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Healthy Growing Leaders Reading List | Essential Books for Christian Leaders & Pastors

UNDERSTANDING YOURSELF AND OTHERS AS YOU LEAD:

  • 5 Gears—by Jeremie Kubicek, et.al.

  • A Perfect Mess—Abrahamson & Freedman

  • Adapt: Why success always starts with failure—Tim Harford

  • Atomic Habits—James Clear

  • Better Decisions Fewer Regrets—Andy Stanley

  • Brain Chains—Theo Compernolle

  • Coaching for Emotional Intelligence—Bob Wall

  • Cultural Mapping—Erin Meyers

  • Deep Change—Robert Quinn

  • Deep Work—Cal Newport

  • Einstein—Walter Isaacson

  • Emotional Intelligence for Dummies—Steven Stein

  • A Field Guide to Spiritual Gifts—Greg Wiens

  • Focus—Daniel Goleman

  • How To Make the World Add Up—Tim Harford

  • I Hear You—Michael Sorensen

  • Iconoclast—Gregory Bern

  • Irresistible—Andy Stanley

  • Leadership and Self Deception—The Arbinger Group

  • Let your Life Speak—Parker Palmer

  • Lost Connections—Johann Hari

  • Mindset—Carol Dweck

  • Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes—O’Brien & Richards

  • More—Todd Wilson

  • Multipliers—Liz Wiseman

  • Originals—Adam Grant

  • Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett

  • Social Intelligence—Daniel Goleman

  • Stuck—Terry Walling

  • Surfing for God—Michael Cusick

  • The Body Keeps the Score—Bessel Van der Kolk

  • The Brain That Changes Itself—Doidge

  • The Culture Map—Erin Meyer

  • The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die—John Izzo

  • The Advantage: why organizational health trumps everything—Patrick Lencioni

  • The Art of Assessing People—Wiens

  • The Art of Gathering—Parker

  • The Gift of Being yourself—David Benner

  • The Laws of Lifetime Growth—Sullivan & Nomura

  • The Making of a Leader—Robert Clinton

  • The Organized Mind—Daniel Levitin

  • The Practicing Mind—Thomas Sterner

  • Unedited—Charity Walker

  • You are not your Brain—Schwartz and Gladding

 

LEADERSHIP:

  • A Failure of Nerve—Edwin Freidman

  • Breaking all of the Rules—Buckingham

  • Building the Bridge as you Walk on it—Robert Quinn

  • How Great Leaders Think: The art of reframing—Bolman & Deal

  • Leaders Eat Last—Simon Sinek

  • Leadership on the Line—Ron Heifetz

  • Loonshots—Safi Baahcall

  • Masterful Leadership—Blanchard, Ortberg, Blackaby—Audible

  • Mission Drift: The unspoken crises facing leaders—Peter Greer

  • Originals—Adam Grant

  • Reality Based Leadership—Cy Wakeman

  • Replenish—Lance Will

  • Rework—Jason Fried

  • The E-Myth Revisited—Michael Gerber

  • The One Thing—Gary Keller, et. al.

  • The Speed of Trust—Stephen Covey

  • Transforming Leadership—MacGregor Burns

  • Tribal Leadership—David Logan, et. al.

  • Tribes: you need to lead us—Seth Godin

  • Winning on Purpose—John Kaiser

 

CHURCH MISSION:

  • Becoming a Disciplemaker—Harrington & Wiens

  • Becoming a Level 5 Multiplying Church

  • Deep & Wide—Andy Stanley 

  • Dying to Restart—Wiens & Turner

  • Everywhere You Look—Tim Soerens

  • God Space—Doug Polluck

  • How God is in Business—Willard

  • Shaped by God’s Heart—Minatrea  

  • Spirituality and Fundraising—Henry Nouwen

  • The Allure of Gentleness—Dallas Willard

  • The Art of Neighboring—Pathak and Runyon

  • The Disciplemakers Handbook—Bobby Harrington

  • The Invitational Life—Steve Carter

  • The Lost Art of Disciplemaking—Leroy Eims

  • The New Parrish—Paul Sparks, et.al.

  • Toxic Charity—Lupton

  • When Helping Hurts—Corbett

 

SPIRITUAL FORMATION:

  • A Long Obedience in the Same Direction—Eugene Peterson

  • Broken Dreams—Larry Crabb

  • Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Place—Eugene Peterson

  • Contrarians Guide to Knowing God—Larry Osborne

  • Critical Journey of Faith—Janet Hagberg and Robert Guilech

  • How People Grow—Cloud and Townsend

  • How to Read the Bible for All its Worth—Fee & Stewart

  • Integrity—Henry Cloud

  • Life without Lack—Dallas Willard

  • Ordering your Private World—Gordon MacDonald

  • Preparing for Heaven—Gary Black

  • Renovation of the Heart—Dallas Willard

  • Renovation of the Heart in Daily Practice—Willard & Johnson

  • Simplify—Bill Hybels

  • Simply Christian—NT Wright

  • Soul Keeping—John Ortberg

  • Spirit of the Disciplines—Dallas Willard

  • The Critical Journey of Faith—Hagberg and Guelich

  • The Divine Conspiracy—Dallas Willard

  • The Sacred Romance—Curtis & Eldridge

  • The Way to Power and Poise—E. Stanley Jones

  • The Way—E. Stanley Jones

 

 

MANAGING CONFLICT AND CHANGE

  • Anatomy of Peace—The Arbinger Group

  • Crucial Conversations—Grenny, et. al.

  • Leading Change—Kotter

  • Managing Transitions—William Bridges

  • Necessary Endings—Henry Cloud

  • The Lost Art of Listening—Michael Nichols

  • Think Again—Adam Grant

  • Unoffendable—Brant Hansen

Additional:

  • The Art of Scientific Investigation by W. I. B. Beverage

  • The Five Laws of Medicine by Siddhartha Mukherjee

  • The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee

  • The Lincolns—Epstein

  • Astrophysics for People in a Hurry—Neil deGrasse Tyson

  • Beyond Weird—Philip Ball

  • Maybe you should talk to Someone, a Therapist—Lori Gottlieb

  • Saint Thomas Aquinas, the Dumb Ox—G. K. Chesterton

  • Steve Jobs—Walter Isaacson

  • The Pleasure of Finding Things—Richard Feynman

  • Virtues of Aging—Jimmy Carter

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