Our selection of leadership books that every leader should start reading!
Jump to
PLEASE NOTE THIS PAGE IS CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION
How we select books
Yet another book list!
Welcome to the Global Leadership Society's Top 100 Best Leadership Books of all time! But hold on a second—why another list? The answer is simple: the existing selections don't quite hit the mark for us!
The trouble often lies in the ambiguity around the criteria used to curate these lists. Who's behind them, and for what purpose? What is their underlying understanding of leadership? What's the ideology? What we've found is that compilations often fall short, lacking "philosophical" and practical coherence and the depth and range necessary to develop leadership. They vacillate between airport "bestsellers" lists, offering popular titles that lack credible academic backing, or stacks of textbooks too esoteric for real-world practitioners. Our goal is to bridge this gap.
That's not a simple task. Leadership is far from one-dimensional; it demands a rich mosaic of development. Good leaders must grasp a wide spectrum of knowledge, spanning philosophy, psychology, economics, history, political science, management, sociology, and beyond. We have started to carefully select a range of works that allow you to delve deeper into a wealth of literature, not only offering critical insights and challenging conventional wisdom, but also providing a deeper understanding of the multifaceted world of leadership.
Our aim isn't just to offer a new list of books, but to provide a roadmap for nurturing a new breed of leaders— practically wise individuals poised to shape good organizations that can forge the path towards a brighter future of work. The readings should accompany you, enlighten you, hold you and guide you on a transformative voyage to the heart of leadership and your role within it.
We wish you joy on a unique and insightful journey through the best in leadership literature, handpicked by peers to develop truly good leadership.
Selection Criteria
Groundbreaking
Promoting or offering insights and critical thinking on important leadership topics
Credible
Based on academic research or well-rounded theories
Well-written
Ideas are expressed in a way that the truly interested and curious reader can follow
Caring
Authors do not only offer a critical perspective, but a genuine desire to do good
The Process
We're in the midst of our pre-selection phase, and we're excited to share some initial book lists we've curated as part of our ongoing 'Leaders for Humanity' interview series.
Our intention is to refine this selection while aligning it with the development of our 'good leadership foundation course.' The goal? To officially unveil the inaugural list in December 2023.
But we're not just yet satisfied with what's in front of us. We're eager for fresh ideas and suggestions! Feel free to drop us an email with your preferred titles at info@leadershipsociety.world. We'd love to hear from you!
“We need to think not only about what is the right, but about what is good. How can business build something that is actually good. We need to understand how the right and the good can work together.” – Ed Freeman
Top 100 Best Leadership Books - Candidates Updated Q4 2023
Email us your best ideas for leadership books or post on LinkedIn #goodleadershipsociety
Please always use the hashtag if you want to connect with us on the GoodOrganisations page
Starting from a philosophical or political perspective: Good Life and Good Society
Virtue Ethics and Human Enhancement
Virtue Ethics: A Pluralistic View
Virtue Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction
Virtues in Action: New Essays in Applied Virtue Ethics
Christian Ethics and Moral Philosophy: An Introduction to Issues and Approaches
Virtue at Work: Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations
Theology and the Science of Moral Action: Virtue Ethics, Exemplarity, and Cognitive Neuroscience
Virtue Rediscovered: Deontology, Consequentialism, and Virtue Ethics in the Contemporary Moral Landscape
Alasdair Macintyre: An Intellectual Biography (Catholic Ideas for a Secular World)
Thomas Aquinas on Virtue
If you have philosophical inclinations and want a good workout, this conscientious scrutiny of moral assumptions and expressions will be most rewarding.
Although it is on occasion useful to distinguish between factual claims and value judgments, it positively harmful when identified with a dichotomy between objective and purely "subjective."
Standing at the crossroads of psychology and religion, this catalyzing work applied the scientific method to a field abounding in abstract theory.
This book presents a method that might be called an Aristotelian common-sense approach to ethical decision making.
