“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
― Harry S. Truman
This list is a personal list of some books that we view as important, influential or just worth a read; it is not exhaustive and changes from time to time.
Coaching & Psychology
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Title |
Authors |
|
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Co-active Coaching |
Kimsey-House et al. 2011 |
The starting point for Co-active Coaches. |
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Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds |
Sullivan and Rees, 2008 |
How to ask powerful questions and get insights without leading your subject. |
|
Emotional Intelligence |
Daniel Goleman, 1996 |
The original text at the heart of much of our work in coaching and in the foundations of the ORSC methodology. |
|
The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success |
Stein and Book, 2011 |
A supporting text for those wanting to know more and work on their EQi. |
|
Thinking, fast and slow |
Daniel Kahneman, 2011 |
A fascinating insight into how we think and why we should and shouldn’t use our intuition. |
Leadership & Business
|
Title |
Authors |
|
|
Churchill: A biography |
Roy Jenkins, 2002 |
Far more powerful and insightful than the “what I did” autobiographies of many business leaders. With themes including resilience, courage, passion, preparation, independence, communication, relationships and failure there are lessons here for all leaders. |
|
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People |
Stephen Covey, 2004 |
Still contains sound advice and most people will identify where they could make improvements in themselves. |
|
The First 90 Days |
Michael Watkins, 2013 |
The manual for hitting the ground running in a new role. |
|
The Secrets of Success at Work |
Richard Hall, 2008 |
Written by my first coach, this book contains many pearls of wisdom (as long as you can overlook him quoting Fred Goodwin). |
|
Riding the Waves of Culture: Understanding Cultural Diversity in Business |
Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 2012 |
The masters of rigorous but readable works on working across cultures. |
|
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side Of Everything |
Levitt and Dubner, 2007 |
Along with their follow-up Superfreakonomics (2010) they explain why the obvious or common sense answer is quite often wrong and teach you to think of things in a different way. |
|
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few |
James Surrowiecki, 2010 |
For those of us who believe in the power of the group or team, evidence that we are right! |
Interesting and Inspiring
|
Title |
Authors |
|
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A Time of Gifts / Between the Woods and the Water |
Patrick Leigh Fermor, 1977 / 1986 |
Telling the fascinating story of what must be one of the earliest “gap years” when Patrick walked across Europe in 1931. Whilst he starts sleeping rough or in cheap inns; as he crosses a lost Europe he ends up staying in castles and mixing with the local aristocracy. |
|
Germania / Danubia |
Simon Winder, 2010 / 2013 |
An easy an entertaining way to learn more about the history of these parts of Europe that English education barely skims. |
|
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance |
Robert Prisig, 1974 |
An introduction to the subject of Total Quality Management via a philosophical novel, you either love it or hate it! |
|
Stan the Man – Stan Bowles autobiography |
Stan Bowles (plus unnamed ghost writer no doubt), 1996 |
For QPR fans there is not much in our history to cheer us up, but knowing that the best football autobiography ever written came from our Stan is something. |
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Almost anything and everything by John Updike and Charles Dickens! |
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