Top Books On Management

Management is no joke. Great managers know that in order to excel, they must exhibit above par communication skills, demonstrate a thorough understanding of business concepts, and also know how to effectively manage people. Management isn’t for everyone, that’s for sure. Thankfully, there are plentiful resources that exist for the sole purpose of helping managers go from good to great. Today, we’re covering the top 10 books on management, plus a few bonus titles. These are essential reads for any current or future manager.

No time to waste – let’s dive into the top books on management! Books are not listed in any particular order.

Top Books on Management

How to Win Friends and Influence People – Dale Carnegie

This is a classic that continues to withstand the test of time. Published in the 1930s, How to Win Friends and Influence People is all about working with people, an art that anyone in management must learn. Given the title, you may consider passing over this one. Our advice: don’t. It’s chock full of principles that will influence the way you manage and lead your teams to success.

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High Output Management – Andrew S. Grove

Andy Grove was Intel’s CEO during its hay-day. Needless to say, he knows a thing or two about successful management. High Output Management is known for taking an engineering-esque approach to management, looking at “management” as a hard skill with measurable objectives, results, and outcomes. One of the key tenets of the book is that managers don’t solely exist to manage people, but to maximize output from their teams. The book goes into the practical details of what great management can (and should) look like. If you are looking to move from low output management into high output management, this is the book for you.

The Effective Executive – Peter F. Drucker

Peter Drucker is often known as the founder of modern management, so it’s no surprise that one of his books landed on the list of top books on management. The premise of The Effective Executive is that every leader/manager/executive needs to be effective, and that effectiveness can be learned. The book contains a roadmap of sorts for how to do just that. Quite a bit of the content within the covers deals with the concept of focus: the importance of focusing on the right things, and how to maximize effectiveness on those key areas of focus.

The New One Minute Manager – Kenneth Blanchard, Spencer Johnson

Simple is the name of the game with management legend Ken Blanchard. The book is written in parable or story form, making it easy to digest. The New One Minute Manager focuses on teaching managers how to both achieve remarkable results while building teams that are fulfilled in their work. It is not the comprehensive book on management by any means, but rather, a run-through of the basic principles. The book is a valuable guide to be able to refer to over the course of your journey in management.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion – Robert B. Cialdini

Every manager needs to be able to influence his or her team – otherwise, not much would get done. In Influence, Robert Cialdini details the psychology behind why people say “yes.” The book contains 6 principles to help managers become effective at the art of persuasion. The book will increase your ability to motivate action and change behavior in your team.

The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups – Daniel Coyle

The Culture Code is a case study in understanding how great teams work. The secret (or “code”) as detailed in the book is all about team culture. Culture is the difference between teams that thrive and those that merely survive. In the book, Coyle goes into why it is essential to create a culture of safety and trust within your team. Teams with a healthy culture will be more productive and, ultimately, more successful.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team – Patrick Lencioni

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a classic management book that reveals the 5 key elements that must be in place in order for teams to work well together. Without each of the elements, dysfunctional teams emerge. If you want to build high-functioning teams, this book is a must-read.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership – John C. Maxwell

While not strictly a book on management, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is chock full of principles that will prove invaluable in your management journey. Teams rise and fall on good managers, and Maxwell shares 21 laws that will help you become a better manager and leader.

First, Break All the Rules – Marcus Buckingham

First, Break All the Rules is about getting world-class performance from your people. In the book, Buckingham offers that the best managers often need to break the rules of management in order to create an environment where employees can thrive and perform at a high level. His advice is often counter-intuitive to standard management techniques, but his methods have been proven to get results.

Leadership: The Power of Emotional Intelligence – Daniel Goleman

Daniel Goleman is a leading psychologist that writes about emotional intelligence as a distinguishing factor in determining excellent leaders and managers. The book acts as a guide to help managers effectively lead and motivate people.

Bonus Management Books!

These are 3 books that don’t neatly fit into the category of management books, but we had to include them because they will help you become a better manager and leader.