The Blackwell Guide to Business Ethics acquaints the reader with theoretical and pedagogical ethical issues in the practice of business
In Development as Freedom Amartya Sen explains how in a world of unprecedented increase in overall opulence millions of people living in the Third World are still unfree.
The Pragmatic Turn
Moral Imagination and Management Decision-Making
Reconstruction in Philosophy
The Rorty Reader
Toward a Pragmatist Philosophy of the Humanities
The Cambridge Companion to Pragmatism
Dialogues of Plato
The Social Construction Of Reality
Beyond realism and antirealism: John Dewey and the neopragmatists
Escape From Freedom
The Morality Of Happiness
Every weekend, in basements and parking lots across the country, young men with good white-collar jobs and absent fathers take off their shoes and shirts and fight each other barehanded for as long as they have to.
The Power of Pragmatism: Knowledge Production and Social Inquiry
The meaning of life. A reader
Man's Search For Meaning
Narcissus and goldmund is contrasting the careers of two friends, one of whom goes on the road, tangled in the extremes of life, the other staying in the monastery and struggling to lead a life of spiritual denial.
Meaning in Life and Why It Matters
Meaning in Life P
The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales
The Myth Of Sisyphus: And Other Essays
On Life: A Critical Edition
The Will to Power: Friedrich Nietzsche
Spiritual Capital - Wealth We Can Live By
Philosophy of Psychology: An Introduction
A Critical History and Philosophy of Psychology: Diversity of Context, Thought, and Practice
Husserl and Frege
Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology
Friendship for Virtue
Virtuous Emotions
A Secure Base
Adaptive Intelligence
Human Morality & Sociality
Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power (Futures)
The Good Society and the Inner World: Psychoanalysis, Politics and Culture
The Tasks of Philosophy, Volume 1:Seöected Essays
After Virtue
The Routledge Handbook of Virtue Epistemology
Handbook of Virtue Ethics in Business and Management
The Oxford Handbook of Virtue
The Nicomachean Ethics
A Better Way to Think about Business
Neoliberalism: A Very Short Introduction
Integrative Economic Ethics: Foundations of a Civilized Market Economy
Virtue Ethics: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy)
Virtue at Work: Ethics for Individuals, Managers, and Organizations
Intelligent Virtue
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
The Analects
Dao De Jing: The Book of the Way
Encountering China: Michael Sandel and Chinese Philosophy
The Problem of China (Routledge Classics)
A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy
Philosophical Essays East and West: Agent-Based Virtue Ethics and other topics at the intersection of Chinese thought and Western analytic philosophy
Letters From China and Japan (Esprios Classics): with Alice Chipman Dewey
The Path: A New Way to Think About Everything
How to be an Anti-capitalist for the 21st Century
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy
The Road to Serfdom
The Case for Socialism
The Socialist Tradition: From Crisis to Decline
The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy
Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism
The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism
The Conquest of Bread
The Socialist Temptation
The Socialist Manifesto: The Case for Radical Politics in an Era of Extreme Inequality
Wege aus dem Kapitalismus?
How will Capitalism end?
