On Leading Change: Recommended Reading

By definition, leaders are agents of change. We are the catalysts that overcome the inertia of complacency, cast a bold vision, and change the trajectory of the organization.

 Here are some of the best books I have read on the subject of leading change. I highly recommend these books. In fact, I have used most of them in my graduate courses on Power, Influence and Leadership and Leading Change.

 Heifetz, Ronald. Leadership Without Easy Answers.  Cambridge:  Belknap Press, 1994.

Heifetz, Ronald and Martin Linsky. Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive Through the Dangers of Leading. Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2002.

Kotter, John.  Leading Change.  Boston:  Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Quinn, Robert E.  Deep Change:  Discovering the Leader Within. San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1996.

Quinn, Robert E. Building the Bridge as You Walk On It: A Guide for Leading Change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2004.

Stanley, Andy.  Visioneering. Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers, Inc., 1999.

Willams, Dean. Real Leadership: Helping People and Organizations Face Their Toughest Challenges. San Francisco:  Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., 2005.

Leaders are Readers

Leaders must be intentional about investing in their own development as a leader. One way to do this, is to read books about leadership.

By now you know that I like to read. For me, it comes with the territory of being a teacher. As a teacher whose primary teaching area is leadership, I read a lot of leadership books. And I have some recommendations for your own developmental reading.

Here's the list of Leadership Books I read in 2010. Most were good, but the ones I most highly recommend are emphasized in bold print:

Leadership Books 2010

1. Derailed, Tim Irwin
2. Theodore Rex, Edmund Morris
3. Holy Ambition, Chip Ingram
4. Leadership: Influence that Inspires, Chuck Swindoll
5. Credibility: How Leaders Gain it and Lose It and Why People Demand It, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
6. Leading When it Hurts, Jeff Iorg
7. Why Great Men Fall, Wayde Goodall
8. Judgment: How Winning Leaders Make Great Calls, Noel Tichy & Warren Bennis
9. David: A Man of Passion and Destiny, Chuck Swindoll
10. Think Again: Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions and How to Keep it From Happening to You, Sydney Finkelstein, Jo Whitehead, & Andrew Campbell
11. Rescuing Ambition, David Harvey
12. Practicing Greatness: 7 Disciplines of Extraordinary Spiritual Leaders, Reggie McNeal
13. Leaders Who Last, Dave Kraft
14. The Making of a Leader, Robert J. Clinton
15. John Adams, David McCullough
16. The Power of a Whisper, Bill Hybels
17. The Mentor Leader, Tony Dungy
18. Overcoming the Dark Side of Leadership, Gary McIntosh & Samuel Rima
19. The Truth About Leadership, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner
20. Soul at Work: Spiritual Leadership in Organizations, Margaret Benefiel
21. Leadership and Self-Deception, The Arbinger Group
22. April 1865: The Month that Saved the Nation, Jay Winick

Moral Authority

As you know, one of my favorite leaders is Andy Stanley. His books The Next Generation Leader and Visioneering have been required reading in the advanced MBA courses I teach.


In this months edition of Catalyst there's a short video of Andy talking about a crucial matter of importance to all leaders.


Take a few minutes to watch and listen.

Do you have moral authority?

"An easy read, but not easy to read"

I sat across the table from Jeff as he poured his heart out about a struggle he was having. He had finished his MBA and was now working at a high-paced start up operation. All the time he thought he would be able to devote to his wife and family after the MBA was completed was now being consumed by his job. And his wife was getting the leftovers.

As I listened, I could relate. In spite of my mentor’s intervention in the early stages of my career, I have struggled with this throughout my 30-year marriage. Jeff’s story was my story.

I looked across the table at Jeff and said, “There’s a book I want you to read. It’s an easy read, but it is not easy to read.” The book was Andy Stanley’s Choosing to Cheat. And much of what I have been sharing with y’all on my blog is based on that book.

Here are some other resources that may be helpful if you are struggling with your “work-life balance”:

Several books by Doug Sherman and William Hendricks helped me formulate my thinking on what God’s view of success looked like:

Your Work Matters to God

How to Succeed Where it Really Counts

How to Balance Competing Time Demands

A great resource that helped me understand that my whole life was to be lived as an act of worship is John MacArthur’s Worship: The Ultimate Priority.

With those recommendations, I must also issue a word of caution:

Sometimes we substitute reading and learning about a subject for doing what we know we need to do.