HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership

by Harvard Business Publishing

Go from being a good manager to an extraordinary leader.

If you read nothing else on leadership, read these 10 articles (featuring “What Makes an Effective Executive,” by Peter F. Drucker). We've combed through hundreds of Harvard Business Review articles on leadership and selected the most important ones to help you maximize your own and your organization's performance.

HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership will inspire you

Motivate others to excelBuild your team's self-confidence in othersProvoke positive changeSet directionEncourage smart risk-takingManage with tough empathyCredit others for your successIncrease self-awarenessDraw strength from adversity

This collection of best-selling articles featured article "What Makes an Effective Executive" by Peter F. Drucker, "What Makes a Leader?" "What Leaders Really Do," "The Work of Leadership," "Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?" "Crucibles of Leadership," "Level 5 The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve," "Seven Transformations of Leadership," "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership," and "In Praise of the Incomplete Leader."

Genres: Leadership, Business, Nonfiction, Management, Self Help, Professional Development, Psychology

229 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Harvard Business Publishing (HBP) is a publisher founded in 1994 as a not-for-profit, independent corporation and an affiliate of Harvard Business School (distinct from Harvard University Press), with a focus on improving business management practices. The company offers articles, books, case studies, simulations, videos, learning programs, and digital tools to organizations and subscribers.
HBP consists of three market units: Education, Corporate Learning, and Harvard Business Review Group. Their offering consists of print and digital media (Harvard Business Review, Harvard Business Review Press books, Harvard Business School cases), events, digital learning (Harvard ManageMentor, HMM Spark), blended learning, and campus experiences.

Reviews

[Mark Muckerman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read it, but read it with caution, thoughtfulness, emotionally balanced introspection, and with no expectation of "an answer".

The Harvard Business Review deserves its outstanding reputation. With that comes the risk of every word being looked to as gospel (because "it's the HBR"), or read with an overly critical eye and an unconscious need to "find flaw with those pretentious bastards at HBR".

However, this collection of articles is well written (as expected), but also well compiled to provide a comprehensive overview of Leadership styles and information, all on point, yet all very diverse.

What it is: It is a collection of insights and offerings on varying aspects of leadership styles, traits, and insights on personal leadership development for success, based on a plethora of studies and analyses. An emotionally mature reader seeking broader and deeper insight on the various components of "leadership" will find value in gaining a wider lens on leadership, and therefore possible some insight into self, as well as help in identifying some aspirations for personal growth.

What it is not: It is not a roadmap. It is not a self-help. It is not a book for brand new leaders, as the content requires some experience. It is not a "how to be a better leader in 12 pages". It doesn't even offer guidance on how to find those tools (likely because there IS no silver bullet.

All that being said, if you are a leader and looking to grow, knowledge is never a bad thing.

Recommended read (although it's probably a $12 book with a $25 price tag because, after all, it IS from the HBR. . .

[Emma Angeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I super enjoyed this. Some articles are defo more useful than others but I’m sure that’s down to taste and style.
I will say tho how apparent I found that this is written for men. The most pressing advice seems to be the prizing of self-awareness, self-regulation, empathy. Women are conditioned to do these thing constantly in all areas of our lives from the outset. Imagine them being treated as a novelty? The answer to so many of the problems in this is just good old fashioned therapy, something an article pointed out successful leaders benefitted from deeply. No shit. It’s really almost as if we should promote woman to positions of power and let them do their jobs.
Did really rate this tho. Remember ladies ✨girlkeep gatelight gassboss✨

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a person not really interested in business school, I mostly read this to remind myself of how feudalism is alive and accepted in modern life. Believe it or not feudalism has evolved since it became a passe form of popular government, in the form of corporate governments. This book is a terrific introduction to a world that most of us ignore, or complain about in an under-educated way. I think its important to read the same articles that the heads of these institution are reading, in the same way that its important for white Americans to read Peggy McIntosh or Zora Neale Hurston.