The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time
Liberalism: The Classical Tradition
The Road to Serfdom
Selection from the Prison Notebooks
Anthropologies of Modernity: Foucault, Governmentality, and Life Politics
The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy
Globalization and Its Discontents Revisited: Anti-Globalization in the Era of Trump
The Common Good
The Strange Non-Death of Neoliberalism
The Power Elite
Amusing Ourselves to Death
Thather and Thatcherism
Liberalism and its Discontents
After Neoliberalism? The Kilburn Manifesto
Populism and the Mirror of Democracy
Neoliberalism and the Moral Economy of Fraud
L'arte della gratuità. Come il capitalismo è nato dal cristianesimo e come lo ha tradito
The Invisible Hand?: How Market Economies have Emerged and Declined Since AD 500
Governing the Commons
Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home
Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future
Finance and Good Society
Capital in the Twenty-First Century
La Déraison de la raison économique: Du délire d'efficacité au principe de précaution
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community
The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
An Economist’s Lessons on Happiness
The Reluctant Economist: Perspectives on Economics, Economic History, and Demography
Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm and Live with Themselves
Catholic Social Thought: Encyclicals and Documents from Pope Leo XIII to Pope Francis
The Common Good
Economics for the Common Good
The Oxford Handbook of Public Choice, Volume 1
Public Choice: A Primer
The Limits of Public Choice: A Sociological Critique of the Economic Theory of Politics
Political Economy of Public Choice: An Introduction to Welfare Economics
Social Choice and Individual Values Kindle Edition
The Arrow Impossibility Theorem
Meritocracy and Economic Inequality
FIiscal Theory and Political Economy: Selected Essays
The Soul of Classical Political Economy: James M. Buchan
The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups
Power And Prosperity: Outgrowing Communist And Capitalist Dictatorships
Political Theory and Public Choice: The Selected Essays of Anthony Downs Volume One
Pathologies of Rational Choice Theory: A Critique of Applications in Political Scienc
Public Choice, Past and Present: The Legacy of James M. Buchanan and Gordon Tullock
Uncommon Sense: Economic Insights, from Marriage to Terrorism
Foundations of Social Theory
Advances in Behavioral Economics
The Routledge Handbook of Heterodox Economics: Theorizing, Analyzing, and Transforming Capitalism
Theory of Communicative Action
Justification and Application: Remarks on Discourse Ethics
Justice as Fairness: A Restatement
Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Innovating Democracy: Democratic Theory and Practice After the Deliberative Turn
Karl-Otto Apel und die Diskursethik: Eine Einführung
Beyond Civility: The Competing Obligations of Citizenship
Phenomenology: A Contemporary Introduction
Phenomenology of Perception
The Oxford Handbook of Contemporary Phenomenology
Phenomenology of Spirit
The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness
The Basic Problems of Phenomenology
Small Arcs of Larger Circles: Framing Through Other Patterns
Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity
Introduction to Phenomenology: Focus on Methodology
Deep Ecology
Deep Ecology for the Twenty-First Century
Ecological Ethics: An Introduction
Ethics
Environmental Ethics: A Very Short Introduction
The Oxford Handbook of Environmental Ethics
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update
Thinking in Systems
Ishmael
The Environmental Ethics and Policy Book
The Ethics of Care and Empathy
Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist
Dialectic of Enlightenment
The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
The Theory of Communicative Action
The Condition of Postmodernity
Critical Management Studies
Critical Theory Today
Simulacra and Simulation
Explaining Postmodernism
The Frankfurt School Critique of Capitalist Culture
The Production of Space
The Wretched of the Earth
The Human Condition
Lectures on Negative Dialectics
Credo
The Collected Sermons of William Sloane Coffin, Volumes One and Two: The Riverside Years
The Fourth Way: Teachings of G.I. Gurdjieff
The Social Contract
A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition
Critique of Pure Reason
The Republic
The Politics
Leviathan
The Communist Manifesto
The Federalist Papers: Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay
God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights
Power, Politics, and the Decline of the Civil Rights Movement: A Fragile Coalition, 1967–1973
Human Nature: Justice Versus Power: The Chomsky-Foucault Debate
Power: A Radical View
Frameworks of Power
Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison
Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings
The Wretched of the Earth
The Anatomy of Power
The Power Elite
Power: A New Social Analysis
The Social Structures of the Economy
The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge
The Second Sex
The Origins of Totalitarianism
The H-Word: The Peripeteia of Hegemony
The Morality of War
Just and Unjust Wars
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
Agency and Ethics: The Politics of Military Intervention
Shooting to Kill: The Ethics of Police and Military Use of Lethal Force
Military Ethics: What Everyone Needs to Know
Introduction to Military Ethics, An: A Reference Handbook
The Moral Dimension of Asymmetrical Warfare: Counter-terrorism, Democratic Values and Military Ethics
Military Ethics and Virtues
The Moral Warrior
Routledge Handbook of Ethics and War: Just War Theory in the 21st Century
The Ethics of Armed Conflict: A Cosmopolitan Just War Theory
Ethics and War in the 21st Century (LSE International Studies Series
Rethinking the Just War Tradition (Suny Series, Ethics and the Military Profession)
The Cambridge Handbook of the Just War (Cambridge Handbooks in Philosophy)
Comparative Just War Theory: An Introduction to International Perspectives
Stoic Warriors: The Ancient Philosophy Behind the Military Mind
Just War Theory (Studies in Moral Philosophy)
The Fundamentals of Ethics
The Emergence of Leadership: Linking Self-Organization and Ethics
Long Walk To Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela
Starting from a (political-) economic perspective: Good Economy
Civil Economy and Organisation
Development as Freedom
Political Emotions: Why Love Matters for Justice
Commodities and Capabilities
The Tyranny of Merit: What’s Become of the Common Good?
