Reflecting and Refueling: Our Third Annual Summer Book List

Amid the vast uncertainty of the present, the only thing we know for sure is that the future will not be decided with the solutions of the past. Progress demands fresh approaches and renewed energies. So, it is imperative that our leaders move beyond reactionary impulses and dated, binary thinking to gain the perspectives needed for this highly complex, often unstable age. Taking the time to step back, reflect, unlearn, and refuel is critical. To that end, we are pleased to offer our third annual summer reading list selected to help leaders attain the space and knowledge needed to envision the big picture and keep adapting into the future. 

Our suggestions are organized into three categories: Self-Development and Personal Growth, Leadership Lessons Everywhere, and In the Now: Topics Looming Large. As in previous years, we have steered away from more typical business books (those are readily accessible in well-circulating lists). Also, we have included more prominent issues, some under scrutiny, which we feel will only gain attention in the year ahead. All the selections are recent releases. May they inspire! 

Leaders know that they need to keep transforming and growing to be the individuals capable of leading organizations through today’s rampant changes and disruptions. But knowing how to keep opening the apertures for ongoing development and change often requires outside counsel and experimentation. Here are some recommended new sources to help stimulate that journey of self-discovery and growth.   

Life in Three Dimensions: How Curiosity, Exploration and Experience Make a Fuller, Better Life by Shigehiro Oishi. This new work exposes the common “happiness traps “of complacency and regret as well as the “meaning traps” of narrowness and misplaced loyalty. Drawing on years of psychological research and numerous examples from famous lives, films and books, the author suggests the possibilities of new life pathways that can be uncovered, cultivating a commitment to curiosity, and ongoing growth and adventure.  

Reset: How to Change What’s Not Working by Dan Heath. It is hard to change the way we work, but often that is exactly the key to future success. Heath explores how people can get unstuck by finding “leverage points” where a little concentration reaps large, positive changes for the better. This will be great help to leaders searching for their next stages of growth and transformation. 

Decisionscape: How Thinking like an Artist Can Improve our Decision Making by Elspeth Kirkman. When we make choices, Kirkman argues that we rely on our perspectives to compose a mental representation of the world that, like a painting, has a frame, a foreground and background, a fixed viewpoint and, often, several outside influences. When conceived this way, choices can be more fully comprehended and weighed to reach better decisions that carry less bias and more potential impact. 

The New Science of Momentum: How the Best Coaches and Leaders Build a Fire from a Single Spark by Bernie Banks and Don Yaeger. This book helps leaders capture that most coveted yet evasive attribute: momentum. The authors conducted eight years of intensive research to create a successful model for building leadership momentum across leadership. This book has been hailed for its constructive approach to helping leaders harness momentum across enterprises, from recruitment, team building, to improved leadership communication. 

Look Again: The Power of Noticing What Was Always There by Tali Sharot and Cass R Sunstein. A neuroscience professor and Harvard law professor teamed up to write this groundbreaking guide which teaches readers how to disrupt their perceptions – to see and feel more and notice again. They teach how to regain sensitivity and wonder and, in the process, rebuild lives full of imagination and energy. 

Some of the greatest leadership lessons are found in obvious places while others are in less prominent stories and characters. We’ve curated a list of here of both well-known and more hidden leaders whose lives and accomplishments provide abundant learning and incentive for us all. 

The Small and Mighty: Twelve Unsung Americans Who Changed the Course of History, from the Founding to the Civil Rights Movement by Sharon McMahon. Some of the most remarkable leaders of the American past have emerged from unlikely backgrounds and, despite their low profiles, they significantly impacted historical events. There are great lessons embedded in these stories, of courage, humility and principled perseverance which could provide great motivation for this day and age.   

The Stoic Mindset: Living With the Ten Principles of Stoicism by Mark Tuitert. Olympic champion speed skater, Mark Tuitert, shares the secrets of reaching one’s peak potential by following the wisdom and working principles of the ancient Stoics. With remarkable clarity, Tuitert breaks down trenchant concepts into practical applications and offers a compelling practice to lead others to reach their dreams as he did.  

