10 Great Books for The Aspiring Servant Leader

“Paul shoot for the heavens and you will at least land on the stars”. “Dare to dream the impossible and then write your vision and make it plain”. These words of wisdom were spoken to me by the late Bishop John Gimenez, a visionary multiplier of leaders of leaders and one of my first mentors.

Bishop John had an infectious and engaging style of leadership. In fact, he even made this dyslexic young man dare to believe that one day I would grow up to become a world changer. One of the greatest leadership lessons I learned from him was servant leadership. He said “Paul, before you ever lead an organization, you must first learn how to clean toilets”. This one act provided me with multiple lessons.

First, it taught me that if I wanted to be an effective leader, I had to do more than just sympathize with people, I had to be willing to both motivate and inspire right alongside them. Second, I learned the value of doing diligent, thorough yet thankless work when no one else was looking. Finally, I learned that by adopting a servant style of leadership I could lead people to accomplish the impossible as an organization.

It other words the position of leader wasn’t about achieving a mountain top experience full of accolades and at a boys, rather it was about leading people through both the organizational valleys and mountain tops as it strive to achieve its desired outcome. Bishop John inspired me to not only become a multiplier of leaders, but a lifelong student of servant leadership.

Becoming a lifelong learner has led me to adopt a daily habit of 1% continuous improvement. So as a lifelong learner of it is my pleasure to now leave you with 10 books which have informed my thinking as an aspiring servant leader. Enjoy   

10 Great Books for the Aspiring Servant Leader 

• As One: Individual Action Collective Power by James Quigley & Mehrdad Baghai

• Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter by Liz Wiseman

• The Mentor Leader: Secrets to Building People and Teams That Win Consistently by Tony Dungy

• Discover Your True North by Bill George and David Gergen

• Communicating for a Change: Seven Keys to Irresistible Communication by Andy Stanley, Lane Jones

• Winning: by Jack Welch & Suzy Welch

• Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done by Larry Bossidy, Ram Charan, Charles Burck

• Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson and Joseph Grenny

• The New One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Dan Woren

• Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro

• Smart Questions: Learn to Ask the Right Questions for Powerful Results Paperback by Gerald Nadler, William Chandon

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About the Authors:

Dr. Paul Campbell is one of the co-founders of Brown Venture Group, LLC. Launched in 2018, Brown Venture Group, LLC is a venture studio venture capital firm exclusively for Black, Latino, and Native American technology startups. Brown Venture Group is writing a new playbook for both those interested in launching a minority-owned technology startup and those interested in investing in new technologies. For more information go to brownventuregroup.com.