Leadership without Easy Answers – Ronald Heifetz
Leadership on the Line: Staying Alive through the Dangers of Leading – Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky

Heifetz is the co-founder of the Center for Public Leadership at the J.F.K School of Government at Harvard

Leadership and the New Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World – Margaret Wheatley
Finding Our Way: Leadership for an Uncertain Time – Margaret Wheatley

Wheatley is the co-founder of the Berkana Institute – http://www.berkana.org
Berkana is all about supporting leaders around the world who are stepping up to support communities of all kinds world-wide.

The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization – Peter Senge (senior lecturer at MIT).

It’s not exactly a book on leadership, although there is much in there that leaders can learn and apply. This book has become something of a classic in the field of organizational change and leadership development. It was the very first text I was assigned when I started my graduate program 8 years ago. I still refer to it to this day. Senge is the founding Chairperson of the Society for Organizational Learning – http://www.solonline.org

Stewardship: Choosing Service over Self-Interest – Peter Block (this is something of a classic now)

Synchronicity: The Inner Path of Leadership – Joseph Jaworski (this is one of my absolute favorites and I keep it in my library)

This book really rocked me – it’s Jaworski’s own story about how various experiences came together in his life to cause him to more deeply explore and evaluate the nature of leadership.

I like this explanation from his consulting website – http://www.generonconsulting.com

“Leadership, Jaworski argues, is not about positional power and it is not about accomplishments. Ultimately, it is about collectively “listening” to what is wanting to emerge in the world, and then having the courage to do what is required. In his words, a real leader sets the stage on which “predictable miracles,” seemingly synchronistic in nature, can—and do—occur. Jaworski shows that this capacity has more to do with our “being,” our total orientation of character and consciousness, than with what we do. Synchronicity offers a deeper understanding of how human beings might individually and collectively tap their potential to shape the future instead of merely responding to the forces at large.”

Anyhow, these are just a handful of the must-have books that I keep in my personal library, ready to re-read and reference at any time.

Jennifer