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others – Jim Collins

Good to Great is all about going from good to great, whether a company, team, or leader/manager. The principles in the book are based on thorough and comprehensive research by the author. If you remember anything from the book, remember this: good is the enemy of great.

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. – Brené Brown

Brené Brown is world-renowned for her work in psychology, and in Dare to Lead, brings her groundbreaking research into the leadership space. The book is all about leading with courage and vulnerability, and how that creates an environment of trust within organizations.

The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of The Learning Organization – Peter M. Senge

The hypothesis put forth in The Fifth Discipline is that an organization’s only source of competitive edge is its ability to continually learn and transform itself AKA the ‘learning organization.’ This practice carries over into management and leadership.

Conclusion

We hope these top books on management can help transform the way you manage, and as a byproduct, increase the strength and efficiency of your team(s). If you know a book that you think deserves to be on this list of top books on management, write us a note! In addition, we offer manager training to help transform the way you think, operate, and manage. Get in touch to start the conversation!

Additional Reading:

10 management books every aspirant must read

Table of contents

As a management professional, there are multiple skills and qualities that one needs to master. Though the KRAs may vary depending on the role, the bottom line of being a manager is that you would oversee and supervise an organization’s activities and employees. You would need to thoroughly understand the business, be a motivator, and a leader.

There are many books about management and here are some that have withstood the test of time and have held their position among top management books of all time.

1. The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard PhD and Spencer Johnson M.D.

This remarkable book narrates the story of a young individual seeking a good leader. On this journey, he encounters various management styles. Some were autocratic and aggressively focused only on results and the workers suffered. The others were democratic approaches to leadership where even though employees were at the centre, the organization as a whole suffered. Finally, he finds what was that he was looking for a manager that uses the one-minute method.

This method is a way to set clear goals and expectations for the employees that a manager manages. It is then followed by a minute of appreciations and a minute of reprimands given immediately and quickly.

2. On Becoming a Leader by Warren Bennis

On Becoming A Leader by Warren Bennis is a must-read for every business person. Warren Bennis was a professor at the University of Southern California. He was first introduced to leadership during World War 2 when he was one of the youngest lieutenants to serve in Europe. He firmly believes that leaders are made and not born and the book revolves around this idea.

Being one of the best management books out there, it outlines the various traits of a great leader. As per Bennis, a leader is one who is self-aware, curious, and are risk-takers. A leader sees the big picture and does what is right.

3. Turn the Ship Around!: A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders by L. David Marquet

This book has an interesting take on leadership with a story. The story is of Marquet, who was the captain of a submarine and was trained to lead in the typical military fashion, just issuing orders and getting results. One time he delegated an order to his subordinate that was impossible to follow but the crew tried anyway with near-disastrous results. When asked why they proceeded with the order, they replied “because you told me to”.

This triggered Marquet to try a different leadership style where he gave his crew the responsibility for their job and the autonomy to do it. The results were significant.

4. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

When you talk about best management books, the list could not be complete without “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Carnegie. It is one of the most famous books on leadership ever written for some of the really good reasons.

The book reveals some of the soft skills of leadership. Some of the examples of these soft skills are making people feel important and appreciated. By implementing the ideas mentioned in this classic, one could become a better leader, motivator, and negotiator.

5. The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Art of War was written by Sun Tzu over two thousand years ago. To this day, business professionals across the world consider this as a must-read book to become successful leaders. Sun Tzu was a military leader who documented his philosophies regarding war and leadership.

The book is a boiling pot of timeless wisdom and is divided into thirteen chapters, each devoted to a certain philosophy. It has interesting lessons such as “Avoid what is strong and strike at what is weak.” and “Supreme excellence rests in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting”.

6. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change by Stephen R. Covey

Covey is a world-renowned leadership expert and has many publications to his name. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People is the most famous of all his publications.

Covey’s idea is that true leadership starts from within. A good leader must first manage their inner well-being, create a personal vision, and cultivate self-control. Only then can they extend their influence to others.

