The Best Business Books on Leadership and Business
If you’ve decided to go on the ride of Entrepreneurship, you will need a list of The Best Business Books to help you go through the journey. It’s said that reading books is like having many mentors.
There’s good reason why most top CEO’s and Entrepreneurs you’ve heard of have either written a book or have books written on them. The wisdom they share is invaluable, and I dare say more valuable this day in age than a business degree from a university. Yes I said it.
Books help you hear directly from those that have been in the trenches rather than just sit in a class listening to “theory”. The books I’ve listed are all from those that have in the Entrepreneurship Arena and shed light on some of the toughest moments that helped them overcome adversity to build the brand or legacy along the way.
One book alone can hold the golden nugget that will take you from Zero To One, as Peter Thiel writes, or go from 100k a year to 1 Million.
These are the best business books that I’ve found to be classics in that the truths being shared can be passed through generations or simply books that hold a practical framework or system that helps you take it to the next level.
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.
1. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action
In 2009 Simon Sinek started a movement to help people become more inspired at work and, in turn, inspire their colleagues and customers. Since then, millions have been touched by the power of his ideas, including more than 28 million who’ve watched his TED Talk based on Start with Why – the third most popular TED video of all time.
Sinek starts with a fundamental question: Why are some people and organizations more innovative, more influential, and more profitable than others? Why do some command greater loyalty from customers and employees alike? Even among the successful, why are so few able to repeat their success over and over?
People like Martin Luther King Jr., Steve Jobs, and the Wright Brothers had little in common, but they all started with why. They realized that people won’t truly buy into a product, service, movement, or idea until they understand the why behind it.
Start with Why shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way – and it’s the opposite of what everyone else does. Sinek calls this powerful idea The Golden Circle, and it provides a framework upon which organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with why.
2 Managing Oneself: The Key to Success
Peter Drucker is widely regarded as the father of modern management, offering penetrating insights into business that still resonate today. But Drucker also offers deep wisdom on how to manage our personal lives and how to become more effective leaders. In these two classic articles from Harvard Business Review, Drucker reveals the keys to becoming your own chief executive officer as well as a better leader of others. “Managing Oneself” identifies the probing questions you need to ask to gain the insights essential for taking charge of your career, while “What Makes an Effective Executive” outlines the key behaviors you must adopt in order to lead. Together, they chart a powerful course to help you carve out your place in the world.
3: How to Win Friends and Influence People
You can go after the job you want…and get it! You can take the job you have…and improve it! You can take any situation you’re in…and make it work for you!
Simon & Schuster Audio is proud to present one of the best-selling books of all time, Dale Carnegie’s perennial classic How to Win Friends and Influence People, presented here in its entirety.
For over 60 years the rock-solid, time-tested advice in this audiobook has carried thousands of now-famous people up the ladder of success in their business and personal lives.
With this truly phenomenal audiobook, learn:
The six ways to make people like youThe twelve ways to win people to your way of thinkingThe nine ways to change people without arousing resentment
And much, much more!
There is room at the top, when you know…How to Win Friends and Influence People.
4: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change
The 7 Habits have become famous and are integrated into everyday thinking by millions and millions of people. Why? Because they work! With Sean Covey’s added takeaways on how the habits can be used in our modern age, the wisdom of the 7 Habits will be refreshed for a new generation of leaders.
They include:
- Habit 1: Be Proactive
- Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind
- Habit 3: Put First Things First
- Habit 4: Think Win/Win
- Habit 5: Seek First to Understand,Then to Be Understood
- Habit 6: Synergize
- Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw
5: Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…And Others Don’t
Built to Last, the defining management study of the ’90s, showed how great companies triumph over time and how long-term sustained performance can be engineered into the DNA of an enterprise from the very beginning.
But what about companies that are not born with great DNA? How can good companies, mediocre companies, even bad companies achieve enduring greatness? Are there those that convert long-term mediocrity or worse into long-term superiority? If so, what are the distinguishing characteristics that cause a company to go from good to great?
Over five years, Jim Collins and his research team have analyzed the histories of 28 companies, discovering why some companies make the leap and others don’t. The findings include:
- Level 5 Leadership: A surprising style, required for greatness
- The Hedgehog Concept: Finding your three circles, to transcend the curse of competence
- A Culture of Discipline: The alchemy of great results
- Technology Accelerators: How good-to-great companies think differently about technology
- The Flywheel and the Doom Loop: Why those who do frequent restructuring fail to make the leap
6: Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future
Every moment in business happens only once.
The next Bill Gates will not build an operating system. The next Larry Page or Sergey Brin won’t make a search engine. And the next Mark Zuckerberg won’t create a social network. If you are copying these guys, you aren’t learning from them.
