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 38 recommenders

   The other book I recommend is "The Hard Things About Hard Things" by VC & ex-Operator extraordinaire. It reflects the real reality of startup founder life & gives very excellent advice. A must read for all founders.

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

   Here are some of the books that have been very impactful for me, or taught me a new way of thinking: [...] Start with Why.

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

   Good to Great is one of the first transformative books I read as Buffer started to grow beyond a product, and into a company. This happened when we were around 7 people and I started to feel like we needed to think about "culture", a concept that I previously had no real way to understand apart from conceptually.

   As the team grew beyond 7, I noticed that team dynamics came much more into play, and we couldn't assume that everyone knows everything anymore.

   In addition, I realized that the people we work with affect us immensely. Good to Great helped me to understand how important culture is for building a great, lasting company that has an impact on the world. It started to become clear that we already had a culture, and it was evolving.

6. 6. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail by Clayton Christensen 18 recommenders

   Awesome book. May move soon to my Top Ten List. If anything will keep CEOs awake at night, reading this book certainly will. Eyeopening.

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 15 recommenders

   If you loved Sheryl Sandberg's incredible TED talk on why we have too few women leaders, or simply believe as I do that we need equality in the boardroom, then this book is for you. As Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg has first-hand experience of why having more women in leadership roles is good for business as well as society. Lean In is essential reading for anyone interested in righting the injustice of this inequality.

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

    Some leaders are right. They are always right. And when they are not right, see the first two statements and apply them accordingly. This is the path towards destruction for any company – when leaders lull themselves into believing that they are invincible and incapable of making mistakes.

    They develop a toxic culture around them, where employees know that the surefire way to a promotion is stroking the leader’s ego. In this book, you will find painful examples of what happens when such a business culture is allowed to grow. Don’t be that kind of leader – learn to be your number one critic.

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

    Really good. One of my most highlighted books of all time. I learned so much about being a manager, and my management skills (and our team’s effectiveness and happiness) immediately improved after I started to do some of the things that Julie recommends.

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

    A book which I have enjoyed and plan to re-read is Essentialism: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less (McKeown).

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

    If you pick one person who built Silicon Valley, it was Andy. Andy exemplifies the best of Silicon Valley.

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

    This book blew my mind. It’s a riveting read, full of instantly actionable advice—not just for high-stakes negotiations, but also for handling everyday conflicts at work and at home.

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

    Jocko is also the co-author of Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win — which I loved.

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

    Brilliant. Buy ten copies and give one to everyone you work with. It's that good.

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

    When asked to name some books that had a big impact on him, Antonio mentioned Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell.

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

    Busyness is meaningless. What matters is consistently executing the work that actually matters. This book shows you how.

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

    My favorite business book is Scaling Up by Verne Harnish; and people hear me talking about it all the time. It’s the book that helped us grow Bookster into what it is today: 65,000 readers in over 700 companies. Scaling Up is not an easy read, it has a lot of very specific information, much like a handbook for your own business. I keep Scaling Up on my desk and even though I’ve read it time and again, every time I open it I find new insights and information I may have overlooked the previous times. [...]
    Scaling Up helped us align and organize Bookster. I believe it’s a must read for every company that wants to grow fast.

24. 24. 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.

25. 25. 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.

26. 26. 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.

27. 27. 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.

28. 28. Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein 4 recommenders

    This might feel like a weird book to include, but I think it presents another side of strategy that is too often forgotten. It’s not always about bold actors and strategic thrusts. Sometimes strategy is about subtle influence. Sometimes it is framing and small tweaks that change behavior. We can have big aims, but get there with little moves. This book has excellent examples of that kind of thinking and how it is changing politics, government and business. My favorite example is about the bumblebee that they started putting on urinals–which drastically reduced the amount of spray and spillage because it changed where men aimed when they peed. It’s not exactly the coolest strategy but it solved a problem. So we can learn from it.

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

    An unusually raw and revealing exploration of how our leadership journeys are shaped by the defining moments of our childhood...

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".