When modern liberals say that "corporations are ruining America", we owe it to them to consider this statement and understand the causes. This book provides only one aspect, but I think it helps us refine this statement to "bad leadership is ruining America."

So lets assume that the "great person" view of history is valid. If you are trying to find analogies between corporate success and historical success (of nations or peoples), leadership is the place to find the answer, in this view, and this book seems to back this up and confirm everything. Every single article, 100% of the time, spanning 30 years (?) of HBR essays, ties the CEO directly to the performance of the company. So, great leader = great company, end of discussion, as far as this book is concerned.

Now, getting back to the progress in feudalism, all of these articles concern themselves with the identification of the traits of good leaders and bad ones, and we can write up some taxonomies of leadership characteristics and styles. Various authors highlight different things, and you can see, if you pay close attention, to how things have changed in 50 years from a more austere style to more "authentic" style, and from the identification of process and technically intelligent leaders to people and emotionally intelligent leaders.

What we cannot do, is understand ourselves well enough to transform from good to great, or put systems in place to ensure that this will happen. I haven't read Jim Collin's Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't (although he contributed one article), but on the basis of all of these HBR articles - some people are brilliant and they make hard choices and take risks that just work out more often than when other good leaders who check all the other boxes are faced with the same challenges. Some people are just smarter. Most of the articles acknowledge this problem.

So maybe we can't always guarantee greatness, but surely we can get goodness? However despite all of this research and generally agreed upon principles, corporate boards still promote mediocre if not bad leaders, and the systems don't do nearly well enough to eliminate harmful personalities from positions of power. This is a conclusion that I came to myself, and is not discussed in any of the articles.

[Nada | ندى · Rating 5 out of 5]

love it ,recommend

[Tommy Kiedis · Rating 5 out of 5]

When the editors of Harvard Business Review open their vault of leadership and management gems, scouring its vast depth for the best and brightest of their treasures, and then line them up for you to glimpse and grasp -- get in line! Whether you look at HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership as an essential leadership primer or approach it as a graduate course sandwiched between two covers, this book is outstanding.

HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership is a gathering of some of the best thought leaders from yesterday and today. How often are you going to find Peter Drucker, Warren Bennis, John Kotter, Daniel Goleman, Jim Collins -- along with Bill George, Ron Heifetz, Diana Mayer, Deborah Ancona and others -- all waiting to share insights and impart wisdom?

When you read HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership you don't have to dig through past issues of Harvard Business Review to glean from the great. It's all right at your fingertips. It's theory and practice, insight and impact!

5 Reasons To Read

1. The line-up: I've already mentioned many of the authors. Here are a few of the titles: "What Makes A Leader?" "Why Should Anyone Be Led By You?" "Crucibles of Leadership" and "In Praise of the Incomplete Leader."

2. The research: HBR leans toward research-driven content. Many of these works are reports of multiple-year studies.

3. The approach: If you are not familiar with the HBR approach, it is a beautiful blend of theory and practice. Their works are designed for the reflective practitioner intent on practical results-oriented application.

4. The perspective: Collectively, HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership provides a global perspective on leadership. This is not simply what's happening on the American scene.

5. The attention to detail: The indexing and contributor bios are outstanding.

HBR's 10 Must Reads On Leadership is just that. Read it. Apply it. You won't regret it.

[Kari LaMotte · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love this book on leadership - it's a collection of articles that are perfect to keep in your flight bag for trips - short essays that give you something to think about and of course, the quintessential Drucker (how can you go wrong?)

I really would have given this 5 stars, but the last couple of articles didn't quite hit as close to home for me - even so, I waffled between 4 and 5 stars (would have been an ideal 4.5 star book!).

Recommended for anyone looking to up their game in leadership. :)

[Jim Razinha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Research on change management and this popped up, so… Management books tend to lose value over time… fads fade, new ideas supplant old ones, new knowledge enlightens. Leadership books seem to have more staying power. They aren’t without room for improvement, but generally have lasting stuff. This collection of essays is a good example. I like that HBR provides a BLUF with each - Bottom Line Up Front, and a Further Reading section with good jumping off points.

