I was asked so often for a list of my go-to leadership books and resources, that I eventually pulled it all together in one place. It’s pretty extensive because different things will appeal to different people – it’s not like I think you need to read it all! I haven’t even gotten to them all: I included several because they came so highly recommended by teammates of mine and haven’t got to them yet.
For many of the books, I included articles, videos and podcasts that relate to or summarize the books. If you’re a bit of a hesitant reader like me, you might like to listen to a conversation about a book before taking the plunge!
Most of my reading is in audiobook form, while I’m driving, gardening, walking, or puttering. I sometimes listen to several books on the same topic and let my subconscious organize it all; other times I pause and take lots of notes during a single book on a topic.
I’ve done my best to organize resources into sections, which feels ridiculous at times because there’s so much overlap between all of them. For example, “Culture” and “Healthy, High-Performing Teams” are hard to parse – and teams with healthy cultures have psychological safety. Building psych safety takes emotional intelligence and strong communication skills! Even I don’t agree with the way I’ve divided these up!
Contents
- Leadership Foundations Library
- Foundational books on leadership
- Articles and Case Studies
- The Neuroscience of Leadership
- Emotional Intelligence Library
- What is EI and how to build it in yourself: “the primal job of leadership is emotional”
- Develop emotionally intelligent teams and organizations
- Healthy Communication Skills Library
- Active listening; empathy and validation
- Giving feedback; Difficult conversations
- Resources for Creating Healthy Culture
- What makes a culture healthy
- Culture Change
- Real world examples and case studies
- Psychological Safety Library
- What is it, why does it matter
- How to build it
- Group Dynamics Resource Library
- Hidden/subconscious dynamics
- Groupthink and how to overcome it
- Stages of group development
- Leading Healthy High-Performance Teams
- Healthy environments boost team effectiveness
- Stories of high performing teams (military, civilian) that perform well because of (not in spite of) practices such as psychological safety, healthy communication, and emotionally intelligent leaders
Leadership | EQ | Communication | Culture | Psychological Safety
Group Dynamics | Healthy, High-Performing Teams
Annalise 