Global Ethics and Global Common Goods
Virtues, Morals and Markets: Why Moral Identity Matters
Das Ende des Kapitalismus: Warum Wachstum und Klimaschutz nicht vereinbar sind - und wie wir in Zukunft leben werden
Discourse on Political Economy and The Social Contract
What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets
Success and Luck: Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy
Thomas Aquinas and the Civil Economy Tradition
This Economy Kills: Pope Francis on Capitalism and Social Justice
Economy and Society: A New Translation
The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism: and Other Writings
Religion and the Rise of Capitalism
The Charismatic Principle in Social Life
Economia ed etica. La crisi e la sfida dell'economia civile
Il Nostro Pane Quotidiano
Francesco D'Assisi E L'Economia Della Fraternità
Benedetta Economia
Cathonomics: How Catholic Tradition Can Create a More Just Economy
The German Chambers of Commerce and Industry: Self-governance, Service,...[Download]
Christliche Unternehmer (Deutsche Führungsschichten in der Neuzeit, Band 19)
Léon Harmel: Entrepreneur as Catholic Social Reformer
Soziale Marktwirtschaft und Ordoliberalismus zur Einführung
Neo-Ordoliberalismus: Ein Zukunftsmodell für die Soziale Marktwirtschaft
Pour un libéralisme humaniste: La voie ordolibérale
Das Verhältnis zwischen Individuum und Kollektiv. Der Kommunitarier Charles Taylor im Vergleich mit dem Ordoliberalen Alexander Rüstow
Property-Owning Democracy: Rawls and Beyond
The Power Of Creative Destruction: Economic Upheaval And The Wealth Of Nations
Anständige Institutionen: Ethik für Organisationen und Unternehmen (2024)
The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration
Giddens' Theory Of Structuration (Routledge Revivals): A critical appreciation
A Realist Theory of Science
Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach
Value Systems and Social Process
Being and Time
Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology
Being and Nothingness: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology
Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
The Myth of Sisyphus
The Road to Serfdom
Development as Freedom
Creating Capabilities
Philosophical Investigations
Cosmopolis
Cambridge Handbook of Strategy as Practice
Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity
Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach
The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration
Complex Responsive Processes in Organizations: Learning and Knowledge Creation
Starting from management and organisational behaviour perspective: Good Organisations
Systems Intelligence – A New Lens On Human Engagement And Action
Meaningful Work
The Oxford Handbook of Meaningful Work
Strategy as Practice
Understanding Organizations
Organizational Culture and Leadership
Leading Change
HBR's 10 Must Reads on Change Management
Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future
Dialogic Organization Development
Designing Organizations: Strategy, Structure, and Process at the Business Unit and Enterprise Levels
Community: The Structure of Belonging
Organizational Strategy, Structure, and Process
Organization: Contemporary Principles and Practice
Handbook of Organizational Change and Innovation
Building Strategy from the Middle: Reconceptualizing Strategy Process
Ice Cream Social: The Struggle for the Soul of Ben & Jerry's
The Visible Hand: Managerial Revolution in American Business
The Theory of the Firm: An overview of the economic mainstream
Industrial Organization
The Economics of Transaction Costs
Identity Economics
The Theory of the Growth of the Firm
A Theory of the Firm – Governance, Residual Claims & Organizational Forms
The Future of the Commons
Business Ecosystems
Primer on Decision Making: How Decisions Happen
Rediscovering Institutions
Collaborative Entrepreneurship: How Networked Firms Use Continuous Innovation to Create Economic Wealth
The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities For Prosperity
