Top 50
Quotes from the Best Leadership Books
How good are you at leading
people and teams? For some it may feel like the most natural thing in the
world, and for others it takes that little bit longer to master the art of
leadership. But there is help at hand and it comes in the form of
literature.
Recently, we brought you the top 50 leadership
books to help guide you to become the very best leader you can
be. However, reading them all wouldn’t leave you much time to….well,
lead. That’s why the experts bought these books and used the ‘most
highlighted’ feature to see which quotes connect with readers the most.
Each of these top-rated books
can help steer you in the right direction for whatever you need right now, but
this list can also act as a good source of inspiration for whatever future
problems may arise. Reading these snippets regularly can help you find
your next read for whatever comes your way.
1. Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
“Pretend to be completely in
control and people will assume that you are.”
2. Freakonomics: A Rogue
Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
“There are three basic flavors
of incentive: economic, social, and moral.”
3. Outliers: The Story of
Success by Malcolm Gladwell
“Practice isn’t the thing you
do once you’re good. It’s the thing you do that makes you good.”
4. The Tipping Point: How
Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell
“These three characteristics —
one, contagiousness; two, the fact that little causes can have big effects; and
three, that change happens not gradually but at one dramatic moment”
5. How to Win Friends and
Influence People by Dale Carnegie
“When dealing with people, let us remember we are not dealing with
creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion, creatures
bristling with prejudices and motivated by pride and vanity.”
6. Quiet: The Power of
Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
“Introverts, in contrast, may
have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a
while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social
energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen…”
7. The 7 Habits of Highly
Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
“It’s not what happens to us,
but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.”
8. Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
“The fear you let build up in
your mind is worse than the situation that actually exists”
9. Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
“Learn to use your emotions to
think, not think with your emotions”
10. The Power of Habit: Why We
Do What We Do in Life and Business by
Charles Duhigg
“First find a simple and
obvious cue. Secondly clearly define the rules”
11. The Art of War by Sun Tzu
“Plan for what is difficult
while it is easy, do what is great while it is small. The difficult things in
this world must be done while they are easy, the greatest things in the world
must be done while they are still small.”
12. Lean In: Women, Work, and
the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
“The most common way people
give up power is by thinking they don’t have any”
13. The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli
“Upon this, one has to remark
that men ought either to be well treated or crushed, because they can avenge
themselves of lighter injuries, of more serious ones they cannot; therefore the
injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not
stand in fear of revenge.”
14. Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX,
and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance
“One thing that Musk holds in
highest regard is resolve, and he respects people who continue on after being
told no”
15. The Power of Now: A Guide
to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle
“Realize deeply that the
present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your
life.”
16. Think and Grow Rich by
Napoleon Hill by Napoleon Hill
17. The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss
“Parkinson’s Law dictates that
a task will swell in (perceived) importance and complexity in relation to the
time allotted for its completion.”
18. Daring Greatly: How the
Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown
“Vulnerability is about sharing
our feelings and our experiences with people who have earned the right to hear
them”
19. Good to Great: Why Some
Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t by Jim Collins
“Greatness is not a function of
circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice”
20. Getting Things Done: The
Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen
“Getting things done requires
two basic components: defining (1) what “done” means (outcome) and (2) what
“doing” looks like (action).”
21. Predictably Irrational: The
Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions by Dan Ariely
“Most people don’t know what
they want unless they see it in context”
22. Start with Why: How Great
Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
“There are only two ways to
influence human behaviour: you can manipulate it or you can inspire it”
23. Mindset: The New Psychology
of Success by Carol S. Dweck
“The view you adopt for
yourself profoundly affects the way you lead your life”
24. Drive: The Surprising Truth
About What Motivates Us by Daniel H. Pink
“Type I behaviour emerges when
people have autonomy over the four T’s: their task, their time, their
technique, and their team.”
25. Factfulness: Ten Reasons
We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling, Ola Rosling, Anna Rosling Rönnlund
“Our most important challenge
in developing a fact-based worldview, according to Rosling, is to realize that
most of our firsthand experiences are from Level 4; and that our secondhand
experiences are filtered through the mass media, which loves nonrepresentative
extraordinary events and shuns normality.”
26. Influence: The Psychology
of Persuasion by Robert Cialdini
“A well-known principle of
human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more
successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what
they do.”
