Leaders are Readers!
The following are excellent resources for personal and leadership development:
Personal – I recommend this book I wrote in 2026 as a great starting point. It brings together many key ideas from the other books below.
- Learn to Lead Like Jesus, by Jeffrey Lockert – through compelling stories, theological insight, and practical wisdom, this book introduces Incarnational Leadership—a way of leading that unites the spiritual and the strategic, the prophetic and practical. It will help you recognize your call to lead, integrate faith into daily decisions, listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, lead yourself well, and turn vision into faithful action.
Foundational – I recommend these as foundational books for anyone beginning the journey of becoming a leader:
- The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, by John Maxwell – excellent practical principles illustrated by compelling stories and explanation.
- 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey – a classic that uses a principle based approach to leading yourself and working effectively with others.
- Virtuous Leadership, by Alexandre Havard – one of the most valuable books on forming oneself in the classical virtues while understanding how leverage the specific virtues related to influential leadership.
- The Advantage, by Patrick Lencioni – the culmination of many other Lencioni titles, this is a magna carta of effective team health with practical and transformative concepts.
Other Excellent Works – I have found each of these to be very informative for taking one’s leadership to an even deeper level:
- Good to Great, by Jim Collins
- Good to Great and the Social Sectors, by Jim Collins
- How the Mighty Fall, by Jim Collins
- The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team, by Patrick Lencioni
- Death By Meeting, by Patrick Lencioni
- Silos, Politics, and Turf Wars, by Patrick Lencioni
- Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done, by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan
- Life Matters: Creating a Dynamic Balance of Work, Family, Time, & Money, by A. Roger Merrill and Rebecca R. Merrill
- Pillars of Leadership, by David J. Vaughan
- Axiom, by Bill Hybels
- Created for Greatness, by Alexandre Havard
- Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, by Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny
- Crucial Accountability: Tools for Resolving Violated Expectations, Broken Commitments, and Bad Behavior, by Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny
- Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change, by Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny
- The 21 Most Powerful Minutes of a Leaders Day, by John Maxwell
- The Leadership Challenge, by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner
- Leading Change, by John P. Kotter
- Boundaries for Leaders, by Henry Cloud
- Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration, by Ed Catmull and Amy Wallace
- Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead, by Laszlo Bock