12 min read
8 chapters
Creativity, Inc.
Ed Catmull · 2014
Pixar's co-founder reveals that protecting creativity isn't about hiring geniuses — it's about relentlessly hunting the hidden forces that quietly kill original work.
Leadership books
Managing people, building culture, and running a team that tells you the truth.
The shelf
Every title below carries a note on why it earns its place. Read or listen to any of them in the Clif app.
9 min read
8 chapters
Dare to Lead
Brené Brown · 2018
A research-based modern bestseller on leading with courage, vulnerability, and trust.
11 min read
9 chapters
Delivering Happiness
Tony Hsieh · 2010
The rare business memoir that treats culture and customer service not as soft perks but as the actual engine of a billion-dollar company — and then dares to ask what all that money was for.
11 min read
8 chapters
Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done
Larry Bossidy & Ram Charan · 2002
The book that named the real reason strategies fail — not bad ideas, but leaders who treat "getting it done" as beneath them.
11 min read
10 chapters
Extreme Ownership
Jocko Willink and Leif Babin · 2015
Navy SEAL leadership principles turned into a bestselling, action-oriented playbook for taking full responsibility.
9 min read
8 chapters
First, Break All the Rules
Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman · 1999
Gallup's landmark research on what the world's greatest managers do differently.
11 min read
8 chapters
Good to Great
Jim Collins · 2001
Iconic research on what separates great companies, centered on Level 5 leadership and disciplined teams.
11 min read
9 chapters
High Output Management
Andrew S. Grove · 1983
The original operating manual for managers, written by the Intel CEO who treated management as a measurable production process, not an art.
11 min read
8 chapters
It's Your Ship
Captain D. Michael Abrashoff · 2002
A Navy captain took command of a demoralized warship and, without new people or budget, made it the best in the fleet by handing ownership to the crew — proof that culture, not authority, wins.
10 min read
9 chapters
Leaders Eat Last
Simon Sinek · 2014
A modern bestseller on why great leaders create a 'circle of safety' so teams perform at their best.
10 min read
8 chapters
Leadership and Self-Deception
The Arbinger Institute · 2000
A popular parable on how self-deception undermines leadership and how to get 'out of the box.'
12 min read
9 chapters
Leadership Is Language
L. David Marquet · 2020
The words leaders reach for by default were engineered for a factory floor a century ago; this book rewires them for a world where thinking, not just doing, is the actual work.
12 min read
8 chapters
Leadership on the Line
Ronald A. Heifetz & Marty Linsky · 2002
It tells the truth most leadership books dodge — that exercising real leadership gets people to want you gone, and then teaches you how to survive the danger without losing your soul.
11 min read
9 chapters
Leadership: In Turbulent Times
Doris Kearns Goodwin · 2018
Four presidents, four crises, one question that outlasts them all: is a great leader born, or forged in the fire of their worst day?
11 min read
8 chapters
Leading Change
John P. Kotter · 1996
The definitive playbook on why most transformations fail — and the eight sequential, non-skippable steps that make change actually stick.
10 min read
10 chapters
Lean In
Sheryl Sandberg · 2013
Landmark bestseller on women advancing in the workplace and claiming their seat at the table.
11 min read
8 chapters
Legacy
James Kerr · 2013
Fifteen lessons from the world's most successful sports team, all built on one radical idea: that character, humility, and a culture worth belonging to beat talent every time.
10 min read
9 chapters
Measure What Matters
John Doerr · 2018
The definitive guide to OKRs, the goal-setting system used by Google and top companies.
9 min read
8 chapters
Multipliers
Liz Wiseman · 2010
Shows how the best leaders multiply the capability of their people rather than diminish it.
11 min read
9 chapters
No Rules Rules
Reed Hastings & Erin Meyer · 2020
The rare management book that tells you its own recipe won't work unless you follow the steps in order — and warns you not to copy the perks without the culture.
13 min read
10 chapters
On Becoming a Leader
Warren Bennis · 1989
A foundational classic on the inner journey of becoming an authentic, self-aware leader.
10 min read
9 chapters
Primal Leadership
Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, Annie McKee · 2002
The seminal work applying emotional intelligence to leadership styles and team climate.
8 min read
7 chapters
Radical Candor
Kim Scott · 2017
A modern bestseller giving managers a concrete framework for caring personally while challenging directly.
11 min read
8 chapters
Remote Work Revolution
Tsedal Neeley · 2021
A Harvard Business School expert turns remote work from a pandemic scramble into a deliberate discipline anyone can master.
9 min read
9 chapters
Start with Why
Simon Sinek · 2009
Explains how the best leaders inspire action by starting with purpose, a hugely popular leadership idea.
11 min read
9 chapters
Switch
Chip Heath & Dan Heath · 2010
It reframes every stuck change — personal or organizational — as a fight between a rational Rider and an emotional Elephant, and hands you a nine-step playbook to get both moving the same way.
