6 Top Reads for International Leadership Week

International Leadership Week 2021 brings together leaders from around the world to deliver actionable insights and practical advice to help businesses evolve their thinking on what leadership in the 21st century means. This year’s theme is ‘Leadership – Reinvested’. To mark this important week, we’ve collated six of the best leadership books that will challenge, inspire and motivate leaders to make positive changes for the good of business, it’s people and the planet.

Best read for Sustainability

CORE: How a Single Organizing Idea Can Change Business For Good 

Neil Gaught

£29.99/$39.95, Routledge

Neil Gaught is a leading light amongst a growing number of business thinkers who are saying companies need to quickly and radically change how they operate if they are to meet the demands of customers, employees, and investors increasingly concerned about the sustainability of the planet and society.

With his ground-breaking book ‘CORE‘, Neil bolsters the case for a complete rethink of the role of business by proving change is not only unquestionably necessary but entirely possible.

Driven by a single-minded desire to help accelerate progress toward a more sustainable future, Neil is able to draw on unique insights gained as a soldier, designer, strategist, entrepreneur, and writer. His highly informed intuition and interest in understanding what works and what doesn’t have been earned ‘on the ground’ over the past two decades advising both private and public sector organizations of all sizes and across many different sectors in over 50 countries.

CORE is about how businesses can adopt a Single Organizing Idea and, more importantly, why they have to. Its no-nonsense approach sets aside the ideals to confront the realities of business reform. It demonstrates the power and potential that a Single Organizing Idea can bring to any business prepared to take its head out of the sand and proactively respond to today’s challenges.

Best read for New Senior Managers

The Step-Up Mindset for Senior Managers

Margo Manning

£14.99, Panoma Press

Written for those wishing to move into a senior manager’s role and existing senior managers who are new to their role or have received no formal development The Step-Up Mindset for Senior Managers helps leaders to demonstrate their credibility, capabilities and the value they bring to the role.

Written by one of the UK’s top Leadership and Management Coaches and Facilitators, The Step Up Mindset for Senior Managers will help you to know your ‘why’ and align your motivation to your career aspirations. It will help you to know your role; take off the superhero cape and focus on your role and responsibilities.

Margo reveals how to create a high performance culture whilst bringing your team along with you. She also discusses how to get strategic, focus the strategic (proactive) as well as the operations (reactive) and bring continuous improvements to the business with the support of all the available resources.

There is no perfect, reveals Margo, so turn the pressure down as she expertly guides you from being an OK manager to becoming a great manager.

Best read for Diversity & Inclusion

Closing the Gap

Teresa Boughey

£14.99/$19.99,  Rethink Press

As organisations rebuild, they are presented with the opportunity to remodel in a more diverse and inclusive way. This however requires focus, a break with ingrained traditions, a shift in mindsets, a re-design of organisational culture and a change in leadership behaviour.

Closing the Gap by Founder of Jungle HR and Inclusion 247 Teresa Boughey introduces her unique tribe5 diversity and inclusion™ methodology to give practical guidance to businesses taking their first steps and those already on their diversity journey.

Closing the Gap helps organisations to Take Stock, Raise Awareness, Inspire and Involve, Build for the Future and Embed Diversity and Inclusion at the heart of the organisational culture.

Creating an environment where people feel a sense of belonging when they come to work, where they feel respected and valued for their unique difference, isn’t just about doing the right thing – it will enable you to attract top talent and outperform your competitors.

Best read for Productivity

Time Mastery

Karen Meager & John McLachlan

£12.99/$19.95, Panoma Press

Ever wondered what it would take to move beyond time management and become a Time Master? Have you tried the latest time management techniques and still feel overwhelmed? Are you fed up with having to ‘think’ about prioritising, decision making and squeezing things in? Do you wish life would just flow better? Then this is the book for you.

This book will allow you to master your own time and not be controlled by other people’s priorities. Understand how your own preferences, style and interests impact how you use your time and be able to: – Incorporate simple changes in your day to day activities that give you back control. – Learn how other people see time and how you can use that to help them become more efficient and effective.

Make the most of your time for the things that are important to you. Whether you want to get more done at work, delegate better, manage the priorities at home or just spend more time doing things that bring you joy, Karen and John, organisational psychologists and co-founders of Monkey Puzzle Training and Consultancy, will help you develop an approach to time that is efficient and fits with your unique personality.

The first chapter is available for free on their website.

Best read for Strategy

Creating Strategy: A Practical Guide

Michael Bernard

£15.99/$21.95, Panoma Press

Every organisation needs a good strategy, but it’s hard to create one. There is no one-size-fits-all way to produce a strategy, but often people approach it as if there was. In Creating Strategy (Panoma Press), Michael Bernard is a clear voice above the crowd, providing a practical breakdown of writing strategy, its importance and how to ensure it supports an organisation’s intentions.

Michael Bernard has many years of experience writing marketing and business strategies for IBM, and is the co-founder of strategy consultancy House of Strategy. He is also a non-executive director, board advisor, trustee, consultant and school governor.

Combining conceptual explanations, detailed instructions and helpful advice alongside clear examples of both successful and unsuccessful strategies, Creating Strategy is the ideal read for any business, charity or government leader who finds themselves responsible for writing strategy but uncertain where to start. Written in a concise, accessible and authentic voice, it is the perfect book to help demystify what can quite easily become a daunting task.

Best read for Scaling Up

Play the Game: How to Win in Today’s Changing Environment

Adam Strong

£14.99/$19.95, Panoma Press

Running a business is never an easy task and brings no shortage of challenges and uncertainties. For entrepreneurs and leaders steering their businesses through constantly changing environments, it can be difficult to adapt and stay abreast of new demands whilst also remaining true to the vision they have for their company. And in the day to day running of the workplace, teams often get caught up in the same, familiar processes, which although used to be productive and efficient, have now become repetitive and self-limiting cycles.

Many leaders looking to take the next step and scale their businesses find themselves constrained by the practices that once underpinned their organisation, but no longer serve their vision for growth.

In Play the Game, Adam Strong brings together seventeen business leaders to share their experience of scaling. The book aims to help readers close the gap between their vision and current reality, giving them practical and intuitive advice on how to expand their business. Every contributing author has navigated significant adversity and challenges to become a successful disruptor in their field, having left behind unhelpful patterns to meet their aspirations for growth.

Play the Game is the perfect read for any entrepreneur, business leader or individual looking to scale their business, or who simply finds themselves stuck in their ways. Exploring the journey of self-discovery and clarity that all business leaders must undertake, it aims to equip them with tools and practical strategies to subvert repetitive patterns and support the move toward a more exciting future.