topsverseThree months into my first management role, I found myself sitting in my car after work, questioning everything. Had I made a terrible mistake? The promotion felt like winning the lottery until Monday morning hit. Suddenly, I was responsible for people instead of spreadsheets, and honestly, nobody prepared me for how different that would feel.
Here’s what nobody tells you about becoming a manager: that celebratory dinner feels like ancient history when you’re mediating your first conflict between team members who used to be your peers. Or when you have to deliver tough feedback to someone twice your age. The transition from doing the work to enabling others to do the work is jarring, and most companies throw you into the deep end without a life jacket.
Recent research from Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace 2024 shows manager engagement dropped from 30% to 27% last year. That might not sound dramatic, but it represents thousands of people like me, struggling to find their footing. The same study found that 70% of team engagement comes down to the manager, which means we’re carrying a lot of weight.
What struck me most was learning that only 44% of new managers globally receive formal training. We expect people to magically transform from individual contributors to people leaders overnight. It’s like handing someone car keys and expecting them to know how to drive.
After stumbling through my first year and devouring every leadership book I could find, I’ve put together this list. These are not just books I’ve read – they’re books that actually changed how I show up as a leader. Some are classics that have stood the test of time, others tackle the specific challenges we face in 2025.
Top 10 Best Leadership Books for New Managers
I’m going to work backwards through this list, saving the most impactful for last. Think of it as building layers of understanding, each book adding something essential to your leadership toolkit.
10. Trillion Dollar Coach by Eric Schmidt, Jonathan Rosenberg, and Alan Eagle
This book isn’t about Silicon Valley glamour – it’s about Bill Campbell, a coach who helped shape leaders like Steve Jobs and Larry Page. What makes Campbell’s approach revolutionary is his focus on the human side of leadership when everyone else was obsessed with technology.
I picked this up expecting another tech biography but found something much more useful. Campbell’s philosophy centers on one idea: your job as a manager is to make your people better, not to be the smartest person in the room. In our current environment where AI handles more routine tasks, this human-centered approach feels incredibly relevant.
The book taught me that psychological safety isn’t corporate buzzword nonsense – it’s the foundation of high-performing teams. When people feel safe to fail, they’re more willing to take the risks that lead to breakthrough results.
I stopped trying to have all the answers and started asking better questions. My team’s creativity improved dramatically when they realized I wasn’t going to shoot down their ideas.
9. Multipliers by Liz Wiseman
Early in my management career, I made a classic mistake: I became a bottleneck. Every decision ran through me because I thought that’s what good managers did. Wiseman’s book completely flipped my understanding of leadership.
The core concept is simple but powerful: some leaders drain intelligence from their teams (Diminishers) while others amplify it (Multipliers). The book helped me recognize my own “accidental diminisher” tendencies, like jumping in to solve problems instead of letting my team work through them.
One exercise that particularly resonated was tracking how often I spoke versus listened in meetings. The results were embarrassing, but it gave me a clear target for improvement.
I learned that my value as a manager isn’t in being the hero who saves the day, but in creating conditions where my team can be heroes.
8. Radical Respect by Kim Scott
Scott’s latest book tackles something every manager faces but few discuss openly: how to create truly inclusive teams. This isn’t diversity training in book form – it’s a practical guide for eliminating the subtle ways we underestimate and underutilize people.
What I appreciated most was Scott’s honesty about her own mistakes. She shares specific examples of times she got it wrong, which made the lessons feel authentic rather than preachy. The framework helps you identify bias, prejudice, and bullying – often in your own behavior.
The book arrived at a perfect time for me. Our team was struggling with communication across different generations and backgrounds. Scott’s approach helped me see how my own assumptions were creating barriers.
I started paying attention to who speaks up in meetings and who doesn’t. Small changes in how I facilitated discussions led to much richer conversations and better decisions.
7. Work-Life Bloom by Dan Pontefract
The whole “work-life balance” concept never sat right with me. Pontefract’s book explains why: because it’s based on a false premise that work and life are separate things that need to be perfectly balanced.
Instead, he introduces the concept of work-life integration through twelve factors that help people thrive. The research is solid – Pontefract surveyed thousands of people across different countries and industries. What he found challenges a lot of conventional wisdom about what makes people happy at work.
This book came to me during a particularly stressful period when half my team seemed burned out. Traditional advice about work-life balance wasn’t helping anyone. Pontefract’s framework gave me language to have different conversations about fulfillment and meaning.
I stopped trying to help my team separate work from life and started helping them integrate both in ways that felt sustainable and meaningful.
6. The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier
“Stay curious a little bit longer” might be the most valuable advice I’ve ever received as a manager, and it comes from this book. Stanier’s approach is refreshingly practical – seven questions that can transform how you interact with your team.
The book’s genius is in its simplicity. Instead of trying to become a professional coach overnight, Stanier gives you tools to have better conversations right now. The “AWE Question” (And what else?) alone has changed how I run one-on-ones.
