Library: Leadership

Every leader’s journey is a unique mix from their personal experiences, challenges, triumphs, and the guidance of mentors they encounter along the way. While some mentors are found in the people around us, such as parents, teachers, colleagues, or friends, others can profoundly influence us through their words and wisdom, even without a personal connection. In this article, I’d like to share a curated list of books, articles, and podcasts that have left a mark on my leadership journey, helping shape the leader I am today.

I’ll add more resources over time, that I find useful.

Books

The phoenix project - Gene Kim

The Phoenix Project is a fictional story, written from the perspective of an IT manager, Bill. He has 90 days to bring the project Phoenix, an enterprise transformation, back on track. While I was reading the book, I was working as an IT Solutions an Architecture Manager, tasked with a very similar project, that was in an equally challenging state. I even found similarities between the characters and my colleagues. The book is entertaining and insightful and worth a read for every IT professional. The book greatly changed how I think about prioritizing work and creating organizational efficiency.

Find the book on goodreads.com

Coaching for performance - John Whitmore

If there is one skill, I believe is important for a leader, it’s asking the right questions. Not only it helps you make more informed decisions, but it also makes the people you work with heard and gives them the assurance their perspective and opinion matters. This book is focused on helping you as a leader and coach to inspire your protégé to discover their resources to excel through he right probing. But the impact this book had on me goes beyond the one-on-one coaching sessions and extends to the entirety of my leadership style.

Find the book on goodreads.com

What philosophy can teach you about being a better leader - Jules Goddard

While most leadership books focus big ideas and try to convince you their method is the right approach to leading, this book takes a different approach. It tries to look at leadership through the eyes of philosophers and their teachings. If you wonder how Aristotle's middle way and Buddhas understanding of suffering are still as relevant today in the workplace as they were back, they, then this book may inspire you to take a step Back and reflect on how you lead and your underlying motivations.

Find the book on goodreads.com

Podcast Episodes

Sweating the Small Stuff by Simon Sinek and Steven Bartlett

This episode of Simon Sineks podcast specifically inspired me as it’s a reminder to focus on what we’ve started. Remaining connected and not losing focus after an initiative or project is started, but continuing to pull through when things risk to get boring

Episode on simonsinek.com

Articles

Amazon Leadership Principles

The amazon leadership principles are not the default company values you see printed on a wall but no-one is actually observing them. They actually work, not because they are fancy and shiny, but because they are simple and pragmatic. If you try to imagine, what the opposite of the leadership principles would mean, you realize, the only thing they are is common sense of what we would expect from a role model colleague at work. For example, no-one would say “I wish my colleague had less ownership and would say that’s not my job more often”.

Article on amazon.jobs