It’s easier to copy a model than to make something new: doing what we already know how to do takes the world from 1 to n, adding more of something familiar. But every time we create something new, we go from 0 to 1. The act of creation is singular, as is the moment of creation, and the result is something fresh and strange.
Progress comes from monopoly, not competition.
If you do what has never been done and you can do it better than anybody else, you have a monopoly – and every business is successful exactly insofar as it is a monopoly. But the more you compete, the more you become similar to everyone else. From the tournament of formal schooling to the corporate obsession with outdoing rivals, competition destroys profits for individuals, companies, and society as a whole.
Zero to One is about how to build companies that create new things. It draws on everything Peter Thiel has learned directly as a co-founder of PayPal and Palantir and then an investor in hundreds of startups, including Facebook and SpaceX. The single most powerful pattern Thiel has noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas. Ask not, what would Mark do? Ask: What valuable company is nobody building?
7: Principles: Life and Work
Ray Dalio, one of the world’s most successful investors and entrepreneurs, shares the unconventional principles that he’s developed, refined, and used over the past 40 years to create unique results in both life and business – and which any person or organization can adopt to help achieve their goals.
In Principles, Dalio shares what he’s learned over the course of his remarkable career. He argues that life, management, economics, and investing can all be systemized into rules and understood like machines. The book’s hundreds of practical lessons, which are built around his cornerstones of “radical truth” and “radical transparency”, include Dalio laying out the most effective ways for individuals and organizations to make decisions, approach challenges, and build strong teams. He also describes the innovative tools the firm uses to bring an idea meritocracy to life, such as creating “baseball cards” for all employees that distill their strengths and weaknesses and employing computerized decision-making systems to make believability-weighted decisions. While the book brims with novel ideas for organizations and institutions, Principles also offers a clear, straightforward approach to decision making that Dalio believes anyone can apply, no matter what they’re seeking to achieve.
8: The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results
More than 500 appearances on national bestseller lists
- #1 Wall Street Journal | New York Times and USA Today
- Won 12 book awards
- Translated into 35 languages
- Voted Top 100 Business Book of All Time on Goodreads
People are using this simple, powerful concept to focus on what matters most in their personal and work lives. Companies are helping their employees be more productive with study groups, training, and coaching. Sales teams are boosting sales. Churches are conducting classes and recommending for their members.
By focusing their energy on one thing at a time people are living more rewarding lives by building their careers, strengthening their finances, losing weight and getting in shape, deepening their faith, and nurturing stronger marriages and personal relationships.
YOU WANT LESS. You want fewer distractions and less on your plate. The daily barrage of e-mails, texts, tweets, messages, and meetings distract you and stress you out. The simultaneous demands of work and family are taking a toll. And what’s the cost? Second-rate work, missed deadlines, smaller paychecks, fewer promotions–and lots of stress.
AND YOU WANT MORE. You want more productivity from your work. More income for a better lifestyle. You want more satisfaction from life, and more time for yourself, your family, and your friends.
NOW YOU CAN HAVE BOTH ― LESS AND MORE. In The ONE Thing, you’ll learn to * cut through the clutter * achieve better results in less time * build momentum toward your goal* dial down the stress * overcome that overwhelmed feeling * revive your energy * stay on track * master what matters to you The ONE Thing delivers extraordinary results in every area of your life–work, personal, family, and spiritual. WHAT’S YOUR ONE THING?
9: Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it)
Frost & Sullivan’s 2014 Growth, Innovation, and Leadership Book of the Year
In business, performance is key. In performance, how you organize can be the key to growth.
In the past five years, the business world has seen the birth of a new breed of company—the Exponential Organization—that has revolutionized how a company can accelerate its growth by using technology.
An ExO can eliminate the incremental, linear way traditional companies get bigger, leveraging assets like community, big data, algorithms, and new technology into achieving performance benchmarks ten times better than its peers.
Three luminaries of the business world—Salim Ismail, Yuri van Geest, and Mike Malone—have researched this phenomenon and documented ten characteristics of Exponential Organizations. Here, in EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS, they walk the reader through how any company, from a startup to a multi-national, can become an ExO, streamline its performance, and grow to the next level.
“EXPONENTIAL ORGANIZATIONS is the most pivotal book in its class. Salim examines the future of organizations and offers readers his insights on the concept of Exponential Organizations, because he himself embodies the strategy, structure, culture, processes, and systems of this new breed of company.”—John Hagel, The Center for the Edge
10: Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
A tribe is any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea. For millions of years, humans have been seeking out tribes, be they religious, ethnic, economic, political, or even musical (think of the Deadheads). It’s our nature.
