Career Development Books

The Best Career Development Books To Read in 2023

Table of Contents

Introduction

Your career is one of the most important parts of your life. It takes up a huge chunk of your time and energy, and has a major impact on your finances, lifestyle, identity, and sense of purpose. That’s why it’s so important to intentionally develop your career by continuously learning and growing.

Books are a great way to get new perspectives, skills, and insights to help you advance your career. The best career development books provide practical frameworks, advice, and tools you can apply to your own situation. They can motivate you, open your mind to new possibilities, and give you an edge over others who are passively letting their career happen to them.

Here are some of the top career development books to read this year if you want to take your career to the next level.

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

The Coaching Habit teaches you how to unlock people’s potential by becoming a better coach. This applies both to coaching your direct reports at work, as well as coaching friends and family members.

The author boils coaching down to seven essential questions that can help you foster more curiosity, insight, and accountability in your conversations. They are:

  • What’s on your mind?
  • And what else?
  • What’s the real challenge here for you?
  • What do you want?
  • How can I help?
  • If you’re saying yes to this, what are you saying no to?
  • What was most useful for you?

By getting comfortable regularly asking these types of questions, you’ll be able to have more meaningful interactions that empower people to think for themselves. You’ll also improve your listening skills in the process.

The Coaching Habit is a quick read at just over 200 pages. But it packs a big punch in improving your communication and leadership abilities.

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

Never Split the Difference offers a fascinating glimpse into the art of negotiation according to Chris Voss, a former FBI hostage negotiator. His tactics are field-tested and leverage insights from behavioral economics and psychology.

Some of the counterintuitive tactics covered in the book include:

  • Starting negotiations with unusually high aspirations or unusually low offers to anchor the discussion in your favor.
  • Mirroring the words of the other party to build quick rapport.
  • Labeling emotions like “frustration” to diffuse tension.
  • Using silence to pressure the other side to speak first.

This book will completely change your perspective on what negotiation looks like. You’ll finish with confidence that you can negotiate better salaries, deals, partnerships, and more.

The principles can apply to both professional and personal situations. Never Split the Difference will make you more persuasive and influential in all your conversations.

Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg writes Lean In specifically for women who are seeking empowerment and greater career success. But her insights are just as applicable to men.

Sandberg provides real-world advice for building self-confidence, finding your voice, networking, avoiding burnout, and more. She tackles head-on the various biases and barriers that women face trying to “make it” in male-dominated industries.

The book gets into nitty-gritty details like how to structure your work day to maximize impact. How to project confidence through body language. How to communicate assertively but warmly.

But Lean In also operates at a higher level. It encourages women to have the audacity to envision the careers they truly want – not just what they think they can reasonably achieve.

Men who read the book gain empathy and understanding about the different psychological backdrop many female colleagues are operating in. They also get better insight on how to enable the success of women they work with.

Atomic Habits by James Clear

Your career is driven by the habits you cultivate over time. That’s why Atomic Habits by James Clear is such an indispensable career guide. It’s all about how to build good habits and break bad ones.

Clear delivers evidence-based advice on how to turn goals for your career into daily routines. His habit formation strategies follow a simple but effective model:

  • Cue – Trigger for your habit
  • Craving – Motivation/desire for the habit
  • Response – The actual habit/behavior
  • Reward – The benefit you get

Some examples of career-boosting habits you can ingrain:

  • Taking 20 minutes of focused deep work in the morning to make progress on a critical project before distractions pile on.
  • Setting up lunchonce a week with a colleague to broaden your network.
  • Saying no to non-essential meetings to protect time for higher priorities.

Atomic Habits perfectly complements more tactical career books by showing you how to implement the advice over the long-run. Following Clear’s strategies will help you execute on goals consistently.

Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

Many people don’t feel in control of their career, or they struggle to see how their day to day work connects to a larger purpose. Designing Your Life aims to fix that by borrowing lessons from design thinking.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans have taught popular design thinking courses at Stanford for years, and have a solid track record of helping both students and seasoned professionals find more meaningful work.

In the book, they provide a series of exercises and frameworks that empower you to treat your career more like a design project. For example, writing your own eulogy and working backwards. Finding where your motivations and skills intersect. Brainstorming radically different possible work scenarios. Prototyping potential careers while holding your current job.

