Here are some of my favourite book recommendations
The Thin Book of Trust by Charles Feltman
When things go wrong, at work or at home, a lack of trust is often at the heart of it. Being seen as a trustworthy leader, and being able to trust your team, can have a huge impact not only on results but also on motivation, relationships and well-being. What I find particularly useful about this book is its practical framework for understanding where trust may be breaking down and what we can do to rebuild it. Feltman identifies four elements of trust: care, sincerity, competence and reliability. Do people believe you genuinely care about their interests and perspectives, or do they see you as focused only on your own? Do they believe what you say, and can they rely on your word? Do they have confidence in your ability
Reinventing Your Life by Young and Klosko
This is one of my favourite recommendations for anyone who wants to really explore themselves and others and go much deeper than typical personality models. Personality models can be useful for understanding observable preferences and behaviour such as thinking/feeling, introvert/extrovert, detailed/big picture, but they don’t necessarily help us understand why behaviours develop in the first place, or whether they are holding us back. Reinventing Your Life explores deep-rooted patterns called lifetraps, which develop in childhood and can initially serve as ways of coping and getting our needs met. What helped us function earlier in life, however, may not necessarily serve us in adulthood. These patterns can become deeply embedded and influence how we work, lead, make decisions and interact with others. The book is grounded in psychological theory, particularly Schema
The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
The Body Keeps the Score explores how trauma affects both the brain and the body and why its effects can continue long after the original experience has passed. Bessel van der Kolk draws on neuroscience and decades of work with trauma to explain why people can continue to react to situations as though a past threat is still happening in the present. Being trauma-informed is becoming increasingly important across all aspects of life, not just within clinical professions. As a coach, I work with leaders who are often trying to make sense of difficult behaviour in others or sometimes recognise it in themselves. A colleague may become defensive when challenged, frustrated or angry under pressure or withdraw during conflict. A trauma-informed approach gives leaders a different way of looking at
Multipliers by Liz Wiseman
Are you an accidental diminisher? Multipliers by Liz Wiseman explores how effective leaders bring out the best in the people around them by giving them ownership, challenging their thinking, and creating space for their ideas, rather than controlling everything themselves; the result is a team that becomes more capable, confident, and effective. This book is one of my favourite recommendations for anyone who struggles with delegation, or who manages or leads teams and wants to get the best out of the people around them. One idea which resonated was to think of the people you manage as clients of your leadership. This book is particularly relevant if you have high positive traits of conscientiousness and agreeableness and these have tipped into perfectionism or people pleasing. Perfectionists can find it difficult