recommenders

   I am a believer in gestalt. By reading so many books in so many different genres it helps me get analogies across categories to get a better understanding of how things work. In terms of specifics, I use behavioral economic tricks as presented in books like Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely in product design, negotiations and presentations.

10. 10. Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh 14 recommenders

    Zappos has always been a huge inspiration for us at Buffer. I clearly remember watching a video interview Tony Hsieh had where he was asked what one thing he would do sooner if he could start Zappos again. He replied "put values in place on day 1". We had already started Buffer, but we established our values shortly after that when we were 7 people.  On top of their focus on culture and values, Zappos has also provided us with inspiration for making half of our vision "to set the bar for great customer support". We have always had a large happiness team compared to the ratios other companies have, and we find great joy in aiming to surprise and wow customers with how quickly and caringly we respond to Tweets and emails

11. 11. Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute 10 recommenders

    Rarely has a book had such an immediate and profound impact on the hundreds of CEOs of fast growth firms we work with through our MIT/Inc./EO Executive Program. And it’s one of those rare books that touches both the personal as well as professional lives of these leaders.

12. 12. The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhuo 10 recommenders

    At startups, individuals asked to manage are rarely set-up for success. Julie Zhuo gives new managers the tools they need to help their people and company win.

13. 13. Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown 9 recommenders

    This is a great book. I've read it, I've bought it for a friend.

14. 14. High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove 9 recommenders

    [Andy’s] book played a big role in shaping my management style.

15. 15. Principles for Success by Ray Dalio 9 recommenders

    Ray Dalio has provided me with invaluable guidance and insights.

16. 16. Dune by Frank Herbert 8 recommenders

    All you need to know about leadership is contained in Dune.

17. 17. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss and Tahl Raz 7 recommenders

    A former FBI hostage negotiator distills the heuristics of how to defuse tense negotiations with unstable humans, and proposes that they’re the same for every other form of negotiations. Not a bad premise, and I found several of the techniques compelling and resonant of what I’ve read about human biases and flaws from other sources. But the FBI bravado is grating. It’s basically “hey, I just learned this stuff, and I whattadoknow, I become so bad ass that I could beat every Harvard trained negotiator with my sick mind hacks”. Okay dude. Nassim Taleb would be proud though ?.

18. 18. Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin 6 recommenders

    This is the SEAL Leadership book we have been waiting for. Poignant, powerful, practical. A must read for every leader.

19. 19. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni 6 recommenders

    A leadership fable about a failing Silicion Valley tech company who brings in a new CEO. Kathryn attempts to unite a highly dysfunctional team and through his narrative Lencioni explains the five key ways that teams struggle, and how to overcome the hurdles. I read this book at a key point in time where we were just discovering that we needed to put our values into words and shape the culture of Buffer. The book helped to clarify that through culture, provided we lived it, we could solve problems of trust and enable much better teamwork within the company.

20. 20. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts by Annie Duke 6 recommenders

    I’m reading a great book, Thinking in Bets, by Annie Duke (highly recommend if you have not read it).

21. 21. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell 5 recommenders

    What I'm Reading: Blink (Gladwell): a book on trusting your 'gut feeling' in decision-making and how to sharpen your rapid cognition skills.

22. 22. Free to Focus: A Total Productivity System to Achieve More by Doing Less by Michael Hyatt 5 recommenders

    One reason so few of us achieve what we truly want is that we never direct our focus; we never concentrate our power. No one understands this better than Michael Hyatt, and he's engineered a new, easy-to-follow approach to harness this power in his new book Free to Focus.

23. 23. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein 5 recommenders

    Few books can be said to have changed the world, but Nudge did. The Final Edition is marvelous: funny, useful, and wise.

24. 24. Scaling Up: How a Few Companies Make It…and Why the Rest Don’t (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) by Verne Harnish 5 recommenders

    Verne Harnish is more committed to helping companies grow than any other person on the planet. Really. He's also radically practical in his approach and that is reflected throughout this terrific book.

25. 25. The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime by MJ DeMarco 5 recommenders

    Despite the click-baity title, it’s a solid guide to wealth creation.

26. 26. Competing Against Time by George Stalk Jr. and Thomas M. Hout 4 recommenders

    Cook loves this book so much that he often gives out copies of the same to his colleagues and recommends this book to the hires.

27. 27. Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others by Robert Glazer 4 recommenders

    Bob Glazer is an unusually forward-thinking leader, and in this book he highlights some of his most inspiring lessons about how to bring out the best in yourself and others.

28. 28. Helping People Change: Coaching with Compassion for Lifelong Learning and Growth by Richard Boyatzis, Melvin L. Smith and Ellen Van Oosten 4 recommenders

    At last, a science-based answer to that all-important question, How can I help? Whether you are a teacher, manager, parent, healthcare provider, or coach--from Little League to the executive suite--Helping People Change will give you solid guidance.

29. 29. Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up by Jerry Colonna 4 recommenders

    If you want to be a better leader, or a better person, or both, read this book. A beautifully written, achingly honest account of why you can’t grow a business without growing yourself.

30. 30. Reinventing Organizations by Frederic Laloux 4 recommenders

    First, a word on career paths. In time, I realised that career paths are like one-way streets. Magic happens in unexplored territories. Plus life is how you choose to live every moment, every day. So today, rather than building a career, I prefer to make lateral moves in life, working with great people and being part of ambitious projects impacting the world. There are a few books that got me here: [...] Frederic Laloux "Reinventing Organizations".