Best Management Books

“Good management is the art of making problems so interesting and their solutions so constructive that everyone wants to get to work and deal with them.” — Paul Hawken

This is a list of my favorite and noteworthy management books. I test drive many of these books at work, and turn the insight into action.

The bulk of the list is in categories so that you can explore relevant books, and you can easily compare against your existing library of management books.

10 Best Books on Management

Here is a short list of the top 10 management books:

Go Put Your Strengths to Work, by Marcus Buckingham
Good to Great, by Jim Collins
Rework, by David Heinemeier Hansson
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
The Essential Drucker, by Peter F. Drucker
The First Time Manager, by Gary S. Topchik
The One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard
The Truth About Managing People, by Stephen P. Robbins
Zengage, by David Zinger

Best Management Books by Category

Accountability

Best management books on accountability:

QBQ! The Question Behind the Question, by John G. Miller

Change, Change Management

Best management books on change and change management:

The First 90 Days, by Michael Watkins
Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson
Your Next Move, by Michael Watkins

Communication

Best management books on communication:

Crucial Confrontations, by Kerry Patterson
Crucial Conversations, by Kerry Patterson

Customer Focus

Best management books on customer focus:

Raving Fans, by Ken Blanchard

Effectiveness

Best management books on effectiveness:

First Things First, by Stephen R. Covey
Getting Results the Agile Way, by J.D. Meier
Leadership and the One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard
The Answer to How is Yes, by Peter Block
The Effective Executive, by Peter F. Drucker
The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield
What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, by Marshall Goldsmith
What Would Machiavelli Do?, by Stanley Bing
WINNING, by Jack Welch

Engagement

Best management books on engagement:

Delivering on Happiness, by Tony Hsieh
Drive, by Daniel H. Pink
Flow, by Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi
The Power of Full Engagement, by Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
Zengage, by David Zinger

Excellence

Best management books on excellence:

Built to Last, by Jim Collins
Good to Great, by Jim Collins
In Search of Excellence, by Tom Peters
The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursuit Excellence, by Tom Peters
The Toyota Way, by Jeffrey K. Like

Execution

Best management books on execution:

Execution, by Larry Bossidy
Flawless Execution, by James D. Murphy
Managing the Design Factory, by Donald G. Reinertsen
The Knowing-Doing Gap, by Robert I. Sutton

Goals

Best management book son goals:

Goals! How to Get Everything You Want, by Brian Tracy

Habits, Principles, Practices

Best management book son habits and practices:

It’s Not About the Coffee: Leadership Principles from a Life at Starbucks, by Howard Bechar
Know-How, by Ram Charan
The 3 Keys to Empowerment, by Ken Blanchard
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
The 8th Habit, by Stephen R. Covey
The 21 Immutable Laws of Leadership, by John Maxwell
The 80/20 Principle, by Richard Koch

Innovation

Best management books on innovation:

Crossing the Chasm, by Geoffrey A. Moore
The Circle of Innovation, by Tom Peters
The Innovator’s Dilemma, by Clayton M. Christensen

Interesting

Best management books that make you think:

- Fooled by Randomness, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
- Outliers: The Story of Success, by Malcolm Gladwell
- The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Management

Best management books on basic management skills:

12: The Elements of Great Managing, by Rodd Wagner
First Break All the Rules, by Marcus Buckingham
Inside the Tornado, by Geoffrey A. Moore
Management, by Peter F. Drucker
Managing the Non-Profit Organization, by Peter F. Drucker
The 2,000 Percent Solution, by Donald Mitchell
The Essential Drucker, by Peter F. Drucker
The First Time Manager, by Gary S. Topchik
The Halo Effect, by Philip M. Rosenzweig
The One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard
The Practice of Management, by Peter F. Drucker
The Truth About Managing People, by Stephen P. Robbins
Value-Based Fees, by Alan Weiss

Outsourcing

Best management books on outsourcing:

The Black Book of Outsourcing, by Douglas Brown

People Skills

Best management books on people skills:

Get Them on Your Side, by Samuel B. Bacharach
How To Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini
Influence without Authority, by Allan R. Cohen

Planning, Strategy

Best management books on planning and strategy:

Blue Ocean, by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
Control Your Destiny or Someone Else Will, by Noel M. Tichy
Leaders: Strategies for Taking Charge, by Warren G. Bennis
Purple Cow, by Seth Godin
Reengineering the Corporation “A Manifesto for Business Revolution”, by James Champy
Reinventing Leadership: Strategies to Empower the Organization, by Warren Bennis
Rework, by David Heinemeier Hansson
Small Is the New Big: and 183 Other Riffs, Rants, and Remarkable Business Ideas, by Seth Godin
Strategy Maps: Converting Intangible Assets into Tangible Outcomes, by Robert S. Kaplan
Sun Tzu Was a Sissy, by Stanley Bing
Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive, by Harvey Mackay
The Art of the Long View, by Peter Schwartz
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu

Purpose, Passion, Motivation

Best management books on purpose, passion, and motivation:

Delivering on Happiness, by Tony Hsieh
Drive, by Daniel H. Pink
Eat That Frog!, by Brian Tracy
Gung Ho! Turn On the People in Any Organization, by Ken Blanchard
The Fred Factor, by Mark Sanborn
The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers, by Patrick Lencioni

Strengths

Best management books on strengths:

Go Put Your Strengths to Work, by Marcus Buckingham
Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham

Systems

Best management books on systems:

Seeing Systems: Unlocking the Mysteries of Organizational Life, by Barry Oshry
Software Architecture: Organizational Principles and Patterns, by David M. Dikel
The Ecology of Commerce Revised Edition: A Declaration of Sustainability, by Paul Hawken
The Fiefdom Syndrome, by Robert J. Herbold
The Starfish and the Spider, by Rod A. Beckstrom

Teamwork

Best management books on teamwork:

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, by Patrick Lencioni
The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization, by Jon R. Katzenbach

Thinking

Best management books on thinking:

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, by Malcolm Gladwell
Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School, by John Medina

Trust

Best management books on trust:

The SPEED of Trust, by Stephen R. Covey

Vision, Mission, Values

Best management books on vision, mission, and values:

A Simple Statement: A Guide to Nonprofit Arts Management and Leadership, by Jamie Grady
Full Steam Ahead! Unleash the Power of Vision in Your Work and Your Life, by Ken Blanchard

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