Review the Top 5 Best Leadership Books to Read 2022 – Consumer Reports
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Not everyone is born a leader, but anyone could train themselves to be a leader. This is a fact, not an opinion. By general leadership definition, it is an art of mobilizing people and resources to reach the final end of the visionary journey. However, in between the start and the end, there are a lot of things to discuss and debate.
And, through the top best 5 leadership books below, important points have been raised. And, if you are looking for some best leadership books to read and enhance your leadership skills or leadership qualities, it worth your time checking through the books. They are must-read books recommended by many successful people in the area of leadership.
1. Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ
What is Emotional Intelligence to do with Leadership? In fact, emotional intelligence is the core quality of human beings. It is defined as the ability to understand one’s own and others’ emotion, which put us in a superior position to deal with people and the situation better.
In details, it is best described in this Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman. Published in 2005, this book has been an extremely popular one in its field many have been benefited greatly from. Daniel Goleman in his book has covered both the psychological aspect as well as the neuroscience part to bring out a new insight into the fact of human emotional and rational mind. Even more interesting, he explains how these these minds work together and drag us where we are today.
In that, the emotional literacy decides a lot in our relationship, work, personal success, and happiness in combination. This makes up a new definition of being smart. And, the good news is this is a fundamental quality of everyone, which only needs to discover and develop. Basically, the main elements in developing emotional intelligence are self awareness, social awareness, self management and relationship management.
Again, what is it to do with leadership?
With smarter emotional intelligence, it will help leaders to aware more of their own emotion, manage it better, and as a result be in more control to make better decisions, big or small. Leaders are also people, and everyone of us is emotional and egoful.
That being said, when our internal being loses balance, we could easily make silly decisions. And, when it comes to leadership which holds a big responsibility, one has to be strong at all time and not easily be driven by any spoil emotion.
The other part is in the relationship management. Leaders, by any means, have to have a deep understanding of what is happening in their working environment, physically and emotionally. In addition, a good relationship with everyone is required.
This is the must-have quality of a leader so that he or she could bring out the best in the followers and finally achieve the results. Without this, the whole group could fall into pieces and vision will be harder to achieve. This all could be done better by having a smarter emotional intelligence.
2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You
Second leadership book which has been recognized as among the best is The 21 irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John C. Maxwell and Steven R. Covey. This book basically covers most parts of the nature of leadership and its required areas to tap best into.
The 21 laws described and explained in the book feature the vital areas a leader has to understand well and develop themselves to be best at. The first law shown is the law of the lid, which is insights into the personal effectiveness. Without being able to make the best use of ourselves, our ability and our quality, a leader themselves could not achieve more. And, as so, it is even more difficult to dig out the best from the follower. That is why discovering personal best is the first and important area to master.
The second law mentioned is the law of influence, which is the only true measure of the leadership. How much influence a leader has in their followers is how effective the leadership is. That is another vital area in a leadership worthing noticing carefully.
The explanation of more leadership laws go on and on, showing up very important points in leadership field to a leader would need to go through and if done well will achieve incredible success.
What will you get after reading this?
If you are new to leadership field, this book will introduce you to tones of leadership aspects you will necessarily have to go through and understand once you get into the position. However, if you have been through the field, there will be leadership insights you find very useful to add to your leadership bucket. Great effectiveness could be extracted from once you put those insights into your leadership practice.
3. How to Win Friends & Influence People
How to Win Friends & Influence People is an old book which its value has never been faded. This is not directly a leadership book but with a lot of leadership insights. Written by Dale Carnegie, this book is more into a personal development book which lays a lot of insight into personal leadership. If that blend is what you are looking for, the book is right.
How to Win Friends & Influence People is a mantra into building great relationship with people around while leaving your influence everywhere on the line. Again, leadership is all about influence. If you could win friends and influence them, that is your leadership.
It is really important in leadership that people around have to like you as a leader. They like you in person, and they appreciate your capacity to make results happen for the sake of group’s goals and objectives. This is what the book is meant to tell, and it tells nicely with a lot of insights.
Even more interesting into the leadership, the last part of this book is dedicated to showing the ability of a leader to change people without giving offences. As a leader, there needs to be good handling with people every day and moment, to keep good mood of the group, and to produce the best result possible. The book has the key instruction for a leader.
4. The Servant: A Simple Story About the True Essence of Leadership
Written by James C. Hunter in 1998, The Servant is, as of my like, a great leadership book you do not want to miss. Instead of telling the how, it tells the why which is the true essence of the leadership. This book tends to give you more and deeper understanding into the reasons behind why you want a leadership position and what is it you want to do it for.
There are leaders who achieve so much but not as happy as they have had expected to be once so much has been achieved. This could be the reason why this book has been written. There are examples after examples that in a leadership, people are looking for power, richness and reputation. That is the ambition, and there is nothing wrong in that as long as the way is moral and illegal.
Nonetheless, the book has been into a more meaningful reason to want leadership and to achieve leadership, which is to serve everyone with love, respect, responsibilities, and sacrifice. This is a higher reason to bring back a lot of satisfaction in a leader. The physical success might look good but for those who could realize this, lead even better and live in a more meaningful journey.
This is basically what this leadership book is meant to get you into. As soon as you realize the why better, you would behave better in your leadership, and you will as a result feel more of being a leader.
5. Discover Your True North
The last best leadership book we would like to review is “Discover Your Truth North”. This is also an old but gold source of leadership knowledge you should at least once read. Discover Your True North was written by Bill George and David Gergen, stressing on the classic leadership insights to enhance you to be an authentic leader.
This book was written based on the interviews of more than 100 leaders around the world at all ages and from various situations. Along with the leadership insights from global leaders such as Warren Buffet and Jack Ma, there are many recent leadership case studies which are going to give you tons of practical leadership knowledge you will need in this recent era.
In addition to presenting you with the secret of leadership from various successful leaders, the book strongly encourage you to find your own true north, which is the natural leadership quality, develop it, and to lead yourself through your leadership journey. Specific programs have been added into the book to help you transform yourself into an authentic leader that makes great impact.
Again, the two main things you will get from this book are the chance to discover your own superiority in leadership and the leadership insights from existing successful leaders. These in combination could be the secret recipe for your to enhance your skills and become the leader you have ever dreamed to be.
Final Comments:
Each leadership book has its own foundation and attempts to bring you into. Usually, they are the core foundations in leadership. Some tell you the how while some tell you the why. The more you read, the more you have better ideas to lead. And the more you put those into practice, the better you shape your leadership.
As long as you know clearly what you are leading for, you know clearly what your true north is, you know clearly the types of skills and capacity you need to lead, it is only a matter of time and patient to be where you want to be. To me, these five best leadership books are the gifts, and I love them dearly. Hopefully, you will too find them very useful and resourceful to become a better and more effective leader.