Now the Internet has eliminated the barriers of geography, cost, and time. All those blogs and social networking sites are helping existing tribes get bigger. But more important, they’re enabling countless new tribes to be born – groups of ten or ten thousand or ten million who care about their iPhones, or a political campaign, or a new way to fight global warming.
And so the key question: Who is going to lead us?
The Web can do amazing things, but it can’t provide leadership. That still has to come from individuals – people just like you who have a passion about something. The explosion in tribes means that anyone who wants to make a difference now has the tools at her fingertips.
If you think leadership is for other people, think again – leaders come in surprising packages. Consider Joel Spolsky and his international tribe of scary-smart software engineers. Or Gary Vaynerhuck, a wine expert with a devoted following of enthusiasts. Chris Sharma leads a tribe of rock climbers up impossible cliff faces, while Mich Mathews, a VP at Microsoft, runs her internal tribe of marketers from her cube in Seattle. All they have in common is the desire to change things, the ability to connect a tribe, and the willingness to lead.
If you ignore this opportunity, you risk turning into a “sheepwalker” – someone who fights to protect the status quo at all costs, never asking if obedience is doing you (or your organization) any good. Sheepwalkers don’t do very well these days.
Tribes will make you think (really think) about the opportunities in leading your fellow employees, customers, investors, believers, hobbyists, or readers….It’s not easy, but it’s easier than you think.
11: Ready, Fire, Aim: Zero to $100 Million in No Time Flat
If you had the opportunity to work where, when, and with whom you wanted – all while getting paid very well – would you take it? Self-made multimillionaire and best-selling author Michael Masterson did, and with Ready, Fire, Aim he’ll show you how to do the same.
Whether you’re thinking about starting a new business or growing an existing one, Ready, Fire, Aim has what you need to succeed in your entrepreneurial endeavors. In it, Masterson shares the knowledge he has gained from creating and expanding numerous businesses and outlines a focused strategy for guiding a small business through the four stages of entrepreneurial growth. Along the way, you’ll learn the skills needed to succeed in this dynamic environment. Discover how to:Start a business from scratch and make it profitable quickly
- Keep a growing business growing
- Get other people to do almost all the hard work for you, so you are free to do the fun stuff
- Position yourself as an indispensable business builder, so you can enjoy a big share of the profits – even if you are only working part time
- Duplicate your winning strategy in several businesses so you never have to worry about “needing” any one of them.
Over the course of his remarkably successful career, Masterson has developed dozens of businesses, including one still growing at $300 million. Now he shows you how to outsell your competitors by implementing innovative operational procedures to reduce costs and using the power of the Internet to reduce customer complaints and increase profits.
12: The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits
Intelligent strategies for starting and growing a small business with minimal personal financial risk….
A comprehensive guide for entrepreneurs from one of the most successful business creators in recent years, The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits addresses the fears and misconceptions that many people have about starting their own businesses, walking prospective owners through the necessary decisions they need to make before even putting a business plan in place.
Presenting solid, reliable strategies based on author Michael Masterson’s own successful practices, and debunking some common illusions entrepreneurs have about their businesses, the audiobook is a vital resource for anyone looking to avoid the pitfalls that threaten fledgling companies.
- Packed with insights from an entrepreneur who has launched and sold dozens of business, presented in a lively and conversational style
- Some 600,000 new businesses are launched each year and with an uncertain economy, more and more people are looking for a stream of income separate from their 9 to 5 job
- Filled with highly applicable advice that budding and professional entrepreneurs can start using immediately
Essential listening for small business owners and both first-time and established entrepreneurs, The Reluctant Entrepreneur presents the smart strategies on starting and growing a small business that can make launching your own company a cinch.
13: The Seven Years to Seven Figures System: Six Steps to Automatic Wealth
Why wait 20, 30, or 40 years to be rich when all it really takes is seven?
The Seven Years to Seven Figures System: 6 Steps to Automatic Wealth is a densely packed, high-energy audio seminar, recorded both live and in studio, that will spell out for you – in full detail – a practical and time-and-again-proven way to get rich fast, grow richer each year, and stay rich for the rest of your life.
There’s no theory here. This program contains the nitty-gritty, nuts-and-bolts information you need to start taking action and making money fast.
Each of the individuals you’re going to hear from is out there actively using and profiting (massively) from these very steps. And each one is a phenomenal success and renowned expert on the particular step they reveal to you. The wealth-building secrets and strategies they give you are the same ones they use – each and every day.
You’ll discover:
- The only two ways to make money.
- Where you should be investing your money right now.
- Insider secrets to spotting and capitalizing on investment trends and avoid getting burned.
