Book summaries for leaders

137+ summaries written from the experience of a practising organisational leader. The big ideas and key takeaways in five minutes or less — with notes on how they show up at work.

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Leadership book summaries

25 summaries

Coaching book summaries

19 summaries

AI book summaries for leaders

3 summaries

Hard conversation book summaries

33 summaries

Habit and behaviour-change book summaries

15 summaries

Organisational design book summaries

17 summaries

Conversations & Influence

The books on saying the thing, hearing the thing, and staying in the room. Feedback, candour, negotiation, and the talks leaders postpone until they become expensive.

The Next Conversation

9/10 · 21 Aug 2026

Nonviolent Communication

8/10 · 20 Aug 2026

Thanks for the Feedback

9/10 · 19 Aug 2026

Getting to Yes

8/10 · 18 Aug 2026

The Culture Map

9/10 · 17 Aug 2026

Humble Inquiry

9/10 · 16 Aug 2026

We Need to Talk

8/10 · 15 Aug 2026

Just Listen

8/10 · 14 Aug 2026

What Got You Here Won't Get You There

9/10 · 13 Aug 2026

Dare to Lead

9/10 · 12 Aug 2026

Listen

10/10 · 21 Nov 2024

How To Listen

7/10 · 13 Nov 2024

How To Know a Person

9/10 · 30 Oct 2024

Speak So Your Audience Will Listen

9/10 · 17 Oct 2024

The Laws of Connection

9/10 · 10 Oct 2024

Difficult Conversations

9/10 · 22 Aug 2024

The Pathless Path

9/10 · 23 Jul 2024

Pitch Anything

8/10 · 20 Jun 2024

Ask

9/10 · 20 Jun 2024

Radical Candor

10/10 · 2 May 2024

Crucial Conversations

9/10 · 2 May 2024

Fierce Conversations

10/10 · 23 Apr 2024

Supercommunicators

6/10 · 13 Mar 2024

The First Minute

10/10 · 13 Dec 2022

The Disciplined Listening Method

5/10 · 14 Aug 2022

How to Win Friends and Influence People

10/10 · 21 Jul 2022

A More Beautiful Question

9/10 · 12 Jul 2022

Never Split the Difference

10/10 · 10 Jul 2022

Catalyst

7/10 · 5 Dec 2021

High Conflict

9/10 · 7 Sept 2021

Connect

10/10 · 15 Aug 2021

Rapport

6/10 · 13 Apr 2021

You’re Not Listening

9/10 · 17 Feb 2021

Leadership & Management

How to lead people rather than process: new-manager craft, coaching, culture, and the Monday-morning work of a team that has to move together.

Corporate Escapology

8/10 · 27 Feb 2025

How to Know Everything

6/10 · 28 Nov 2024

The 4-Hour Chef

7/10 · 24 Oct 2024

The Intelligence Trap

6/10 · 18 Sept 2024

Start With Why

8/10 · 12 Sept 2024

Squiggly Career

9/10 · 12 Sept 2024

We're All Mad Here

7/10 · 4 Sept 2024

Key Person of Influence

9/10 · 15 Aug 2024

Jonathan Livingston Seagull

8/10 · 8 Aug 2024

One Last Thing

8/10 · 1 Aug 2024

Super Mentors

8/10 · 11 May 2024

The Five Love Languages

7/10 · 2 May 2024

Million Dollar Weekend

7/10 · 19 Mar 2024

Building a StoryBrand

10/10 · 27 Feb 2024

Quit

8/10 · 5 Feb 2024

Lost Connections

10/10 · 15 Jan 2024

Hidden Potential

5/10 · 8 Jan 2024

Same as Ever

8/10 · 7 Jan 2024

What's in It for Them?

8/10 · 29 Dec 2022

Both/and Thinking

9/10 · 2 Oct 2022

The Visibility Factor

8/10 · 22 Aug 2022

Influence Is Your Superpower

7/10 · 1 Aug 2022

Creating Magic

10/10 · 16 May 2022

Multipliers

10/10 · 16 May 2022

Energize

26 Apr 2022

The Art of the Gathering

20 Apr 2022

Atlas of the Heart

29 Mar 2022

Presence

10/10 · 20 Feb 2022

Why Has Nobody Told Me This Before

19 Feb 2022

Relentless Solution Focus

10/10 · 14 Feb 2022

Time To Think

10/10 · 11 Feb 2022

You Coach You Book

10 Feb 2022

The Prosperous Coach

10/10 · 1 Feb 2022

How To Begin

10/10 · 21 Jan 2022

The Drunkard’s Walk

7/10 · 16 Jan 2022

Quiet: The Power of Introverts

10/10 · 16 Jan 2022

The Coach's Guide To Teaching

9/10 · 16 Jan 2022

Leadership

10/10 · 26 Dec 2021

Twelve and a half

7/10 · 17 Dec 2021

High Performance

9/10 · 12 Dec 2021

Masters of Scale

7/10 · 5 Dec 2021

Super Learning

8/10 · 27 Jul 2021

Team Coaching At Work

8/10 · 13 Jul 2021

The Inner Game of Tennis

7/10 · 7 Jul 2021

The Body Keeps The Score

9/10 · 26 Jun 2021

The Alchemist

9/10 · 23 Jun 2021

The Copywriters Handbook

8/10 · 17 Jun 2021

Noise

6/10 · 27 May 2021

Trillion-Dollar Coach

8/10 · 25 Apr 2021

The Making of a Manager

8/10 · 1 Apr 2021

Think Again

8/10 · 25 Feb 2021

Empowered

7/10 · 24 Jan 2021

Hiring Product Managers

7/10 · 19 Jan 2021

The Almanack of Naval Ravikant

9/10 · 16 Jan 2021

The Great Mental Models

7/10 · 27 Dec 2020

The Practice

8/10 · 15 Dec 2020

Stand Out

7/10 · 10 Dec 2020

Challenging Coaching

27 Oct 2020

Forever Employable

13 Sept 2020

Ultralearning

7/10 · 17 Aug 2020

How To Be an Antiracist

10/10 · 21 Jun 2020

Biased

17 Jun 2020

Ego is the Enemy

10/10 · 19 Apr 2020

Superfast Lead at Speed

12 Apr 2020

Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps

22 Mar 2020

How to Lead in Product Management

14 Mar 2020

Influence

8 Mar 2020

Happiness Hypothesis

7/10 · 23 Feb 2020

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F

8/10 · 16 Feb 2020

Range - Why Generalists Triumph

1 Feb 2020

Change & Decision-Making

What happens when the work, the tools, or the organisation shifts. Adoption, resistance, judgement, and the decisions nobody wants to own.

Habits & Growth

Behaviour that survives Monday morning: attention, practice, and the small changes that compound into how a person actually works.

Four Thousand Weeks

20 Jan 2023

Building a Second Brain

8/10 · 3 Jul 2022

Stolen Focus

7/10 · 30 Jan 2022

The Advice Trap

6/10 · 6 Aug 2021

How To Have Successful Relationships

8/10 · 16 Jun 2021

How To Change

5/10 · 11 May 2021

Essentialism

6/10 · 3 May 2021

Power Of Habit

9/10 · 27 Mar 2021

Good Habits, Bad Habits

5/10 · 16 Mar 2021

The Coaching Habit

9/10 · 31 Jan 2021

The Coaching Habit

9/10 · 31 Jan 2021

Who Moved My Cheese

8/10 · 3 Oct 2020

The ONE Thing

9/10 · 12 Sept 2020

Tiny Habits

10/10 · 1 Feb 2020