15 management books that have helped execs like Satya Nadella and Ray Dalio lead through turbulent times
- Insider compiled a list of 15 best books to help leaders guide their teams through turbulent times.
- Learn how to build resilient teams from the professors, journalists and leaders who have done it.
- From classics to new finds, these books can teach anyone how to lead their company to success.
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
People look to leaders for answers — especially during hard times.
For over a year, executives were steering their companies through a worldwide economic downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Many workplaces have reopened, after closing for safety reasons, or are planning to reopen soon.
The new challenge for industry leaders will be navigating the complicated world of hybrid work. C-suite executives are eager to return to their office spaces full-time, but employees would prefer to stay online — the compromise, hybrid work, will take time to coordinate.
Insider has compiled a list of 15 books, which offer practical insights on how to better understand yourself, your employees, and where the business world is going.
This article is an updated version of a story that was originally published in January 2016. May Teng and Weng Cheong contributed to earlier versions of this post.
Joseph Campbell's 70-year-old mythology book helped Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio process and reframe with his business and personal failures, he told Business Insider.
"The Hero with a Thousand Faces" shows how many mythologies, folk tales, and religious narratives follow a similar story structure, including a call to adventure, a descent into the underworld, and an ultimate boon brought back to society — whether it's Harry Potter or Siddhartha Gautama.
"Look, pain is a great teacher," Dalio told Insider. "You go forward toward your goals."
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said that "Mindset" by Carol Dweck inspired him to transform his company's culture.
Dweck's research-steeped chapters prompted one of the most influential leaders to adopt a "learn-it-all" mind-set. She suggests that having a "growth" mind-set and constantly looking to develop new skills through hard work can lead to greater success than believing that they're "fixed" in place.
A growth mindset teaches you to be adaptable, regardless of what adversities you may be dealing with.
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More than two decades after its publication, Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" remains a must-read for business-school students or anyone interested in the structural forces that usher in new industries.
Drawing from real-world examples, the beloved Harvard Business School professor argues innovation and doing what's out of the ordinary can transform a market or sector. He also provides cases where corporations failed solely because they did everything right — but did not innovate.
By applying the term "disruption" as the redesign of how things are done, Christensen advises leaders not to get too comfortable with their business models. Always be on the lookout for the next big thing, as hard times can inspire great ideas.
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Doris Kearns Goodwin is probably America's greatest living historian, having written extensive biographies of former Presidents Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and Franklin Roosevelt, for which she won the Pulitzer Prize.
In "Leadership: In Turbulent Times," Goodwin tells side-by-side tales of how these four influential men came to power and their greatest challenges and triumphs. It's like being led by the hand through how these massive historical figures made the history that they did. In turn, they become more human than legend — and you learn how and why they made the decisions they did.
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The Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz is one of the most influential voices speaking on the global wealth gap. Having worked as the World Bank chief economist and the chairman of Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers, Stiglitz offers an inside look into how big businesses play a crucial role in the economic and political divide in America.
In his book, Stiglitz gives solutions to America's economic problems instead of just listing its flaws. He argues the government holds the solution to the US wealth gap and that the best way to fight inequality and improve our economy is by rejecting market fundamentalism, breaking up market concentration, regulating Big Tech, rethinking trade, and empowering labor.
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In this 2019 book, the social activist and journalist Caroline Criado Perez researches how data behind smartphone design, public policies, and medical research is collected by an overwhelming number of men with less consideration for women.
"Invisible Women" focuses on the gender data gap around the world, something Perez believes influences the health and safety of women. The author argues that addressing these discrepancies can help women rise to leadership positions.
More so, implementing company policies that are catering to women can establish gender equality in the workplace.
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This 2011 best seller is a favorite of Jack Zenger, the cofounder and CEO of the leadership consultancy Zenger Folkman.
Daniel Kahneman, a psychologist who won the Nobel Prize in economics, breaks down human thought into two systems: the fast and intuitive "System 1," and the slow and deliberate "System 2." His book brings an awareness to our self-ignorance, as we are easily influenced by our surroundings and often automatically respond to things without much filtering. This book teaches us how to be mindful of our brains. Kahneman's framework lays out a number of cognitive biases that affect our everyday behavior, from halo effects to planning fallacies.
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In the Harvard Business Review, John Coleman wrote that this best seller was a required read for young leaders.
Jim Collins spent five years researching which qualities allow companies to excel, and the results prompted him to identify eight common traits, the "good to great," companies share. Young entrepreneurs can follow Collins' advice on facing brutal truths in the company and developing a niche in the market.
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In "Leaders Eat Last," bestselling author Simon Sinek puts the spotlight on leadership and management sacrifices.
Sinek, who's also career and workplace keynote speaker, travelled around the world and came across a variety of team cultures. He wondered what builds trust in a workplace, and why some leaders fail to establish that same trust with their employees.
After an encounter with a US Marine Corps general, the author finally understood a crucial lesson in management — it's that great leaders sacrifice their own comfort for their teams.
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In this book, coauthors Chip and Dan Heath explore how some experiences have more lasting impacts, and why we feel most comfortable when things are certain.
The two authors leveraged psychological research and explore what makes some moments more pivotal than others. In turn, they narrowed special moments into four principles — elevation, insight, pride, and connection — and explained how we can create and turn hard times into positive, memorable experiences.
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Herminia Ibarra, a professor at Harvard and INSEAD business schools, suggests leaders act first and then think so that they learn from experimentation and direct experience. Ibarra offers ways to adopt a new mindset that's translatable across all industries.
"Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader" is packed with self-assessments and advice on the biggest workplace debates. Ibarra devotes an entire chapter to the dangers of being too authentic at work and offers strategies to step outside your comfort zone.
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Resilience is a muscle that can be built up. In "Option B" Sheryl Sandberg reflects on the sudden death of her husband and how she recovered from the life-changing experience.
With help from her friend and Wharton psychologist, Adam Grant, Sandberg explores how we can power through hard times and come out better on the other side. The book teaches readers how to help others in crisis and build resilient communities.
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In "Hit Refresh," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella tells the story of how exploring his roots as an immigrant from India led him to lead some of the most significant technological changes at the tech company.
Being an innovative leader means seeking opportunities to self-improve, he explained in his book. Nadella urges leaders to better understand themselves in order to become successful leaders.
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Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings co-authored "No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention" to share how company culture transformed the popular DVD-rental service and the entire streaming industry.
In "No Rules Rules" hundreds of employee interviews corroborate Hastings finding about unconventional leadership. Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg called Netflix's culture deck, which outlines the same principles, "the most important document to ever come out of Silicon Valley."
Hastings credits Netflix's ability to adapt and pioneer the entertainment landscape to their honest and creative work culture, where adequacy is a fireable offense and excellence is the expectation.
Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.
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