6 Book Recommendations for Emotionally Intelligent Leaders
There is nothing I love more than a brand new book. I love opening it up and smelling the pages, then sitting down under a cozy blanket with a warm cup of coffee to finally read it. So when friends or students or podcast listeners ask for my book recs, I know they aren’t asking for a graduate-level journey into academics, but I also want to make it worth their time.
So on today’s episode of Coffee on Leadership, we're talking about six books I've picked out for you to read to become a more emotionally intelligent leader because I know emotional intelligence is such a hot topic right now.
These are the six I would want you to dive in with, but of course you can start with one! So let's talk about them.
On this episode you’ll hear…
The reminder that the more you read will shape you to be a well rounded, educated leader who is able to make a bigger impact
Choosing values driven, brave and vulnerable leadership and why Dare to Lead is the one leadership book you have to read
Deconstructing big business with your psychological mindset via The Infinite Game
The importance of community for ever leader and entrepreneur and how we can prioritize gathering and connection with The Art of Gathering
The science behind holistic transformation for individuals and leaders as seen in Flourish
Why every leader must integrate emotional agility within the way they lead and what’s to learn from it via Emotional Agility
Leadership lessons learned from sports as read in Wolfpack
Ready for more?
Listen in:
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** This is a raw, unedited transcript
Chaili Trentham 00:00
There is nothing I love more than a brand new book and opening it up and smelling the pages and sitting down under a cozy blanket with a warm cup of coffee, and something good to read. So when friends or students or podcast listeners ask for my book Rex, I know they are asking for a graduate level journey into academics. But I also want to make it worth their time. If they're choosing development, I need to make the most of their reading time because I value that so much, and I want you to value it too. So today, we're talking about six books I've picked out for you to read to become a more emotionally intelligent leader. emotionally intelligent leadership is a hot topic right now. And if you were to say Shaylee, pick out some books for me to get started. These are the six I would want you to dive in with, you can start with one. So let's talk about them. When you Google top leadership books, you will certainly get a great list. Truly, you can Google it, and you will find some of the tried and true leadership books, you'll see names on there that have been around for a long time. There's great books out there more and more come out each year. But truthfully, most of those authors have been in the traditional business space and fit that traditional mold of what we thought a leader looks like for years. But it's 2022 in a post pandemic world. And we know that profound leadership positions can and should be accessible to anyone because spoiler alert, but who am I kidding, because you listen to this podcast, you already know this. leaders do not need a position or a specific title to make an impact in the world. We are seeing leaders stand out at every level of an organization, starting with how they show up and lead themselves. So this list that I put together is for the leader at any level, the leader who values development, the leader who knows it's not just quote unquote, soft skills, and the leader who is committed to growing in their own emotional intelligence and awareness of the EQ of others. So I put together a list of six books that have both personal and professional tie ins and are a quick dive into leadership development. And honestly perfect for heading into the new year. Because if you're thinking through how you're going to develop or set some goals, or do more reading, this is a perfect place to start. Guess what the saying all Leaders are readers is 100% truthful. The more you're reading, especially in the leadership and development space, the more you get a few things. Number one, you gather context, and you learn you're exposed to scenarios you may not have encountered before. And now after you read you have familiarity and context and perhaps a playbook even for how to respond when you face that scenario. In your own leadership. too. You can consider narratives outside your own story, right? You grab books that show a more full and robust picture of leadership or business or psychology, or the world or the people around you. And three, consistently challenging yourself to read means that you're challenging yourself and your team with more innovative and critical thinking. Because you're aware of more of the good, the bad, the ugly, and can begin to see patterns and connections on a larger scale, right. We're all in this interconnected leadership paradigm together. And regardless of how siloed and alone we can feel on Sundays, participating in the bigger story by reading gets you into the world where you're opening up yourself to the threads that weave it all together. So the six books, I originally picked out five but then had to add in a bonus and so I'm just saying you get six right now. I hope you've read them or will read them or will consider reading them with your team even number one, you know it's come in, dare to lead. Brave work Tough crowd conversations whole hearts by Brene Brown. Like I said, you know it was coming. This is your leadership primer right on the ways to dig into what it takes to be a courageous leader in both your work and life. This is Brene delivers a cohesive and actionable pathway to better leadership with tactical steps and then all the yummy data to back to that, you know, she acts at full with all of her research and that's why it's so good. Read, dare to lead and you'll know what it means to choose a values driven, more brave, more vulnerable, deeply vulnerable, Jeremy and if you read just one leadership book to kick off next year, let this be it. Truly, I had the chance to build out curriculum modules to support her dare to lead training And program with a facilitator this past year. And so I went back through all of the certification certification content. And I just was reminded at how brilliant this book is for teams choosing a new way for leadership development. And it's great for individuals who want to start their leadership development right now. So pick it up, and then you can grab the free resources Brene has on our site, and get to work. So that's obviously number one. Book number two, the infinite game by Simon Sinek. You may have a new one, it's Simon's book was coming to if you know me, well, both Bernays books and Simon's books always lined up on my shelf. I give start with why Simon's first spoke to so many people in business, because I think it's a game