Leaders are readers. Reading helps you discover ideas to try and expand your mental models.

In this post I point you to reviews of recent business books. You’ll find pointers to reviews of Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment, The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism, The Infinite Leader: Balancing the Demands of Modern Business Leadership, Leading from the Middle: A Playbook for Managers to Lead Up, Down, and Across the Organization, and Manage to Engage: How Great Managers Create Remarkable Results. There;s also Michael McKinney’s list of new business book releases for June 2021.

From Bob Pisani: Nobelist Daniel Kahneman is out with new book on why we all make bad decisions

“A new book by Nobel economics prize winner Daniel Kahneman asks why does everyone make such bad decisions and what can we do about it? Why do we all make such bad decisions?  Not just about investing, about everything.”

From Bob Morris: The Heart of Business

“In a book written with the substantial assistance of Caroline Lambert, he observes, ‘Through all my experiences, culminating in the incredible years at Best Buy [when he was its Chairman and CEO], I have come to believe — to know — that [begin italics] purpose [end italics] and [begin italics] human connection [end italics] constitute the very heart of business. And I believe they should be at the heart of the necessary and urgent refoundation of business now underway… So, financial performance is an imperative and an outcome, but it is not the goal.’ In brief, the business of business is serving a noble purpose.”

From Skip Prichard: How to Balance the Demands of Modern Business Leadership

“Leadership experts Chris Lewis and Pippa Malmgren, in The Infinite Leader: Balancing the Demands of Modern Business Leadership, argue that leaders must balance between analytic logic and intuition. With this balanced approach, leaders find their creativity and productivity soaring and results follow.”

From Scott Mautz: 5 Reasons Why Your Middle Manager Role Is So Difficult (And What To Do About It)

“I interviewed over 3,000 successful middle managers for my new book, Leading from the Middle: A Playbook for Managers to Lead Up, Down, and Across the Organization. The most common theme I heard for why the job of the middle manager is so darn difficult was the broad scope of it all—all the hats you’re forced to wear. This daunting scope manifests itself in the form of 5 challenges in particular, spelled out in the handy acronym SCOPE.”

From Michael McKinney: We’ve Coached Over 1 Million Supervisors … Here’s What We Learned

“This is a post by Pamela Hackett. She is the Global CEO of the international consultancy Proudfoot. Throughout her 35 years in management consulting, she has advised, led, and guided some of the world’s most prominent companies and brands through major change. Her new book, Manage to Engage: How Great Managers Create Remarkable Results, is a compendium of ideas and resources that will help any business focus on what matters—their people—to be more productive and profitable.”

From Michael McKinney: First Look: Leadership Books for June 2021

“Here’s a look at some of the best leadership books to be released in June 2021. Don’t miss out on other great new and future releases not listed here.”

Reading recommendations are a regular feature of this blog. Want more recommendations about what to read? Monday is “Book Day.” Come back for book reviews, reading lists and other reading-related posts.