The 14 Best Leadership Books That Actually Changed My Thinking

If you’re anything like me, you have a stack of unread leadership and business books sitting on your nightstand. Or, in my case, piled up under my desk. On top of that, you probably get a steady diet of YouTube videos, articles, and podcasts all promising to reveal the one thing you need to know to be a great leader.

Here’s the real truth: most of these books say the same thing. The challenge isn’t finding the one best leadership book—it’s finding the few that truly change how you think about leading teams and organizations.

Over the years, I’ve read dozens of them. But 14 stand out as the best leadership books because they didn’t just confirm what I already knew. They stretched me, challenged me, and shaped how I approach strategy, culture, and people. Here they are in no particularly order (except the last one).

Best Leadership Books

1. The Opposable Mind by Roger Martin
Roger Martin is one of my intellectual heroes. His concept of integrative thinking changed how I approach strategy. Instead of accepting trade-offs—be the low-cost leader or the differentiator—integrative thinkers search for the “third way.” The best leaders don’t settle for either/or. They find the unthought-of option that combines the best of both.

2. The Culture Map by Erin Meyer
In today’s world of remote and global work, understanding cultural differences isn’t optional. Meyer’s framework of eight cultural dimensions helps leaders navigate cross-cultural collaboration without falling into simplistic stereotypes. I revisit it before working with international clients because culture is never binary—it’s dimensional.

3. The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
Most managers default to giving advice. Michael Bungay Stanier flips that script by teaching leaders to ask better questions. From “What’s on your mind?” to “And what else?” his seven questions are deceptively simple and incredibly powerful. They’ve made me a better leader, and frankly, a better coach.

4. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith
Marshall Goldsmith, a mentor of mine, makes a simple but profound point: the skills that got you promoted won’t be the ones that make you successful as a senior leader. At some point, technical skills matter less than people skills and strategic thinking. For me, the big lesson was letting go of the need to always be right—and focusing instead on being effective.

5. Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal
McChrystal faced the challenge of leading special forces in Iraq and Afghanistan through rigid hierarchies that couldn’t move fast enough. His solution was turning a collection of siloed units into a “team of teams” where information flowed freely across boundaries. It’s one of the best primers on why agility matters in large organizations.

6. The No Asshole Rule by Robert Sutton
Yes, that’s the real title. And Sutton’s research makes the case that toxic high performers aren’t worth the damage they do. For nearly 20 years, leaders have excused bad behavior if the results looked good. But as Sutton argues, one person’s “great work” can ruin everyone else’s ability to do great work. Smart leaders enforce the no-asshole rule.

7. Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Forget the “compliment sandwich.” Scott’s framework shows how to give feedback that balances care personally with challenge directly. This book reshaped how I teach leaders to give—and receive—feedback. Done right, feedback isn’t criticism. It’s fuel for higher performance.

8. Good to Great by Jim Collins
Some criticize Collins’ research because not every company he profiled stayed great. But that misses the point. His concepts—the Hedgehog, the Flywheel, and Level 5 Leadership—remain timeless. This was one of the first leadership books I read, and it still shapes how I think about building enduring organizations.

9. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
Unlike many CEO memoirs, Catmull doesn’t paint himself as flawless. Instead, he reveals how Pixar built a culture where ideas could be bad at first, but still nurtured into greatness. His idea of a Braintrust—a trusted group that offers candid, constructive feedback—has influenced how I structure my own work.

10. The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle
Coyle’s book makes a simple but profound argument: talent doesn’t make the team; the team makes the talent. Culture isn’t an accident. It’s built deliberately, in everyday habits and norms. For leaders in hybrid or remote environments, this is one of the best leadership books you can read.

11. Leadership and Self-Deception by The Arbinger Institute
This book argues that most leadership failures start with self-deception—our tendency to see people as obstacles rather than humans with their own needs and goals. In a polarized world, it’s a timely reminder that empathy isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential to effective leadership.

12. The Leadership Challenge by James Kouzes and Barry Posner
As a graduate student, I was obsessed with transformational leadership. But it wasn’t practical. This book made it practical with its five practices of exemplary leadership. Even more, Kouzes and Posner modeled leadership in how they wrote the book—listening to feedback and revising their own work.

13. Switch by Chip and Dan Heath
Change isn’t just logical—it’s emotional. The Heath brothers illustrate this with the metaphor of the rider and the elephant. No matter how good your logic is, if the elephant doesn’t want to move, nothing changes. This book is a masterclass in leading through uncertainty.

14. Best Team Ever by David Burkus
Yep. Yours truly. But hear me out. writing Best Team Ever was life-changing because it forced me to wrestle with one central question: what really explains high-performing teams? The answer, drawn from decades of research, came down to three habits: common understanding, psychological safety, and prosocial purpose.

Final Thoughts

There are thousands of leadership books out there. Many recycle the same ideas. But these 14 stand out because they fundamentally changed how I think and how I lead. If you’re serious about growing as a leader, don’t try to read everything. Pick wisely. And start with these.

Because the best leadership books don’t just inform you—they transform you.