Bureaucracy, Collegiality and Social Change: Redefining Organizations with Multilevel Relational Infrastructures
Corporate Governance and Firm Organization: Microfoundations and Structural Forms
Organisational Learning
Sensemaking in Organizations
Heart of Enterprise
Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity
Systems of Organization: The control of task and sentient boundaries
Being and Time: A Revised Edition of the Stambaugh Translation
Eight Domains of Phenomenology and Research Methods
Philosophical Papers: Volume 1, Human Agency and Language
Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals
Relational Being
The Oxford Handbook of Positive Organizational Scholarship
The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory
Awakening Compassion at Work
Energize Your Workplace
Positive Organizational Scholarship. Foundations of a New Discipline
Emotion in Organizations
Homo Ludens
Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within
Tales of The FieLd. On Writing Ethnography
Positive Psychology in Business Ethics and Corporate Responsibility
Flourish: A New Understanding of Happiness and Well-Being - and How To Achieve Them
Appreciative Inquiry: A Positive Revolution in Change
Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Positivity: Groundbreaking Research To Release Your Inner Optimist And Thrive
Authentic Happiness: Using the New Positive Psychology to Realise your Potential for Lasting Fulfilment
Positive Psychology: The Science of Wellbeing and Human Strengths
Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship
The Pursuit of Unhappiness: The Elusive Psychology of Well-Being
Dialogic Organization Development
Small Arcs of Larger Circles
Critical Systems Thinking and the Management of Complexity
Cynefin - Weaving Sense-Making into the Fabric of Our World
The Fearless Organization
Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them
Many Voices One Song
Reinventing Organizations
Holacracy: The Revolutionary Management System that Abolishes Hierarchy
Open Strategy: Mastering Disruption from Outside the C-Suite
Start-up Factory: Haier's RenDanHeYi model and the end of management as we know it
Zero Distance: Management in the Quantum Age
The Fractal Organization: Creating sustainable organizations with the Viable System Model
Platform for Change
Leading by Weak Signals: Using Small Data to Master Complexity:
Adaptive Leadership: The Heifetz Collection
Social Power and the CEO: Leadership and Trust in a Sustainable Free Enterprise System
Executive Leadership: A Practical Guide to Managing Complexity
The Outward Mindset: How to Change Lives and Transform Organizations
Exploration in Management
Critical Leadership Theory: Integrating Transdisciplinary Perspectives
Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self-Interest
Systems Leadership: Creating Positive Organisations
Real Power: Stages of Personal Power in Organizations
The Power of Invisible Leadership: How a Compelling Common Purpose Inspires Exceptional Leadership
Moments of Truth
Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation
Leadership in Organizations
The Leadership Shadow: How to Recognize and Avoid Derailment, Hubris and Overdrive
Humble Leadership, Second Edition: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and Trust
Immunity to Change: How to Overcome It and Unlock the Potential in Yourself and Your Organization
The Connecting Leader: Serving Concurrently as a Leader and a Follower
Mastering Leadership: An Integrated Framework for Breakthrough Performance and Extraordinary Business Results
Leadership Without Easy Answers
Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
The Empowerment Manual: A Guide for Collaborative Groups
Messing about in Problems: An Informal Structured Approach to Their Identification and Management
The Unconscious at Work: A Tavistock Approach to Making Sense of Organizational Life
Flat Army: Creating a Connected and Engaged Organization
Work-Life Bloom: How to Nurture a Team that Flourishes
Starting from personal development and education: Good Leaders and Good Leadership