Change and leadership books, checked against the research

How to use these reviews

Most of the books reviewed here are written from experience: a consultant's practice, a commander's tour, a manager's career. That makes them readable, and it also means their advice has rarely been tested as a whole. Each review below does the same four things. It explains the book's advice in plain words, sets out the main criticisms, checks the central claims against peer-reviewed research, and ends with a verdict on what the book is good for and where it misleads.

Each review reads the book with one question in mind: what does it mean for the people in the middle of an organization, who have to carry a change out while reporting on it upward?

Book reviews

Becoming a manager

• Becoming a Manager, Linda A. Hill: a study of nineteen new managers through their first year.
• The Making of a Manager, Julie Zhuo: a handbook for first-time managers, checked against trials of manager training.
• The First 90 Days, Michael Watkins: a widely read guide to a new leadership role, and how it fits a first-time manager differently than a senior leader.
• High Output Management, Andrew S. Grove: managerial output and leverage, checked against a field experiment on managers' attention.
• Good Boss, Bad Boss, Robert I. Sutton: what the best bosses do, checked against research on trust and abusive supervision.
• The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier: saying less and asking more, checked against research on coaching and a trial of managers who coach.
• Drive, Daniel H. Pink: autonomy, mastery and purpose, checked against meta-analyses of pay and motivation.
• The Ideal Team Player, Patrick Lencioni: humble, hungry and smart, checked against research on humility, emotional skill and team trust.
• The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, John C. Maxwell: twenty-one laws, from the Law of the Lid to the Law of Process, checked against research on leadership and leadership training.

Candor, voice and trust

• Radical Candor, Kim Scott: caring personally while challenging directly, checked against research on feedback and employee silence.
• The Culture Code, Daniel Coyle: how successful groups build safety and purpose, checked against research on psychological safety.
• The Trusted Advisor, Maister, Green and Galford: the trust equation, compared with the research model of trust.
• The Fearless Organization, Amy C. Edmondson: psychological safety, checked against trials of safety-building programs.
• Humble Inquiry, Edgar H. Schein: asking instead of telling, checked against research on leader humility and listening.
• Crucial Conversations, Grenny, Patterson and coauthors: high-stakes conversations, checked against research on voice and silence.
• Dare to Lead, Brené Brown: courage and trust, checked against research on trust and speaking up.
• The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Patrick Lencioni: the pyramid of team problems, checked against research on team trust and team building.
• Leaders Eat Last, Simon Sinek: the Circle of Safety, checked against research on trust and servant leadership.
• The Speed of Trust, Stephen M. R. Covey with Rebecca R. Merrill: trust as an economic driver, checked against research on trust at work and during change.
• Difficult Conversations, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen: the three conversations, checked against research on voice and feedback.
• Leadership and Self-Deception, the Arbinger Institute: being in the box, checked against research on how leaders see themselves.
• Think Again, Adam Grant: rethinking and unlearning, checked against research on debriefs, team learning and humble leaders.

Pushing decisions down

• Turn the Ship Around!, David Marquet: moving decisions to the people with the information, checked against research on empowering leadership.
• Multipliers, Liz Wiseman with Greg McKeown: leaders who amplify their teams, checked against meta-analyses of empowering and shared leadership.
• Team of Teams, Stanley McChrystal and coauthors: flatter, faster organizations, checked against research on shared leadership.
• Extreme Ownership, Jocko Willink and Leif Babin: owning the outcome and the four Laws of Combat, checked against research on empowering leadership and debriefs.

Leading an organization

• Good to Great, Jim Collins: Level 5 leadership and the Hedgehog Concept, the main criticism of the method, and research on humble leaders.
• The Fifth Discipline, Peter M. Senge: the learning organization, checked against research on debriefs and team learning.

Leading change

• Leading Change, John Kotter: the eight steps, and how much testing stands behind them.
• Our Iceberg Is Melting, John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber: the penguin fable that teaches the eight steps.
• Who Moved My Cheese?, Spencer Johnson: the parable about reacting to change, and what research on resistance adds.
• The Heart of Change, John P. Kotter and Dan S. Cohen: see-feel-change, checked against research on emotion in change.
• ADKAR, Jeffrey M. Hiatt: Prosci's model of individual change and its building blocks.
• Managing Transitions, William Bridges and Susan Bridges: change versus transition, checked against research on honest communication.
• Switch, Chip Heath and Dan Heath: the Rider, the Elephant and the Path, checked against field experiments on defaults and reminders.
• Influencer, Patterson, Grenny and coauthors: vital behaviors, checked against a field study of opinion leaders and a field experiment on defaults.
• Immunity to Change, Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey: competing commitments, checked against research on resistance and habit.
• Organizational Culture and Leadership, Edgar H. Schein: culture as shared assumptions, checked against research on measuring culture.

Reading lists

• Best change management books: ten books, with an honest note on the evidence behind each, plus more reviewed in full.
• Best books for new managers: eight core books for people who manage, or manage managers, plus more reviewed in full.
• Best leadership books: twelve leadership books, grouped by need, each with an evidence label.
• Best HR and organizational behavior books: twelve books on culture, learning, motivation, feedback and hiring.
• Military leadership books: four books drawn from military experience, and what transfers to civilian work.