I’ll not address each article. I admit I am not a big fan of Daniel Goleman’s work but his essay here, “What Makes a Leader?”, is a pretty good synopsis of most of his salient points. But, I highlighted one part: “That story illustrates two other common traits of people who are driven to achieve. They are forever raising the performance bar, and they like to keep score.” The emotional intelligence guru notes this like it is a good thing? “Keeping score” is a slippery slope.

I just finished a book by John Kotter and of course, he’s in this collection.(Harvard, an all). His article is titled, “What Leaders Really Do” and the italicized summary on the front page is good: “They don’t make plans; they don’t solve problems; they don’t even organize people. What leaders really do is prepare organizations for change and help them cope as they struggle through it.”

“The question ‘Why should anyone be led by you?’ strikes fear in the hearts of most executives. With good reason.” I think if you come up in a culture of leadership, that is rarely a question to ask.

I’m going to blame the editors for the teaser to Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones’s “Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?”: The question “Why should anyone be led by you?” strikes fear in the hearts of most executives. With good reason. I think if you come up in a culture of leadership, that is rarely a question to ask or be asked.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some good stuff in here! Like most leadership books I’ve read, this skews heavily to the business world and there are sections that are much less relevant to those of us working in non profits or those of us whose sole goal is not to accumulate wealth. I found the various studies on different personalities of leaders fascinating, though. On a logistical note - I wouldn’t recommend this on a Kindle. It has lots of feature sections that break up the narrative, which is hard to follow if you’re not reading the physical book.

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

The articles are excellent in isolation, especially if you are reading them off of the HBR website. As a collection, however, I have reservations about rating a collection of articles on leadership above 3 stars when there is a lack of diversity in the authorship and topics selected.

It’s my hope that other HBR collections take equity, diversity, inclusion, anti-racism and accessibility into account when selecting their 10 essential reads on any topic.

[Rodrigo Pinillos Osnayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Recopilación de 10 lecturas básicas sobre liderazgo. Algunas de ellas probablemente ya clásicas (Goleman, Drucker), otras no tanto, pero en cualquier caso, todas deberían permitir contrastar los esquemas que presentan con nuestro accionar diario: no se aprende a liderar leyendo, pero la reflexión que lleva a corregir la acción seguro que sí.

[Jason Watkins · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of HBR articles by some greats in business and in organizational psychology.

[Cagdas Ilter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Avarage

[Carrie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book, but it left me depressed that the highest regarded popular press writings on leadership are (still) written by white men. What topics and narratives would we be exploring in the realm of leadership if the authorship had more diverse gender and racial representation?

When white men make up the vast majority of Fortune 500 CEOs, it starts to feel like the issue of representation in this book's authorship is part of a systemic issue. I hope HBR is taking this into consideration with their future publications.

[Yifei H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as great as HBR: Managing Yourself, but it provides a multiple frameworks for thinking about leadership, and discusses qualities of great leaders, inviting the process of self-reflection. Like all the HBR series, it’s useful when you want to reset yourself: to dissect frustrations or stagnation, and identify blind spots to more intentionally “work on yourself.”

Key takeaways: self-awareness and self-regulation distinguish great leaders from mediocre ones; the work of a leader is mainly to align people while they undergo adaptive challenges, not to manage the actual work and outcome; always ask what's best for the organization; relationships are absolute key: talk to anyone and everyone about anything.

[Anatoly Sharifulin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This insightful book delves into leadership and offers various approaches. I particularly found several frameworks and examples from the articles to be valuable.

I highly recommend this book to founders and team leaders.

[Geir Skårland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unscientific, anecdotal and value-based, this collection of articles gives a good overview of leadership thinking. However, most of the articles follow this dubious method:
-look at successful companies or leaders
-formulate a leadership model and apply this to the material
-create compelling images as an illustration
-tell stories that confirm the model

The mere fact that the collection ends up with very different models of leadership shows that the results are more subjective and random than they present themselves as.