changer. And considering how we show up authentically in any business industry. But when the infinite game came out, this book came out, I changed my mind. This is the book I want leaders to start with, from Simon Simon. Because let's see, imagine a way to deconstruct big business. By way of psychological shift to a growth mindset. This is that it's personal motivation, its commitment to something greater than yourself. He talks about adjust cause, and Simon literally gives you the framework, you need to start playing the game with an infinite mindset. And it could change your life. Trust me, you want to know whether you or your organization are playing the infinite or the finite game. So pick it up. Okay, book number three that I recommend is the art of gathering how we meet and why it matters. By Priya Parker, my first read through of this book was back in 2018. And I was navigating the start of my business coffee on leadership. And that involves facilitation of leadership works workshops in real life was where we started in in person. And when I picked it back up, in the middle of COVID, it hit like a ton of bricks and I picked it back up because it's honestly it's a beautiful book, like the cover is beautiful. So I picked it back up and was missing community and being in person and gathering. And Priya covers the details of gathering from exploring context to encouraging participation. And it's all rooted in this field of hers where there's a responsibility for us as leaders. And so often we glaze over details for gathering or we're thinking so much about content that we forget about connection. And we pass that part along to somebody else within our team, or we just do what we've always done. And I think we underestimate the power of connection. And I've heard Priya speak on a few different in a few different spaces and on podcasts, since coming out of COVID. And it's really been beautiful to see how this book aligned with what we're going through globally to give way for a beautiful new reframe of the art of gathering. And we have greater opportunities to make the most of every moment and every minute that we have with and among others on our team. So that's important to recognize as a leader, and why I think that rethinking this, in our leadership in this post COVID world is really, really important. So that's number three, book number four. flourish, a visionary, new understanding of happiness and well being this is by Martin Seligman, Professor Seligman, Marty Seligman, however, you've heard that name come across your desk before. Let's see this one's key for emotionally intelligent leadership because it's the psychological breakdown of happiness and well being and the personal side of it, how we flourish and how we thrive as individuals. So in the past few few years now, many of you know my work has allowed me to jump between organizations virtually because zoom workshops, and most of that time, I've been facilitating workshops and conversations highlighting the intersection of personal well being and our professional lives as leaders, and Marty Seligman. His research on happiness shaped the field of positive psychology, that's where you've probably heard his name before. He was, you know, a founding father of the positive psychology field. And so this book gives the science behind all the ways that we can lean into holistic transformation, as individuals as leaders. So it's grounding. It's the psychology one on one class I wish everyone had in college, because I'll say it over and over and over again, every person on a team, especially the leader, benefits from an individual focus on increasing self awareness and commitment to growth. When we as leaders commit to greater self awareness to owning who we are as leader to continually having that growth mindset, we all benefit from it. And so we should be encouraging that with the people around us too. So you have to pick up this book. It's so good. And I constantly go back to it for framing out workshops in this area. Okay, number five, emotional agility, get unstuck, embrace change and thrive and work in life. This is Dr. Susan David's book that I cannot recommend enough I put it in my Instagram stories the other day is like this is the Christmas gift you need to buy people. Emotional intelligence and emotional agility have been hot topics at the intersection of personal professional development for the past several years. But right now it's getting its full moment in the spotlight, which is why I'm even doing this episode. Right. And Dr. Susan David created the guidebook this is for anyone looking for a masterclass on emotional agility, and flexibility and resilience. It integrates all of it in all aspects of your life. Okay, and I need you to read this book so that we can talk about it and talk about how it impacts your personal leadership development plans and programs that your organization's because this should be the grounded research that guides your developmental goals. I really believe it so can you pick this one up so that we can have a little chat over coffee about it? Okay, and then Book number six, which I originally had as a bonus read that then it deserved its own number six here is Wolf Pack, by Abby Wambach the soccer player. So it's wolf pack, how to come together unleash our power and change the game. This book, I'm a women's soccer fan always have been was a soccer player still play soccer. And so I like Abby ally. And so that probably like started, why I picked up the book even. But this book is like a gem in the leadership world because Abby breaks down the old rules of leadership from lessons she learned through sport. And it's a brilliant Kickstarter for conversations of depth among any team. For any org, any age of readers, it's actually a pretty small book. So this will be the perfect book club book for your team, because you can get through it so quickly. But you can go according to each of those old rules of leadership that she's breaking down. Okay, so it's a good one, I want you to pick it up, too. So there's more. This isn't just the only six I actually in my notes on my desktop right now of the six that I wanted to talk about have another list of 10 right below it that I should probably break down at another point. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a writer and or a librarian. And my dream still today is to have a home library, like the one from Beauty and the Beast, maybe on a slightly smaller scale. But that's where I could recommend these books to you and hope that you read just when or hope that it leads to you uncovering another book in this genre that you might be interested in. So let me know if you've read any of these, which was your favorite or which is next up on your list, or did you add all of them to your cart? Because they're a great place to start and they're a great jumping off point for your reading journey that I encourage every leader to start for 2023