- How to make tons more in the market than you could otherwise using a potentially amazing tool.
- The state-of-the-art secret you can use to control your investment risk.
- The no-capital, no-time, no-employees way to generate an extra income stream fast.
- Specific “micro businesses” that you can start quickly and use to bring in as little or as much extra cash as you want without quitting your full-time job (yet!).
- Easy ways to make even a tiny business ultra-competitive.
- The commodity that may be even more valuable than money.
- A crash course in real estate investing that will have you raking in piles of cash while you sleep!
- A six-figure-a-month (a month!) business opportunity that’s easy to run and yours for the taking.
14: Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship
You live in your dream house, but there’s no mortgage. No alarm clock, no boss, no bills. No claims on the day’s time other than what you choose. It is making more money before breakfast than you made for an entire week at your last job. It is a crazy expensive car parked in your garage, a victorious symbol that your dreams no longer sleep in fantasies, but are awake with reality.
Make no mistake, this life exists. I know, because it has been mine for nearly 20 years. And in a few short years, it can be yours as well. Better, you won’t need five tedious decades of thankless jobs, buzz killing frugality, and patient investing with our trusted friends on Wall Street.
Unfortunately, you have been scripted to believe that such a life is out of your reach, or only possible for a certain type of person. Someone with a certain college degree, a certain amount of VC funding, or a certain contact list of connected friends from Stanford. I am here to tell you, that none of it is true.
While I have been entrepreneur most of my life, I am no one special. You won’t read about me over at Tech Crunch or in some Silicon Valley newsletter. While I have been an Internet entrepreneur since the old “you’ve got mail” AOL days, I have never been funded by venture capitalists, I have never had a payroll with more than five people on it, and I have never studied computer science at school.
Despite this, I am able to create profitable businesses that create the type of unscripted life described above.
15: The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do What You Love, and Create a New Future
In The $100 Startup, Chris Guillebeau tells you how to lead of life of adventure, meaning and purpose – and earn a good living.
Still in his early 30s, Chris is on the verge of completing a tour of every country on earth – he’s already visited more than 175 nations – and yet he’s never held a “real job” or earned a regular paycheck. Rather, he has a special genius for turning ideas into income, and he uses what he earns both to support his life of adventure and to give back.
There are many others like Chris – those who’ve found ways to opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue what they find meaningful. Sometimes, achieving that perfect blend of passion and income doesn’t depend on shelving what you currently do. You can start small with your venture, committing little time or money, and wait to take the real plunge when you’re sure it’s successful.
In preparing to write this book, Chris identified 1,500 individuals who have built businesses earning $50,000 or more from a modest investment (in many cases, $100 or less), and from that group he’s chosen to focus on the 50 most intriguing case studies. In nearly all cases, people with no special skills discovered aspects of their personal passions that could be monetized, and were able to restructure their lives in ways that gave them greater freedom and fulfillment.
16: The Six Figure Second Income: How to Start and Grow a Successful Online Business Without Quitting Your Day Job
Here are proven methods for building an online income stream. Maybe you dream of making money with an online business, but haven’t tried so far because you’d have to quit your current job and enter the risky world of Internet startups.
You may think you need lots of capital and way too much time. You may think the field is maxed out and overcrowded. Or that you need to be age 24 – with an amazing invention to sell. Or just because the economy’s too bad right now.
If these reasons sound familiar, Dave Lindahl and Jon Rozek beg to differ. Having done so themselves, they know you can create a very significant side income online, and their new go-to guide The Six-Figure Second Income shows you exactly how!
Filled with common-sense advice and proven tips, this audiobook supplies you with a complete toolbox to take the things you know or do best and sell them online for a profit – all in your spare time, working at your speed. You’ll get a no-nonsense approach to creating and selling simple, effective information products that will, with time and work, produce a sizable income stream. You’ll also discover:
- Ten false barriers on your road to online business success
- Six very real dangers to your success
- Ready-made ideas for quick and profitable products
- Helpful tips for creating saleable content quickly and easily
- Seven building blocks of a good website
- Common marketing mistakes and their fixes
- How to use Google tools and other online resources to discover new trends and markets
- Secrets to creating an upward profit spiral
If for some reason you object to making money, don’t listen to this audiobook. Otherwise, listen to The Six-Figure Second Income and start building a rewarding and growing stream of online profits today!
How To Apply Advice From The Best Business Books
There you have it, The Best Business Books on Leadership and Entrepreneurship. The best way to apply what you learn is by taking inspired action and by teaching others what you’ve learned. If you’re thinking of starting your own business, Check out the Resource Page for all the best tools you can start with.