1. THANKS FOR THE FEEDBACK
Thanks for the Feedback by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen recognizes the fundamental tension that feedback presents: desire for growth and need for acceptance. This book is a bible when it comes to swimming in the wild seas of giving feedback as a manager. Even better, it will likely have a huge impact on your relationships outside work, too.
Recommended by Julian Keil, Director of Customer Success @ illuminr, who couldn’t give a more glowing review: “One of the better (perhaps best) books I’ve read re: feedback. Plenty of actionable insights and areas to reflect on in work and personal life.”
2. QUIET LEADERSHIP
David Rock’s Quiet Leadership: Six Steps to Transforming Performance at Work is all about changing the ways employees think, before thinking about how they behave. Rock offers a practical, six-step guide to making fundamental change in employee performance by unlocking their potential, morale and their love of the job. In a nutshell, all the things managers are trying to achieve.
Recommended by Trisha Duffy, Head of Learning @ The Mintable.
The next three books are recommendations from Kirstin Hunter who guest-starred in our Expert Speaker Series for managers – How to flex your management style. Missed it? Check out the recap and key takeaways here.
3. MANAGING TO CHANGE THE WORLD
If you’re a manager in a non-profit organization then Alison Green and Jerry Hauser’s book is for you. Designed to teach nonprofit managers that their approach should always be grounded in long term, sustainable results that mirror their company’s mission, this book helps develop purpose-led employees.
Read this book and you can learn how to manage specific tasks and broader responsibilities; set clear goals and hold people accountable to them.
4. RADICAL CANDOR
Author Kim Scott was an executive at Google and then at Apple, where she worked with a team to develop a class on how to be a good boss. Radical Candor is beautiful in its simplicity: to be a good boss, one needs to be both direct and empathetic at the same time. She believes that when we challenge without caring, it’s obnoxious aggression; but when we care without challenging it’s ruinous empathy. And when you do neither, it’s manipulative insincerity.
This book teaches new managers how to walk that difficult emotional tightrope to build healthy teams.
5. POWERFUL (INTL): BUILDING A CULTURE OF FREEDOM AND RESPONSIBILITY
We all love a foosball table and free drinks on a Friday but we also know these things don’t create great employees nor keep them in an environment that isn’t for them.
In Powerful (Intl), Patty McCord helped create the unique and high-performing culture at Netflix, where she was chief talent officer and advocates for doing away with promises and perks and focusing on the practice of radical honesty.
6. DEMYSTIFYING DISABILITY
Did you know that people with disabilities are the world’s largest minority, being an estimated 15 percent of the global population? Emily Ladau’s book provides a thoughtful guide to becoming an informed ally to disabled people, with actionable steps for what to say and do (and what not to do) in the very human face of disability. As a manager, these tools and skills are essential for creating an inclusive workplace.
Recommended by Stephan Waldstrom, President @ RPX Insurance Services. Awesomely, RPX holds a regular book club that selects reads related to upcoming awareness and heritage months. Demystifying Disability was picked for November’s National Disability Employment Awareness Month.
7. THE DAILY STOIC
For those who might struggle with daily entries or creating moments of reflection, The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman offers a method to develop a daily devotional practice. Between insights and exercises and prompts and readings for each day of the week, your zen is on its way to being mastered with this book. And as managers, we could all use a little zen!
Recommended by Marc Reisen – Head of Design @ The Mintable.
This is our second edition of the must-read management books being shared by top managers (missed the first volume? Catch up here). Are you looking for ways you can upskill your managers on feedback? Learn more about Tandem – the continuous feedback system for high performing companies.