Still, some common features emerge. Most of the models value
- adapting to the environment. Orient the company to meet actual needs.
- emphasise relationships and empower employees
- maintain work-life balance
- be authentic and real, avoid building up your ego to harmful proportions.
- follow ethical standards to build trust and sustainability

Since the overall picture is both interesting, good and useful, the collection is so, too. But it has also left me with serious doubts as to the validity of current research on leadership.

[Nick Jamil · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very hard to rate this book. Many of the articles are actually quite insightful, despite my rating, and well worth the read. One could even call some of them "game changing". With regards to others, I just don't think I'm at a place in my career and in my organization where I can appreciate the articles. I skimmed those. Finally, there is an article or two in there, or some articles with a few parts within them, that I vehemently disagree with and can't understand how they made it into a "top 10" list.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Only a few of the articles were interesting but not "must reads" for a business person. Perhaps the articles were novel at the time they were published. Since then, many of the insightful topics have been expanded into books. A business person would recognize some of the authors like Peter F. Drucker ("The Effective Executive"), Jim Collins ("Good to Great"), and Daniel Goleman ("Emotional Intelligence").

[William · Rating 1 out of 5]

I get that the conventions and quality of academic writing vary across disciplines. But the breathless tone of business/management academia gussies up the meager insights of this discipline as significant, penetrating scholarship. It isn't. And this book isn't worth your time.

[Mike Ncube · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great resource for anyone leading a team or company or any aspiring leaders. I particularly enjoyed Jim Collins Level 5 leadership insights. I’ve read his book Good to Great too and this was an excellent summary of it

[Lizzy · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were a couple interesting essays ("Crucibles of Leadership", can't remember the other one I liked) but in general I'm annoyed I had to read it for class.

[Thiago Lima · Rating 4 out of 5]

Li o livro HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership da Harvard Business Review, uma coletânea de textos de diversos autores renomados nesse tema, entre eles Peter F. Drucker, Daniel Goleman (O mesmo de Inteligência Emocional), Bill George entre outros.

Durante o texto são ilustrados diversos exemplos de líderes e como eram os seus comportamentos diante de equipes, de clientes, de concorrentes. Valores, Postura, vários aspectos são analisados e confrontados comportamentos de gerentes, diretores em diferentes situações, principalmente em ambiente corporativo e em equipe, com seus times.

Os primeiros capítulos tratam de aspectos mais teóricos e fundamenta o que se entende por liderança nas pessoas, diante de grupos de trabalhos, estudos, familias, etc. Nos próximos capítulos é explorado muito sobre a vida dentro de grandes corporações.

O que me chamou muito atenção é a ênfase que diversos autores deram a autenticidade, a forma única que cada um de nós tem em nossos comportamentos. Descobrir sua liderança autêntica, de acordo com alguns autores, requer um comprometimento em desenvolver a você mesmo, ou seja, envolve autoconhecimento e crescimento de suas habilidades. (O que dá entender que, quanto mais nós nos conhecemos, mas podemos nos desenvolver, ou de forma mais efetiva). Eles comentaram sobre lideranças autênticas, que trata de líderes que põe em prática seus valores e princípios, a todo momento. Sobre o corporativismo e vida em empresa, os líderes autênticos sempre mantém uma sinergia muito forte com sua equipe, as mantendo vivas e vibrantes, integradas. Fala um pouco das motivações intrínsecas e extrínsecas, que são duas motivações que movem grandes líderes - o que vem de dentro (como a pessoa foi criada, sua história e como encara o mundo atualmente, que molda seus valores) e o que vem de fora (as pessoas que lidam no dia a dia, amigos, mentores e familiares).

É um livro que puxa pra realidade americana (me lembro das aulas que tive de liderança no RIT), mas se aplica muito bem pra quem trabalha com grandes corporações, negociando ou fornecendo, por exemplo, está dentro de uma grande corporação ou já viveu essa realidade.

