Numerous successful leaders will tell you they read a lot — including Bill Gates and Warren Buffett. This is your year to commit to more reading, including many of the exciting books now available and soon to be released.
There are many new books coming out this year that offer further insights into core areas of small business that help breed professional success on a personal and company-wide level.
These books cover areas including personal growth, leadership and motivation, three areas that help entrepreneurs and business owners to expand their capabilities and skills, as well as inspire them to work hard and achieve what they set out to do.
Check out these soon-to-be released business books of 2017:
- “Evolved Enterprise: An Illustrated Guide to Re-Think, Re-Image and Re-Invent Your Business to Deliver Meaningful Impact and Even Greater Profits” by Yanik Silver. Published in February, you can pick up this great read from a serial entrepreneur who predicts a significant shift in business thinking in which any business that does not have a core impact will put themselves at a competitive disadvantage. It’s an interesting concept that he explains throughout the book through a roadmap that offers strategies for creating brand loyalty and market leadership, including tactics for raising the leadership bar to get your team to think and act differently.
- “Why Motivating People Doesn’t Work…And What Does: The New Science of Leading, Energizing and Engaging” by Susan Fowler. As a leadership coach and researcher, this book’s author has collected a significant amount of data to illustrate that everything we know about trying to motivate employees actually doesn’t work. Seeing that this is a critical area of focus in organizations for leaders, this book is of great interest, especially in terms of the information Fowler shares about what does actually work based on her experience with companies and organizations like Microsoft, NASA, Mattel and the Catholic Leadership Institute.
- “The Leading Brain: Powerful Science-Based Strategies for Achieving Peak Performance” by Friederike Fabritius and Hans W. Hagemann. This fascinating book, which uses the latest research in brain science, focuses on how data applies to leadership. This includes recommendations on how to improve performance, enhance job satisfaction and inspire innovation among the team. The authors have a background in management consulting and neuropsychology, which provides an interesting perspective from which to create strategies that are designed to create better leaders from their readers.
- “Super Structured: How to Overcome Chaos and Win Back Time” by David Stiernholm. Released earlier this week, this book addresses how we can deal with information overload and still effectively lead ourselves and others, using the concept of structure to teach you how to organize, focus and automate what you can. It includes helpful information in the form of methods, routines and tools that can increase happiness, motivation and productivity.
Related: 6 Must Read Books for Female Entrepreneurs
- “Managing Oneself: The Key to Success” by Peter F. Drucker. Published this month, Peter Drucker released another book that offers further advice on how to be a more effective leader. Known as the “father of modern management,” Drucker has been helping executives and managers for decades with both theoretical and empirical research on how to improve leaderships skills. Using previously published material and new information, the book helps you address personal growth and leadership skills as CEO of your own life.
- “The Magic Cup: A Business Parable About a Leader, a Team, and the Power of Putting People and Values First” by Howard Behar. This book spins a tale about an imaginary CEO and company that explains how leaders can leverage people and values to turn a company around in tough times, as well as inspire motivation among the team to generate greater success. The author creates a parable that makes it easy for the reader to compare the story to real life experiences, helping to provide sound advice on personal and professional growth.
- “The Magnetic Leader: How Irresistible Leaders Attract Employees, Customers and Profits” by Roberta Matuson. This author has spent 20 years helping organizations achieve market leadership and growth by digging deep within their company to leverage their own people and leadership. The book focuses on how to unleash a company’s true potential, using the inspirational characteristics that a leader can use to motivate and inspire people to do more.
- “The Art of Productivity: Your Competitive Edge” by Jim Stovall. With a forward by Steve Forbes and set to be released next month, this book is written by an author with over 30 published books. He has a storied career in speaking on personal development and uses storytelling to analyze the life of productive individuals to establish what it takes to make improvements. Topics will interest salespeople, entrepreneurs and more, with focus on areas like customizing and implementing goals, establishing a mission and uncovering passion.
- “Business Boutique: A Woman’s Guide to Making Money Doing What She Loves” by Christy Wright. Geared toward women and set for release in April, this book is written by a highly successful business coach who has built a solid career helping women and men to create the lives they really want. This book includes much of that advice, and offers easy-to-follow instructions on creating an effective action plan for operating and growing a business. Although the book may be directed at women, the advice in its pages applies to all types of entrepreneurs, freelancers and small business owners.
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- “The Future of Happiness: 5 Modern Strategies for Balancing Productivity and Well-Being in the Digital Era” by Amy Blankson. Available next month, this business and personal growth book addresses how technology both helps and hinders our emotional wellbeing when it doesn’t really have to. As a critical part of our professional and personal life, technology will play an ever-increasing role, so it’s important to understand how to thrive within that. The author is co-founder of a global positive psychology consulting firm and offers five modern strategies that include staying grounded, knowing thyself, training the brain, creating a habit for happiness and being a conscious innovator.
Time to make room on the side table for new reading and learning!