11 min read
9 chapters
The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership
John C. Maxwell · 1998
Distills leadership into 21 timeless laws you can actually practice, turning a fuzzy idea into a learnable, daily discipline.
11 min read
8 chapters
The 4 Disciplines of Execution
Chris McChesney, Sean Covey & Jim Huling · 2012
Strategy isn't the hard part — getting a team to actually do the important thing while the daily whirlwind screams for attention is, and this is the operating system that wins that fight.
11 min read
8 chapters
The 5 Levels of Leadership
John C. Maxwell · 2011
It turns "leadership" from a vague trait into a five-rung staircase you can actually locate yourself on and climb, one relationship and one result at a time.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Advantage
Patrick Lencioni · 2012
It argues the biggest, most overlooked edge in business isn't being smarter than rivals but being healthier — and lays out exactly how any leadership team builds that health.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Art of Gathering
Priya Parker · 2018
Proof that the gap between a forgettable event and a transformative one has almost nothing to do with the food, the venue, or the flowers — and everything to do with whether the host had the courage to decide why everyone is really there.
8 min read
9 chapters
The Coaching Habit
Michael Bungay Stanier · 2016
A bestselling, highly practical guide to leading through coaching questions instead of advice.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Culture Code
Daniel Coyle · 2018
The rare culture book that treats belonging, trust, and purpose as skills you can practice on Monday morning — not personality traits you're stuck with.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Dichotomy of Leadership
Jocko Willink & Leif Babin · 2018
The Navy SEAL officers behind Extreme Ownership reveal that great leadership isn't a fixed set of traits but a constant balancing act between opposing forces—and the best leaders know exactly when to lean which way.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Fearless Organization
Amy C. Edmondson · 2018
The definitive book on psychological safety — the single factor Google found separates its best teams, and the reason smart organizations keep walking off cliffs in silence.
12 min read
9 chapters
The Fifth Discipline
Peter M. Senge · 1990
The book that made "systems thinking" and the "learning organization" part of management's vocabulary, and still the sharpest cure for firefighting the same problems forever.
7 min read
8 chapters
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
Patrick Lencioni · 2002
The definitive, highly actionable model for diagnosing and fixing team dysfunction.
10 min read
8 chapters
The Ideal Team Player
Patrick Lencioni · 2016
A deceptively simple lens — humble, hungry, and people-smart — that turns "good team player" from a vague compliment into three traits you can actually interview for, coach, and fire for.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Infinite Game
Simon Sinek · 2019
Most leaders play to win a game that has no finish line — and that single misunderstanding quietly wrecks companies, cultures, and careers.
9 min read
8 chapters
The Leadership Challenge
James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner · 1987
The classic evidence-based model of the five practices of exemplary leadership.
11 min read
10 chapters
The Making of a Manager
Julie Zhuo · 2019
A practical, popular field guide for first-time managers learning to lead people.
11 min read
8 chapters
The Score Takes Care of Itself
Bill Walsh (with Steve Jamison and Craig Walsh) · 2009
The Hall-of-Fame coach who turned the NFL's worst team into a dynasty proves that if you obsess over the standard of behavior instead of the scoreboard, winning becomes the byproduct.
11 min read
9 chapters
The Speed of Trust
Stephen M.R. Covey (with Rebecca R. Merrill) · 2006
Reframes trust from a soft social virtue into a hard, measurable economic driver that either taxes or accelerates everything you do.
10 min read
9 chapters
Tribes
Seth Godin · 2008
A short, influential book on how anyone can lead by rallying a community around an idea.
11 min read
8 chapters
Trillion Dollar Coach
Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg & Alan Eagle · 2019
The secret operating manual of the football coach who quietly mentored Silicon Valley's most powerful leaders — and proved that caring hard is a management skill.
10 min read
8 chapters
Turn the Ship Around!
L. David Marquet · 2012
A gripping case study of turning followers into leaders by pushing authority downward.
11 min read
8 chapters
Who: The A Method for Hiring
Geoff Smart & Randy Street · 2008
The most important business decision you make isn't "what" — it's "who," and this book turns hiring from a gut-feel gamble into a disciplined, high-hit-rate method.
11 min read
9 chapters
Winning
Jack Welch (with Suzy Welch) · 2005
The distilled operating manual from GE's most famous CEO, built on brutal candor, ruthless differentiation, and hiring for the 4 E's.
12 min read
8 chapters
Work Rules!
Laszlo Bock · 2015
Google's former head of People Operations opens the company's playbook to prove that treating employees with radical trust and hard data isn't soft idealism — it's the highest-return management strategy there is.
Start with one idea worth keeping.
Take the 2-minute quiz and we’ll hand you a real insight from one of these books — yours to keep, no card required.