7. CROSSING THE CHASM: MARKETING AND SELLING TECHNOLOGY PRODUCTS TO MAINSTREAM CUSTOMERS by Geoffrey A. Moore, Regis McKenna (Harper Business, 1999)

This one is a best-selling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. This book is considered to be the bible when it comes to bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets.

The realities This edition provides new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing, with special emphasis on the Internet. It’s essential reading for anyone with a stake in the world’s most exciting marketplace.

8. COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE: CREATING AND SUSTAINING SUPERIOR PERFORMANCE by Michael E. Porter (Free Press, 1998)

Michael E. Porter’s Competitive Advantage explores the underpinnings of competitive advantage in the individual firm. It introduces a whole new way of understanding what a firm does. Porter’s groundbreaking concept of the value chain disaggregates a company into “activities,” or the discrete functions or processes that represent the elemental building blocks of competitive advantage.

Porter’s value chain enables managers to isolate the underlying sources of buyer value that will command a premium price and the reasons why one product or service substitutes for another. He shows how competitive advantage lies not only in activities themselves but in the way activities relate to each other, supplier activities, and to customer activities.

9. REENGINEERING THE CORPORATION: A MANIFESTO FOR BUSINESS REVOLUTION by Michael Hammer, James A. Champy (Harper Collins, 1993)

Reengineering The Corporation is the most successful business book of the last decade. It is the pioneering work on achieving dramatic performance improvements.

This book leads managers through the radical redesign of a company’s processes, organization, and culture to achieve a quantum leap in performance

10. IN SEARCH OF EXCELLENCE: LESSONS FROM AMERICA’S BEST-RUN COMPANIES by Thomas Peters and Robert H. Waterman (Harper Collins, 1982)

In Search of Excellence is a “New York Times” Bestseller for a long time. It helps managers and leaders discover the secrets of the art of management. To compile this book Peters and Waterman studied more than 43 successful American companies that specialized in a number of areas: consumer goods, high technology, and services.

Peters discovered that regardless of how different each company was, they shared eight basic principles of management that anyone can use to achieve success. These principles are well illustrated in this book with anecdotes and examples from the experiences of the best-run companies in the world.

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Top 5 Best Management Books

Great leaders are always learning. Books provide an avenue to learn from others and experience their experiences. Thankfully, there are lots of amazing books that you can read about management and leadership, and here you have some of the best. These can help you learn more about how you can improve as a manager, how to reach success and help your business grow in the long run.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Dale Carnegie created the best management book here, and it’s easy to see why. It helps you understand the soft skills which will make you a very good leader. On top of that, you also learn how to make people feel more appreciated and provide them with the respect they deserve. Dale Carnegie’s book also has a lot of advice on how to become a better negotiator, efficient motivator and a great leader as a whole.

On Becoming a Leader by Warren G. Bennis

This is a great management book since it allows you to learn more about becoming a leader, the strategies you can apply and how you can achieve success in a powerful manner. It’s a great way for you to see what exactly makes a leader good, how you can achieve great results that way and the methods that will bring your vision to fruition. It’s a classic book from the late 80s that still contains amazing advice.

Growing a Business by Paul Hawken

Paul Hawken touches on a very important topic with this management book. With millions of businesses failing, it’s more important than ever to learn how to manage a company and avoid this type of issue. He provides a lot of great examples that will help reach success. On top of that, he also encourages you to think outside the box and come up with creative ways to take your business to the next level.

Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices by Peter Drucker

Peter Drucker covers the ins and outs of management, showing you how to deal with tasks and challenges, how to approach any issues and what methods will give you the best results. This is the best management book for small business owners and large business owners alike. It covers the techniques and tools that deliver great management results.

Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies by James C. Collins, Jerry I. Porras

Within this management book you will learn a lot about the habits of visionaries, people that pushed the boundaries and which tried to think outside the box. You get to see what other managers did in order to reach success with their companies. You also have practical guidance on what you can do in order to reach the desired success.

Conclusion

These are some of the best management books you can read right now, and they can help you improve your management skills in rewarding, unique ways. If you have even the slightest interest in harnessing and also enhancing your management skills, these are great reads which can revolutionize the way you manage and handle your business!