What's on my Bookshelf? (Part 1)

All readers are not leaders, but all effective leaders are readers.

If you are in a position of leadership, you should have a bookshelf.  It shows you are open to new ideas, to learning, and to input from others.

Your bookshelf says a lot about who you are... and want to be.

So... I thought I'd take you on a tour of my bookshelf... one snapshot at a time.

Once I'm done with the physical books (which I am still a rabid consumer of), I'll post a screen shot of my eBook libraries.

Here goes with picture #1...

From left to right:

Bill Gates: Business at the Speed of Thought.

• While this is an older book (1999) it is full of Bill's musing and thoughts that we are just seeing coming to fruition today. I still refer to parts of this. (Amazon Link)

Peter Drucker: The Essential Drucker.

• This is a collection of Peter Drucker's best articles and essays. This is the only management expert I've encountered who's advice was relevant over decades.  If you've never been blessed by Peter Drucker, now is a good time to start. (Amazon Link)

Marcus Buckingham: The One Thing You Need to Know

• Marcus Buckingham is best known for his work in Strengths based leadership.  This book is full of excellent advice on Managing, Leading and Personal Development.  OK, this is three things, not one. I've reviewed the book in this post:  (Amazon Link)

Kouzes and Posner: The Leadership Challenge

• If you've ever done a graduate level course on leadership, you have likely run into this duo of authors.  The material is solid, but is written in a way that will cure insomnia.  I will be you a nickel if you see this on someone's bookshelf, they haven't read it all the way through (unless of course they are one of those people who thrive on this sort of thing). (Amazon Link)

Tony Wagner: The Global Achievement Gap

• This book should be standard reading for anyone remotely connected with K-12 education.  Wagner outlines the seven critical skills our students today need to learn to be successful in today's world. I've reviewed the book in this post. (Amazon Link)

Clay Shirky: Here Comes Everybody

• This book is about the phenomenon we see when groups of formerly disconnected people come together using Social Media and galvanize around a cause... all without a formal organization guiding them.  Think of the sources of information for Arab Spring.  This is great insight to one facet of the Internet we probably haven't spent much time thinking about. (Amazon Link)

Spencer Johnson: Who Moved my Cheese?

• OK... every bookshelf needs some fad books.  This is one of them... but at the same time, it's a great quick read for anyone impacted by change.  And who isn't? (Amazon Link)

Bradley & McDonald: The Social Organization

• I haven't actually read this one, but got it at the recent Gartner Symposium/ITXpo. This book was promoted as supporting the key themes of the conference which I outlined in my post here. (Amazon Link)

The Drucker Foundation: Leader to Leader

• It's no secret I'm a big Peter Drucker fan.  This is a collection of essays and articles on leadership... particularly the kind we need to lead organizations in today's dynamic, globally connected world. (Amazon Link)

Lined Journal

• This used to be my constant companion in meetings.  This lonely journal sits here because I'm now using a Livescribe Echo, which does everything my journal used to... only much more.  See my review here.

Broadbent & Kitzis: The New CIO Leader

• Another one on my TBR (To Be Read) list.  This outlines the changes needed in leading the IT organization of today so you are not relegated to the role of keeping the lights on at the lowest possible cost. It's about becoming a strategic leader...   It's much like the underlying theme of this whole blog. (Amazon Link)

Taylor & LeBarre: Mavericks at Work

• This is about the success stories of organization that came up with out of the box ideas and thrived. Example: Goldcorp decided to 'crowsource' its core drilling data (formerly highly confidential) to the Internet and came up with significantly more rich ore located. It's about not confining yourself to the status quo, and leveraging the trends. (Amazon Link)

Do you find this at all interesting?  I have a lot more shelves in the bookcase.

What's on your bookshelf? (or eReader?)