Harry S. Truman once said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” If you want to hone your leadership skills, take a page from some of the CEOs featured in our 2023 summer reading guide, and expand your library with these 10 book recommendations on topics that matter in business today. Check out our full guide to take a peek at the bookshelves of other CEOs, editors-in-chief, and McKinsey leaders, including global managing partner Bob Sternfels, and bookmark The McKinsey guide to excelling as a CEO for the latest CEO insights.
The Age of AI: And Our Human Future by Daniel Huttenlocher, Henry A. Kissinger, and Eric Schmidt
Recommended by Ginni Rometty, Former chair and CEO, IBM; cochair, OneTen
The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment by Marshall Goldsmith and Mark Reiter
Recommended by Marc Rosen, CEO, JCPenney
Chup: Breaking the Silence about India’s Women by Deepa Narayan
Recommended by Zubaida Bai, President and CEO, Grameen Foundation
Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle over Technology and Prosperity by Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson
Recommended by Mark Suzman, CEO and board member, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman (with Michael Bhaskar)
Recommended by Reid Hoffman, Cofounder, LinkedIn; partner, Greylock
The Antisocial Network: The GameStop Short Squeeze and the Ragtag Group of Amateur Traders That Brought Wall Street to Its Knees by Ben Mezrich
Recommended by Brian Doubles, President and CEO, Synchrony
Burn Rate: Launching a Startup and Losing My Mind by Andy Dunn
Recommended by Ariela Safira, Founder and CEO, Real
Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong about the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling (with Ola Rosling and Anna Rosling Rönnlund)
Recommended by Hassan El-Houry, Group CEO, National Aviation Services
Human Work in the Age of Smart Machines by Jamie Merisotis
Recommended by Alisa Miller, Cofounder and CEO, Pluralytics
The Solutionists: How Businesses Can Fix the Future by Solitaire Townsend
Recommended by Mads Nipper, President and CEO, Ørsted