For small business owners, constant learning about leadership, finances, and the small business industry can help ensure that their leadership and business skills are always improving.
Staying updated on relevant news is a great way to be informed about these topics, but there are also many other resources available. Whether you read them on the page, on an e-reader, or as an audiobook, books are especially helpful for small business owners looking to continue learning on their own time.
Factors that influence small businesses, such as financial opportunities and the economy, are always changing. Best practices for leadership constantly change, too. By reading about these subjects, small business owners can learn how to successfully adapt.
Reading also helps small business owners engage with varying perspectives, encouraging them to challenge what they know and let their thinking evolve. The ability to discover something that changes your mind is one of the most exciting benefits of continuing to learn.
Most importantly, small business owners are the biggest advocates for their own businesses, so they should strive to gain knowledge that could help them foster their teams’ and businesses’ success.
Our team prioritizes professional development and lifelong learning, so here are some books we recommend for getting started:
- The Color of Money: Black Banks and the Racial Wealth Gap by Mehrsa Baradaran
- Baradaran explores the roots of the ongoing racial wealth gap and the role of Black banks in the Black community’s generation of wealth.
- Talking to Strangers: What We Should Know about the People We Don’t Know by Malcolm Gladwell
- Gladwell examines moments throughout history to explore how we think about and treat strangers.
- Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant
- Grant explains the importance of rethinking, shares tools for practicing it in our own lives, and discusses how it can be implemented on a greater scale.
- Influencer: The New Science of Leading Change by Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
- By compiling the expertise of behavioral scientists, business leaders, and industry influencers, this book provides tools for becoming a more influential force for effecting change.
- Masters of Scale: Surprising Truths from the World’s Most Successful Entrepreneurs by Reid Hoffman with June Cohen and Deron Triff
- This book compiles the insights of major company leaders to create a guide for achieving business success.
- Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies by Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh
- Hoffman and Yeh outline techniques for quickly achieving business success and sustaining it in the long-term.
- Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler
- Learn how to effectively navigate tough but important conversations and influence positive outcomes.
- Lincoln on Leadership: Executive Strategies for Tough Times by Donald T. Phillips
- Phillips shares how leaders can take inspiration from Abraham Lincoln while managing significant challenges.
- The Elevation Approach: Harness the Power of Work-Life Harmony to Unlock Your Creativity, Cultivate Joy, and Reach Your Biggest Goals by Tina Wells with Stephanie Smith
- This book provides techniques for enabling both your professional and personal lives to flourish without having to make sacrifices within one or the other.
An attitude of constant learning can only help you and your small business.