In Focus: These Are The Best Books For CEO’s, CFOs, and Top Executives

A manager is accountable for a lot more than just getting his/her stuff done. The manager looks good when his team performs well. On the contrary, an underperforming team affects the manager’s reputation.

So, what does it take to be an effective manager? How can a manager ensure the support of his/her subordinates? How can a manager ensure the team is always performing at its best? What can a manager do to make sure the team overcomes adversities? How can a manager motivate an underperforming underling?

The answers to all these are answered in some of the priceless books ever written about management. Through many anecdotes, they showcase how various principles have worked in the past. And that, if you put them into practice, they can work for you, too.

These Are The Best Books For CEOs, CFOs, and Top Executives

1. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
   This classic can be found in countless bookshelves. And there are quite a few reasons for that. Good communication and forming good connections is an important part of climbing the ladder of corporate success. When things are not going well, the manager’s ability to motivate his/her underlings is crucial. Gems of such priceless advice are scattered all over this book. No doubt it is among Warren Buffet’s favorite books!
2. 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey
   This book helps you deal with professional as well as personal difficulties. In this book, Covey claims that true leadership starts from you. Only if you can manage yourself effectively, can you be an effective manager? This book helps you master self-control and then helps you influence those around you.
3. Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
   In this book, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman gives some impressive insights into human thinking and reasoning. So, you end up understanding human behavior better. Being able to understand someone’s behavior is a key element of becoming a successful people manager. It will also help your team overcome psychological hurdles using scientific strategies.
4. Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink
   Knowing what motivates us enables you to motivate teammates and take a team to a whole new level. Through various anecdotes, Pink shows how creating a culture of autonomy, mastery, and purpose inspires people into doing their best. Being empowered and feeling valued drives employees a lot more than material factors like money.
5. The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
   This book focuses on how habits work. Breaking bad habits makes you more disciplined. Through numerous examples, Duhigg shows how such discipline makes it easy to overcome problems.  You can then share this knowledge with your subordinates. This will surely boost your team’s productivity. Knowledge from this book can also be applied in your personal life.

   

6. Creativity, Inc. by Ed Catmull
   Pixar Animation Studios’ co-founder tells us about the challenges the company faced, and how effective leadership took Pixar to new heights. We get to know how great managers got the best our of their teams in Pixar’s journey to the top. Since Pixar is a creative entity, this book is a must-have for managers of creative teams.
7. Mindset by Carol Dweck
   When it was released in 2006, parents and educators took notice of this book. Later on, the ideas covered in this book were shown to be effective in the business world as well. The crux of this book is that a growth mindset – developing skills through hard work – brings greater success than a fixed mindset – your competencies are what they are. This is one of the favorite books of Zenger/Folkman President, Joe Folkman.

   

8. The Effective Executive by Peter Drucker
   The main ideas covered in this book is doing what others may have overlooked, and staying away from the unproductive. Then there are the 5 practices essential for an effective manager.
   his book helps you become a better boss and member of your team. This also happens to be Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ favorite read!
9. Good to Great by James C. Collins
   Interestingly, this book is based on a five-year research project. This research is about companies that went from being good to becoming great. These companies sustained their greatness for at least 15 years. Upon comparing them with average companies, some differences were figured out.

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