I was skeptical at first. Seven questions seemed too simple to make a real difference. But after using them for a few months, I noticed my team coming to me with solutions instead of problems. They were thinking more critically because I wasn’t jumping in with answers immediately.
I talk less and listen more. My team has become more independent and confident in their problem-solving abilities.
5. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni
This book found me during a particularly rough patch with my team. We were missing deadlines, communication was breaking down, and nobody wanted to address the elephant in the room. Lencioni’s model gave me a framework to understand what was happening.
The five dysfunctions – absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results – read like a checklist of everything we were doing wrong. But instead of feeling defeated, it gave me a roadmap for improvement.
What makes this book special is that it’s told as a story. The lessons stick because you see them play out with real characters facing real challenges. The pyramid model is simple enough to share with your team without sounding like you’re reading from a management textbook.
I learned that healthy conflict isn’t something to avoid – it’s essential for making good decisions. Teaching my team to disagree productively improved our outcomes dramatically.
4. The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
Zhuo’s book feels like having a coffee with someone who’s been through exactly what you’re experiencing. She became a manager at Facebook at 25, and her honesty about the learning curve is refreshing.
The book breaks management into three areas: Purpose, People, and Process. This framework helped me understand why I was struggling – I was focused too much on Process (getting things done) and not enough on Purpose (why we were doing them) and People (who was doing them).
Zhuo’s writing style is conversational and real. She doesn’t pretend to have all the answers, which made her advice feel more trustworthy. The updated 2025 edition includes new content about managing through uncertainty, which feels particularly relevant.
I realized that my job isn’t to know everything – it’s to create conditions where my team can do their best work. That shift in mindset reduced my stress and improved our results.
3. Radical Candor by Kim Scott
Giving feedback is probably the skill I struggled with most as a new manager. I either avoided difficult conversations or delivered them so harshly that people shut down. Scott’s framework saved me from both extremes.
The concept is elegant: care personally and challenge directly at the same time. Most managers fall into one of three traps – being too aggressive, too manipulative, or too nice. Radical Candor is the sweet spot where you can be both kind and direct.
Scott’s own story about failing to give feedback to an underperforming employee resonates because most of us have been there. We think we’re being kind by avoiding tough conversations, but we’re actually being selfish.
I learned to separate the person from the behavior in my feedback. My team started improving faster because they knew exactly where they stood and what they needed to work on.
2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
This might seem like an obvious choice, but there’s a reason this book has sold over 25 million copies. In our world of productivity hacks and quick fixes, Covey’s principles feel both timeless and necessary.
The book’s “inside-out” approach – working on your character before trying to change your circumstances – challenged my thinking about leadership. I was so focused on learning management techniques that I hadn’t considered whether I had the personal foundation to support them.
Habit 5 – “Seek first to understand, then to be understood” – transformed how I handle conflicts on my team. Instead of jumping to solutions, I started really listening to understand the underlying issues.
I became more intentional about my responses instead of just reacting to whatever crisis appeared. This helped me model the behavior I wanted to see from my team.
1. Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
If you read only one book from this list, make it this one. Brown’s research on vulnerability and courage directly addresses the biggest challenge new managers face: the fear of not being good enough.
The book challenges everything we’ve been taught about leadership. Instead of projecting confidence you don’t feel, Brown argues for showing up authentically, including your uncertainty and mistakes. This felt risky when I first read it, but the results spoke for themselves.
Brown’s framework for “rumbling with vulnerability” gave me tools to have difficult conversations without hiding behind my title or authority. When I started admitting my own mistakes and uncertainties, my team became more willing to take risks and share their own challenges.
The research backing this book is solid. Brown studied thousands of leaders across different industries and found that the most effective ones shared common traits: they were willing to be vulnerable, they lived according to clear values, they built trust consistently, and they learned from failure.
I stopped trying to be the perfect manager and started being the authentic one. My team’s trust in me increased dramatically when I showed them it was safe to be human at work.
Conclusion
Looking at this list might feel overwhelming, and I get that. When I was a new manager, every business book felt like it was written for someone more experienced than me. Here’s my advice: pick the book that addresses your biggest current challenge.
If you’re struggling with giving feedback, start with Radical Candor. If your team isn’t working well together, go with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. If you’re burning out, try Work-Life Bloom. If you’re not sure where to start, go with Dare to Lead – it addresses the foundation that everything else builds on.
The goal isn’t to read all ten books in a month. It’s to find tools that help you become the leader your team needs. Management is a skill that develops over time, and these books are guides for that journey, not quick fixes.
Remember, every great leader started exactly where you are now: uncertain, learning, and trying their best to figure it out. The difference between those who succeed and those who struggle isn’t natural talent – it’s the willingness to keep learning and growing.
Your team needs you to succeed, which means they need you to invest in developing your skills. Start with one book, apply what you learn, and then move to the next one. That’s how you build the confidence and capability to lead effectively in 2025 and beyond.