Vale muito a pena ler! Algum de vocês já leu esse livro? O que acharam?

[Andrew]

On leadership: eq is the most important aspect of leadership. Eq consists of Self awareness, self regulation motivation, empathy and social skill. Self aware people’s decisions mesh with their values. Control of emotions is a sign of good leadership. effective executive - what needs to be done, what is right for the enterprise, develop an action plan, took responsibility, took responsibility for comms, focused on opportunities rather than problems, productive meetings, we rather than I. Without an action plan an exec becomes a prisoner of events. What leaders really do. Management and leadership are seperate, but both are needed for success. Protect voices from below. Why should anyone be led by you? Top leaders selectively show their weaknesses. rely heavily on intuition to gauge appropriate timing and course of actions. Manage employees with tough empathy, they reveal their differences. Participative leadership. Finding a leadership style. Neoteny”retention of juvenile characteristics in adults” Most critical skill is adaptive capacity, ability to transcend adversity. Level 5 leader, extreme humility with professional will. Adversity and the response to it helps define a level 5. Understanding things may be poor now but unwavering in they. Seven action logics. Opportunist, diplomat, expert, achiever, individualist, strategist, alchemist. Want to get to strategist/ alchemist. Currently I’m a mix of achiever/individualist/strategist. To get to top need to be more disciplined, work better with higher managements goals. Authentic leadership: demonstrate passion, practice values, lead with heart and head, meaningful relationships and self discipline. They know themselves. Return to page 172 and ask myself those questions. Authentic leadership is the only way to achieve long term results. Four leadership capabilities: sense making, relating, visioning, inventing. This is something I should revisit continually, the ideal guide to leadership.

[Abhishek · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up from a charity store for 2 quid and thought hopefully, I can brush up on some of the learnings from B-school. It's been a while afterall.

I actually forgot how much stating the obvious sometimes these books get. Having said that, there were some interesting parts to the read, especially anecdotes from the lives of some business leaders but one pays for that by wading through much that is tedious and rather repetitive.

Maybe another reason, I didn't find much value in it because, I had read a few essays beforehand. Like the one from Peter Drucker or the chapter which was essentially a summary of the book good to great.

All in all, pick this up depending on your state of being. If you're the type of person who reads the HBR articles here and there anyways or keep yourself abreast with the industry at large, I'm afraid this book might not add much. However, as I did in my first year of MBA, if you're a college student starting your course or you've found yourself newly promoted to a managerial position and do not have the luxury of time to read various books, go for this one.

Not the worst £2 I've ever spent personally.😊😊

[Javier Rivero · Rating 4 out of 5]

This compilation makes yourself challenge and question your performance and existance as a leader, in a good way. Much of the treats, competencies, skills, etc described from the various authors do converge at certain points. And while every author claims they did the best research amongst top X CEOs across all continents in the top performing companies, the conclusions vary a lot. Either way, it's a good exercise to read all of this learnings derived from these exhaustive leadership analaysis.

That being said, I found the majority of the advice a little outdated, since most of these studies analyzed Top managers and CEO's from the 80's and 90's. A lot has changed since then, leadership has evolved drastically and most of the now succesful companies are related to technology, where the culture inside of these organization are vastly different from a traditional corporation (eg. GE/Gillete/Unilever). However, as mentioned above, some valuable learnings can be applied by the modern day leader, specially "In Praise of the Incomplete Leader" and "Discovering Your Authentic Leadership".

[Pramila Kudva · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is a collection of articles from HBR. Several stalwarts have written these articles and each is a gem by itself.
A few things that appealed to me are:
Nothing can be achieved without enthusiasm.
Organisations run into trouble because they don’t cover their base properly. To illustrate, a company that got into a joint venture with a Japanese company lost its leadership position because basic information that the product was measured in Kgs and meters but not in pounds and feet was not communicated to the customer!
A Key to hold an effective meeting which specifies the purpose and the process to be followed had my attention.
The difference between management and leadership is explained with a simple analogy. A peacetime army can survive with competent leadership at the top. Whereas, a war-time army requires competence at all levels.
The case study of British Airways as an organisation identifying adaptive challenge was an eye opener. The crucible experience was interesting.
The classification of leaders based on their leadership styles was meaningful. It explained how the leaders fell into these categories.
Interestingly, it gives a candid personal account of how one can learn from Life’s journey. Leadership principles are values turned into action. Leadership involves balancing 4 capabilities. Sense making, relating, visioning and inventing.
Each article in the book gives a different perspective and opinion from a renowned author, leader. The book is a page-turner that inspires you to grow.

