Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time, Margaret J. Wheatley, 2007. Though management expert Margaret J. Wheatley works with a broad variety of clients, from Fortune 100 CEOs to ministers, she points out that they all struggle to maintain integrity, humanity, and effectiveness in a relentlessly fast-paced, technology-driven world. Credited with establishing a fundamentally new approach to leadership based on living systems theory, or, as she puts it, "how Life organizes", Wheatley shares her first-ever compendium of essays about her real-world experiences helping clients introduce more authentic, life-affirming practices into their organizations. Essays cover a wide scope of topics including leadership strategies, raising children in turbulent times, and the role of communities in the lives of organizations. Finding Our Way is filled with practical advice on applying the ideas in Wheatley's groundbreaking books and has particular relevance for managers and leaders who are trying to run their organizations in more progressive, egalitarian, and effective ways.

First, Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman, 1999. Although the title might lead you to think this book is about radical new ideas, it’s really about a common sense approach to managing people that doesn’t subscribe to the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality. The book is based on twelve core questions of a great workplace, questions that anyone can use to improve their situations and that focus on such things as clear expectations, recognition, the value of work, and learning and growth, to name a few. These twelve core questions are then used to outline the four keys of effective managers: selecting for talent, defining outcomes rather than means, focusing on strengths, and finding the right fit. Rather than breaking all the rules, this book really redefines more effective rules that create a greater impact.

Forces For Good: The Six Practices of High Impact Nonprofits, Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant, 2007. Through extensive surveys and interviews, the authors develop six practices common to high-impact nonprofits: offering advocacy efforts and service, harnessing market forces and leveraging the power and resources of business, engaging individuals from outside the organization, working with and through other organizations, learning to adapt, and sharing leadership by empowering others.

Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan, and Barbara E. Taylor, 2005. This book offers trustees and executives a new and practical framework to govern nonprofit organizations more effectively. The authors reframe the purpose and practice of nonprofit governance by drawing on theories that have reshaped the concept and practice of leadership. The book describes three modes of governance–fiduciary, strategic, and generative–that together enable effective trusteeship.

Great By Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck – Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, Jim Collins and Morten T. Hansen, 2011. This book is based on research about organizations that do well despite a constantly changing environment. Since that latter phrase applies to all of us, there is something for everyone in this book. It’s chock of ideas for how organizations and their leaders can ride the wave of uncertainty that seems to be the only constant in organizational life these days. All these ideas come together in what is referred to in the Art of Hosting as “the chaordic path” – the path between chaos and order. An organization that can effectively navigate that path will develop strength and clarity, and the successful journey requires a leader (or leaders) who can discern the nuances between how much order and how much chaos will illuminate the path. It’s a tricky process, and this book highlights this.

That said, I have one caveat to throw in. This book was written by men about men, so it did not always resonate with me. In particular, when the authors describe the characteristics of 10xers, the term they use to describe leaders of these successful organizations, I had to ask, “Whose definition of success? Do these guys have a life?” It seemed to me that the only measurement of success was the bottom line. In this day and age, I truly believe that a more accurate measure of success is the triple bottom line. Organizations can no longer focus solely on profit to the exclusion of social and environmental impact.

Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World, Margaret J. Wheatley, 2006. We live in a time of chaos, rich in potential for new possibilities. We need new ideas, new ways of seeing, and new relationships to help us. In this book, Wheatley eloquently outlines how the new science of chaos theory and quantum physics can radically alter our understanding of the world and how it can teach us to live and work well together in these chaotic times. Key points in this book are that relationships, not lone individuals, are the basic organizing unit of life, that chaos and change are the only route to transformation, that participation and cooperation are essential to our survival in this interconnected world, and that order is natural, but not available through traditional methods of control.

Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton, 2001. This book is a sequel to First, Break All the Rules, and although it is intended as more of an individual growth book, many of the ideas are ones that leaders and managers can capitalize on in growing and developing their employees. The main idea throughout the book is how to build on your strengths and manage around your weaknesses. It also comes with a PIN code that you can use to find out what your top five strengths are. It’s a bit of a tedious process, and I’m not sure about the basis for the final determination. If you want to learn more than your five top strengths, you’ve got to pay a hefty fee to do so. It feels a bit like a marketing hook, but the basic concept of focusing on strengths is sound.

Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, Robert K. Greenleaf, 2002. This book, first published in 1977, is still making an impact today. Robert Greenleaf discusses his theory of servant leadership, which he developed while still an executive at AT&T. He proposes that service ought to be the distinguished characteristic of leadership and that true leadership is an inner quality as much as an exercise of authority. Sections of the book deal with leadership in education, in foundations, in churches, in bureaucracies, and with the role of the United States as a world leader.

Stewardship: Choosing Service Over Self Interest, Peter Block, 1993. Block presents the concept of stewardship as a new form of leadership or governance that places service ahead of self-interest and creates partnership rather than dependency. It takes the idea of empowerment presented in his earlier book, The Empowered Manager, to a whole new level. Block is constantly contrasting traditional leadership with the model of stewardship with phrases like "service over self-interest," "patriarchy vs. partnership," and "dependency vs. empowerment," to name a few. The main idea is that commitment to the larger community or organization is what creates effective organizational systems, and we inspire that commitment by allowing those involved to create the vision and determine the path toward that vision.

The Handbook of Nonprofit Governance, BoardSource, 2010. This is a great resource for anyone who needs to understand what governance is all about. The book is divided into two sections: 1) Governance Principles, Roles, and Structure and 2) Governance Practices. The introduction gives a detailed description of each chapter and at the end of each chapter is a set of exercises that will help further your understanding and practice. Each chapter also contains insets with questions or bullets that give a succinct synopsis of a particular topic. Finally, the appendix lists sample board policies covering a variety of issues that boards can adapt to meet their individual needs.

The Power of Servant Leadership, Robert Greenleaf, 1998. This book is a collection of eight essays by Robert Greenleaf, which were all initially published separately after his seminal book, Servant Leadership. As such it is sometimes hard to find the thread of servant leadership in each of these essays, and some of them are very dense. The essay entitled, “The Leadership Crisis,” however, is particularly pertinent to the themes of servant leadership. In it Greenleaf points to the lack of a unifying idea as the basis for the current leadership crisis and outlines three forms of power leaders can exert: coercive, manipulative, and persuasive.

Updated February 2, 2012