Leadership Reading Path: Becoming the Kind of Person Others Can Trust

Leadership is not a title.
It is not influence on social media.
And it is not something you “turn on” when it’s convenient.

Leadership is responsibility.

If you want to be a better leader by the end of this year, it will not happen by accident. It will happen because you made the decision to own who you are, how you think, how you act, and how you respond when things go wrong.

That’s why this list starts where leadership must start: with ownership.

Books like Extreme Ownership and Leaders Eat Last are not about theory; they are about responsibility, sacrifice, and service. They force us to confront hard truths about ourselves—especially the excuses we make when leadership gets uncomfortable.

Throughout this list, you’ll see recurring themes:

• Discipline over motivation

• Service over status

• Character over charisma

• Consistency over intensity

You’ll also notice that not every book on this list is a traditional “leadership” book. That’s intentional. Leadership touches every part of life—habits, relationships, decision-making, humility, and even how we respond to chaos and suffering.

If you are not willing to grow personally, you will never lead effectively.
If you are not willing to change, you will never grow.

Don’t rush this list. Don’t try to impress anyone. Read one book a month. Apply what you learn. Wrestle with the ideas. Keep what is true. Discard what is not.

If you do that—if you actually act on what you read—you will be a different leader by the end of the year.

And that difference will be felt first by the people closest to you.

Below you will find the 12 books I will be walking through this year, starting in January. I hope you will follow along on this journey.

Leadership Book List

1. Extreme Ownership
2. Leaders Eat Last
3. Find Your Why: A Practical Guide for Discovering Purpose for You and Your Team
4. Boundaries, Updated and Expanded Edition: When to Say Yes, How to Say No to Take Control of Your Life
5. Greenlights
6. The Compound Effect
7. Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life…and Maybe the World
8. Leadership and Self-Deception: Getting Out of the Box
9. The Go-Giver, Expanded Edition: A Little Story About a Powerful Business Idea
10. 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
11. Be Obsessed or Be Average
12. Conversations with Major Dick Winters: Life Lessons from the Commander of the Band of Brothers

If you are interested in the Faith Reading Path, you will find it HERE!