[Ashik Uzzaman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Last week I finished "HBR's 10 Must Reads on Leadership" by Harvard Business Review featuring a good collection of leadership articles from renowned business leaders. Here are the articles from the book

(1) Daniel Goleman - What Makes a Leader?
(2) Peter Drucker - What Makes an Effective Executive?
(3) John P. Kottner - What Leaders Really Do
(4) Ronald A Heifetx and Donald L. Laurie - The Work of Leadership
(5) Robert Goffee and Gareth Jones - Why Should Anyone Be Led by You?
(6) Warren G. Bennis and Robert J. Thomas - Crucibles of Leadership
(7) Him Collins - Level 5 Leadership: The Triumph of Humility and Fierce Resolve
(8) David Rooke and William R. Torbert - Seven Transformations of Leadership
(9) Bill George, Peter Sims, Andrew N. McLean and Diana Moyer - Discover Your Authentic Leadership
(10) Deborah Ancona, Thomas W. Malone, Wanda J. Orlikowski and Peter M. Senege - In Praise of the Incomplete Leader

Source: http://www.dragon-bishop.com/2021/08/...

[Stephen Heiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another solid installment in the HBR box set of "Must Reads."

"Unless there is a true catastrophe, problems are not discussed in management meetings until opportunities have been analyzed and properly dealt with." (p. 33)

(at the end of a meeting) "Good executives don't raise another matter for discussion. They sum up and adjourn." (p. 35)

"But while improving their ability to lead, companies should remember that strong leadership with weak management is no better, and is sometimes actually worse, than the reverse." (p. 37)

"Management is about coping with complexity." (p. 38)

"Leadership has to take place every day." (p. 78)

"Many executives don't have the self-knowledge or the authenticity necessary for leadership." (p. 89)

"The most effective leaders deliberately use differences to keep a social distance. Even as they are drawing their followers close to them, inspirational leaders signal their separateness." (p. 92)

"[H]appiness...is not a function of your circumstances; it's a function of your outlook on life." (p. 108)

[Aisha Alsoulah · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can learn a lot from reading books and articles related to Leadership, especially from experts in the field like: Harvard Business School, and Harvard Business Review.
Newspapers like: Financial Times..
In addition to taking leadership courses, and learning from your role models, you will be able to clearly see the improvements in your leading style. No one is perfect and even the best leaders out there they seek learning new skills and lessons everyday.
Leaders are made and not born. ⚡️

One of the reasons why I love reading leadership books is that you get to study leaders like Nelson Mandela.
Some of the great leaders in human history are prophets such as prophet Mohammed peace be upon him, and Jesus peace be upon him.
I believe there is no one set of traits that make a great leader but after reading so many business books and if I have to choose five traits they would be: honesty, integrity, hard work, serving others, and seeking continuous improvements…

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this edition is one of the better HBR "10 Must Reads". This volume, on the subject of leadership, I found to be particularly intriguing. All of the articles remain timely, even though some were written long ago. These articles, which range from the difference between management and leadership, to being a truly authentic leader, and many points in between, are very helpful. Leadership is such an amorphous subject, and leadership comes in all different varieties, yet still the researchers are able to distill some very good lessons on what makes great leaders, what great leaders do and don't do, and how anyone can become a leader. I would recommend this book to all aspiring leaders out there, not only in business, but government and non-profits as well. Truly a book to make you stop and think, and reflect on your own style of leadership.