27. The Five Dysfunctions of a
Team: A Leadership Fable by Patrick Lencioni
“Politics is when people choose
their words and actions based on how they want others to react rather than
based on what they really think.”
28. Year of Yes: How to Dance
It Out, Stand In the Sun and Be Your Own Person by Shonda Rhimes
“Happiness comes from living as
you need to, as you want to. As your inner voice tells you to. Happiness comes
from being who you actually are instead of who you think you are supposed to
be.”
29. Emotional Intelligence: Why
It Can Matter More Than IQ by Daniel Goleman
“In a very real way we have two
minds, one that thinks one that feels”
30. The One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
“If you can’t tell me what
you’d like to be happening’ he said ‘You don’t have a problem yet. You’re just
complaining. A problem only exists if there is a difference between what is
actually happening and what you would like to be happening”
31. #GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso
“Abandon anything about your
life and habits that might be holding you back. Learn to create your own
opportunities. Know that there is no finish line. Fortune favours action.”
32. Made to Stick: Why Some
Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
“What we mean by “simple” is
finding the core of the idea”
33. Creativity, Inc.:
Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration by Amy Wallace and Edwin Catmull
“Getting the team right is the
necessary precursor to getting the ideas right”
34. Essentialism: The
Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown
“I chose to,””Only a few things
really matter,” and “I can do anything but not everything”
35. Emotional Intelligence
2.0 by Jean Greaves and Travis
Bradberry
“Self-management is your
ability to use your awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and direct your
behavior positively.”
36. The Checklist Manifesto:
How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
“The volume and complexity of
what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits
correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us.”
37. Crucial Conversations:
Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Al Switzler, Joseph Grenny,
and Ron McMillan
“When it comes to risky,
controversial or emotional conversations, skillful people find a way to get all
relevant information (from themselves and others ) out into the open.”
38. Getting to Yes: Negotiating
Agreement Without Giving In by William Ury, Roger Fisher,
and Bruce Patton
“Any method of negotiation may
be fairly judged by three criteria: It should produce a wise agreement if
agreement is possible. It should be efficient. And it should improve or at
least not damage the relationship between the parties.”
39. The Goal: A Process of
Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu M. Goldratt
“Increase throughput whilst
simultaneously reducing both inventory and operating expense”
40. Strengths Finder 2.0 by Tom Rath
“You cannot be anything you
want to be—but you can be a lot more of who you already are.”
41. The Hard Thing About Hard
Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz
“It turns out that is exactly
what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the
innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.”
42. Switch: How to Change
Things When Change Is Hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
“Change is hard because people
wear themselves out. And that’s the second surprise about change: what often
looks like laziness is exhaustion.”
43. Never Split the Difference:
Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Christopher Voss and Tahl
Raz
“Research shows that the best
way to deal with negativity is to observe it, without reaction and without
judgement. Then consciously label each negative feeling and replace it with
positive, compassionate, and solution – based thoughts”
44. Built to Last: Successful
Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins and Jerry
I. Porras
“It means less of your time
spent thinking about specific product lines and marketing strategies, and spend
more of your time thinking about organisation design”
45. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of
Leadership: Follow Them and People Will Follow You by John C. Maxwell
“The main difference between the two is that leadership is about
influencing people to follow, while management focuses on maintaining systems
and purposes”
46. Extreme Ownership: How U.S.
Navy SEALs Lead and Win by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin
“On any team, in any
organization, all responsibility for success and failure rests with the leader.
The leader must own everything in his or her world. There is no one else to
blame. The leader must acknowledge mistakes and admit failures, take ownership
of them, and develop a plan to win.”
47. Tribes: We Need You to Lead
Us by Seth Godin
“Leadership on the other hand
is about creating change that you believe in”
48. Thomas Jefferson: The Art
of Power by Jon Meacham
“Broadly put, philosophers
think. Politicians maneuver. Jefferson’s genius was that he was both and could
do both, often simultaneously. Such is the art of power.”
49. Dare to Lead: Brave Work.
Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown
“I define a leader as anyone who
takes responsibility for finding potential in people and processes, and who has
the courage to develop that potential”
50. Leadership and
Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box by The Arbinger Institute
“No matter what we’re doing on
the outside, people respond primarily to how we’re feeling about them on the
inside.”
