New York--From how to be more self-aware and find the goodness in people to the power of small ideas in a company’s success, the May book recommendations have got businesspeople covered.
Our editors browsed a few lists of new releases to find five books for bosses, managers and anyone else who may one day look to step into a leadership position.
Read a good book lately that you want to share with others? Please let us know in the comments section.
These days, everyone knows someone who lacks self-awareness. But how often do we consider if we may have the same problem? Self-awareness is one of the most important skills of the 21st century--the foundation for high performance, smart choices and lasting relationships.
Integrating hundreds of studies along with her own research, organizational psychologist Tasha Eurich takes apart the conventional assumptions about what it takes to truly know oneself and offers readers the secrets, techniques and strategies they’ll need to gain critical self-awareness to improve work performance, relationships and more.
Leaders face numerous obstacles, negativity, tests and situations that can feel as if the world is conspiring against them. This is where positive leadership is essential, author Jon Gordon says. But positive leadership isn’t about fake positivity; real positivity is what makes great leaders great. It’s not only a good way to lead, but also a leadership quality that’s necessary in order to build a strong culture and unite an organization.
While most leaders tend to evaluate candidates and employees more by measurable accomplishments than “softer” qualities, like integrity and compassion, author Anthony Tjan wants to change the way people think about goodness to become not only better judges of others but also create more goodness in ourselves, in others and in our organizations.
He argues that while competence is necessary, real goodness must encompass values. In his book, Tjan provides a way to talk about goodness and shares interviews with standout leaders who practice goodness all the time.
Pushing aside conventional wisdom that says companies must either innovate and disrupt or be disrupted, Robertson and Lineback think there’s a third option that’s neither sustaining nor disruptive.
In this book, they discuss how many well-known companies have used a low-risk, high-reward strategy to achieve success, discuss the three key elements of the innovation strategy leaders should recognize and use for their own success, and talk about how traditional organizational practices generally stand as an obstacle to the strategy and what can be done to overcome them.
Companies like Facebook, Pinterest and Airbnb didn’t reach their levels of success by building a great product and then sitting back and hoping for the best. Rather there was a studied, carefully implemented methodology behind the rise called Growth Hacking.
The method focuses on customers: getting them, keeping them, engaging them and motivating them to come back and buy more. It is made for entrepreneurs and leaders looking to get rid of “spaghetti-on-the-wall” strategies and replace them with consistent and data-driven results.
This book takes readers through the process of creating and executing their own custom-made growth hacking strategy.
It is 320 pages.
Brecken Branstratoris the senior editor, gemstones at National Jeweler, covering sourcing, pricing and other developments in the colored stone sector.
