Good Leadership and Management Books

I am very keen in deepening my understanding of about engineering leadership for fast growing tech companies. This is very relevant to my current company where I am working as a Sr Engineering Manager. I often share my thoughts, new learnings, leadership puzzles that is confusing me currently in my social media networks. As a result I have developed a diversified group of peers who often bring new ideas to me, ask intelligent questions. One common question from those are what are some good books on leadership and management. My today’s article is an attempt to address that. Please let me know your thoughts on these books, what you think are missing in this list and what you think should not have made to this list. I plan to keep updating this list in my leadership blog here as I read more books. Together we learn.

(1) The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

• Author: Patrick Lencioni
• Category: Business Fable, Leadership
• Suitable For: New and Experienced Managers
• Length: Short

(2) The Ideal Team Player: How to Recognize and Cultivate The Three Essential Virtues

• Author: Patrick Lencioni
• Category: Business Fable, Leadership
• Suitable For: Managers and Individual Contributors
• Length: Short

(3) An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management

• Author: Will Larson
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New and Experienced Managers
• Length: Large

(4) Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when the Stakes are High

• Authors: Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Swizler
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New and Experienced Managers
• Length: Short

(5) The Hard Thing About Hard Things

• Author: Ben Horowitz
• Category: Biography, Leadership
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium

(6) Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

• Author: Peter Thiel and Blake Masters
• Category: Leadership
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Short

(7) The 48 Laws of Power

• Author: Robert Greene
• Category: Politics, Leadership
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium

(8) Steve Jobs

• Author: Walter Isaacson
• Category: Biography, Leadership
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Large

(9) No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention

• Authors: Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New and Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium

(10) The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

• Author: Eric Ries
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium

(11) The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You

• Author: Julie Zhou
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New Managers
• Length: Medium

(12) The Manager’s Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

• Author: Camille Fournier
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New Managers
• Length: Short

(13) Trillion Dollar Coach: The Leadership Playbook of Silicon Valley’s Bill Campbell

• Authors: Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg and Alan Eagle
• Category: Biography, Leadership
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium

(14) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us

• Author: Daniel Pink
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium

(15) The New One Minute Manager

• Author: Ken Blanchard
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New Managers
• Length: Small

(16) First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently

• Authors: Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman from Gallup Organization
• Category: Management Theory
• Suitable For: New and Experienced Managers
• Length: Medium