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Whenever we look for a reference to bibliographic sources on leadership, we get the same titles as always.
The classic books, for example: How to Win Friends and Influence People, by Dale Carnegie; The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen Covey; o The 21 Irrefutable Laws on Leadership, by John Maxwell.
And on the other hand the contemporary classics like: The leaders eat at the end, by Simon Sinek or Tribus , by Seth Godin.
But don’t get me wrong, all of these books are extraordinary and should definitely be on your reading list this year in case you haven’t read them.
However, there are other books that did not receive as much publicity, were not lucky enough to have a major publishing house, or simply did not have to live in the age of the internet boom. That does not mean that they are not good, in fact, there are some that to my taste are better than some of the more popular titles.
For this reason I bring you a list of 5 leadership books that you probably had not heard. Perhaps some of them are no longer for sale or are not easy to find, but if they ever fall into your hands you should read them.
1. The ABCs of Leadership by John Maxwell . This small but concise book is still readily available in bookstores, yet it is generally overshadowed by the rest of its author’s more renowned titles.
Maxwell has written and published more than 30 books among which he has some very successful bestsellers, among them: The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, Sometimes you want to and sometimes you learn, Everyone communicates but few connect, etc.
Although this book does not stand out among the most important titles of Maxwell, it is a compact but very rich in content paperback. Only 125 pages are enough for Maxwell to accurately explain the essential qualities of a leader.
2. Larry Hammons Teen & Youth Leadership. This book is only available used and you will hardly find it in bookstores. It is a small but practical and concise book. With only 100 pages Hammons manages to convey the way of exercising our leadership much better than any course or short video.
This is an excellent book for anyone who is starting or wants to take leadership foundations and although its title is focused on young people, anyone can read and immediately get tons of benefit from it.
3. The Warrior Ethos by Steven Pressfield . Pressfield has also been a very prolific author in recent years. He writes from fiction and non-fiction books, among which are The War of Art .
For the same reason some of his books have gone into the background, such is the case of The Warrior Ethos, which we could translate as the Warrior Code.
This book brings small stories of ancient Greek, Macedonian, Spartan and Roman warriors whose code allowed them to fight for ideals much greater than themselves, ideals that every leader must embrace such as honor, magnanimity, empathy, inspiration, etc.
4. The Samurai Leader by Bill Diffenderffer . Definitely one of my favorite titles. In this book he introduces us to the Zen philosophy of the Samurai and gives us a unique vision of how these ancient warriors faced complex situations that are now brought to the business world.
Here you can find values forgotten in the West but that are essential for any modern leader.
Honor, courage, loyalty and compassion are some of the principles that were part of the Samurai code. Diffenderffer lived much of his life in Eastern countries and was CEO of large multinational companies.
His experience and passion for oriental culture and business led him to write this excellent compendium of lessons that we will hardly see in other similar books.
5. The MOXIE Leader by John Baldoni . This book is still available in most bookstores, however I decided to put it on this list because in my opinion it has not received the amount of attention it deserves.
The MOXIE Leader should be considered one of the contemporary classics of leadership. A book that describes the modern leader who corresponds to the new generations.
Its title refers to the acronym moxie, talking about how to have an open body M, O pportunities find, develop your X Factor, I nnovar and E mprender.
Finally, I invite you to continue nurturing your leadership by also reading more articles like this one on Entrepreneur.com or visiting my blog Lideremprendedor.com .