A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir by Jacinda Ardern. As the 40th Prime Minister of New Zealand, Ardern earned global recognition for her decisive and empathetic leadership that insisted on putting people first.  Her story becomes more astounding when one learns of her modest Mormon upbringing and her early struggles with self-doubt.  This is a lot more than a political memoir. It is a motivating testimony to the power of compassion and gaining self-confidence, illustrating how one can become more than they might have ever imagined they could be.  

Iron Hope: Lessons Learned from Conquering the Impossible by James Lawrence. James “Iron Cowboy” Lawrence is widely considered the greatest endurance athlete in human history. In this memoir he shares his philosophy on developing the mental fortitude to overcome challenges and achieve seemingly impossible goals. According to Lawrence, anyone can create an “iron will” by setting small promises to themselves and keeping them, again and again. He shows how these small improvements repeated consistently can pave the way to big dreams. 

Ben and Me: In Search of a Founder’s Formula for a Long and Useful Life by Eric Weiner. Weiner mines the life of revered founding father, Benjamin Franklin, uncovering many practical lessons for living a life of purpose and integrity. He was known for his great experiments but, according to Weiner, his greatest invention was himself. Following Franklin’s  career and life lessons (some large, some small), readers can discover a blueprint for identity development and success. 

Exploring the pulse of these often divisive and turbulent times, we have selected a list of new books which we hope will be eye-opening and instructive. We have been encouraged by the many that offer new possibilities and optimism to leaders during these challenging times. We hope they can open our eyes, hearts, and minds to emerging pathways for connection, change and growth.   

The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World by Karthik Ramanna. Based on his popular course at The University of Oxford, Ramanna endeavors to help make sense of the outrage that is all over the world right now.  He teaches leaders how to “turn down the temperature,” expose and understand root causes, and reach responses that are nonbinary and mission centered. This is an invaluable guide for leaders navigating our greatly polarized world. 

Co-Intelligence: Living and Working with AI by Ethan Mollick. It’s not a surprise that there are a lot of books out now about AI.  This one, by Wharton professor Mollick, who has become one of the most prominent and active teachers of AI, has been widely touted as the definitive playbook for working, learning and living in the emerging AI age.  Mollick urges us to embrace AI, to learn how to utilize its great potential without losing our identity, and to harness its many gifts towards creating a better future for us all.  

Possible: How We Survive and Thrive in an Age of Conflict by William Ury. One of the world’s leading authorities on negotiation tackles our world today where it seems like dissension and disagreement are everywhere and the chances for collaboration and compromise are ever unlikely. Not so, Ury challenges, offering a new “path to the possible” based on timed-tested practices designed to help leaders discover new strength by embracing conflict as a natural and necessary means of human interaction and advancement. Seen this way, we can reframe our approach to conflict and, instead of avoiding or denying it, invite it as a catalyst to necessary, promising change.  

Holy Ground: On Activism, Environmental Justice and Finding Hope by Catherine Coleman Flowers.  These essays apply an historical perspective to illuminate the most pressing issues of the present: climate change, human rights and racism, rural poverty, and reproductive justice, among others. The author brings to the fore several stories of trailblazers leading the charge in some of these struggles. The book aims to be a clarion call, paving way forward towards a more humanly centered world and healthier planet.  

Higher Ground: How Business Can do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World by Alison Taylor.  NYU Stern professor Taylor picks up the call issued at Davos and by the Business Roundtable for a new corporate responsibility. She provides a blueprint for how business leaders can rethink and reshape practices and set robust environmental and social priorities. She addresses what it takes to build a healthy organizational culture; when leaders should speak out on issues and how; and how to uphold corporate values in a divided world. Altogether, she argues that these are the mean toward long term economic advancement in this turbulent world.