Designing Your Life gives you permission to do the deep introspection required to build a career and life you actually want. All while holding down a job and responsibilities. Read this book if you feel stuck or want to explore dramatic new possibilities.

What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard N. Bolles

Published annually since 1970, What Color Is Your Parachute? has proven to be one of the most helpful resources for people changing careers.

The author, Richard Bolles, gives time-tested advice for how to evaluate your unique passions, skills, and values. He then helps you use that self-knowledge to explore compatible careers and land a job even if you don’t meet all the requirements.

This book really shines in showing you how to:

  • Write a resume that gets noticed when you’re changing fields
  • Find hidden job opportunities that aren’t formally advertised
  • Craft a compelling elevator pitch about your unconventional background
  • Answer tough interview questions about why you don’t have the typical qualifications
  • Negotiate job offers to ensure a good fit

What Color Is Your Parachute? has informed millions of successful career transitions over the past five decades. Reading the latest edition each year ensures you’re up-to-date with the current job market.

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport

The premise of So Good They Can’t Ignore You goes against the conventional wisdom of “follow your passion.”

Author Cal Newport argues that fulfilling work is actually the product of rare and valuable skills you cultivate over time. Passion tends to follow mastery and commitment to a domain, not the other way around.

To build a rewarding career, Newport says you should:

  • Pursue career capital – skills and connections so good people can’t ignore you
  • Use deliberate practice to continuously improve
  • Lean into opportunities that give you autonomy, competency, and relatedness
  • Develop “career craftsman” mindset, as opposed to expecting a calling

This book provides a much-needed reality check for those hoping work will always be pure passion. Newport gives practical steps to make the most of the career you have now or pivot to something new.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey

Since its first publication in 1989, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People has become a classic personal development book. It has shaped the leadership style and professional success of millions of readers.

Stephen R. Covey boils down what makes people excel in both their personal and professional lives. His “7 Habits” framework covers principles like:

  • Be proactive
  • Begin with the end in mind
  • Put first things first
  • Think win-win
  • Seek first to understand, then to be understood
  • Synergize
  • Sharpen the saw (self-renewal)

The habits are based on taking responsibility for your choices, having integrity, and constantly renewing yourself.

This book will help you become more disciplined and achievement oriented. The habits can guide your career success. But they also provide a foundation to build effectiveness in all areas of life.

Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman

Thinking, Fast and Slow summarizes decades of research the author, psychologist Daniel Kahneman, conducted on cognitive biases and decision making.

It provides incredibly helpful context for understanding your own mind and how to make better choices, especially in complex situations where the right answer isn’t obvious.

Some of the key concepts covered include:

  • The two systems driving your thoughts – fast, intuitive System 1 and slow, deliberate System 2
  • How cognitive biases like the halo effect, confirmation bias, and loss aversion distort your judgment
  • How to leverage the strengths and weaknesses of your brain to think more critically

Understanding your own innate psychology is a meta-skill that benefits every other aspect of your career. Thinking, Fast and Slow will arm you with mental models that reduce mistakes and biases.

Mindset by Carol Dweck

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s concept of growth vs. fixed mindsets has become highly influential across business and education.

Her book Mindset explains the differences between the two mindsets through compelling research. People with growth mindsets believe their skills and talents can be developed through effort. Those with fixed mindsets think abilities are static or innate.

You can probably imagine how the growth mindset leads to greater achievement over time. This book will help you cultivate the belief that you can continuously expand your abilities rather than being limited by them.

Dweck also shares how subtle cues reinforce one mindset over another. For example, praising effort leads to a growth mindset while praising intelligence promotes fixed thinking.

Developing a growth mindset can help you overcome setbacks, learn new skills outside your comfort zone, and pursue big goals over time. It’s an essential read for continuous career improvement.

Super Thinking by Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann

Super Thinking helps you build critical thinking skills that can give you an edge in your career.

Authors Gabriel Weinberg and Lauren McCann are big believers that skills like logic, problem-solving, and decision-making can be honed just like your golf swing or painting ability. The book provides tools to master what they call “mental models” – ways of understanding complex problems.

Some of the frameworks you’ll learn include:

  • Using Occam’s razor (the simplest solution is often best) to filter unnecessary complexities
  • Avoiding the sunk cost fallacy when making decisions
  • Seeing situations through win-win vs. win-lose frames
  • Modeling and visualizing problems through concepts like decision trees
  • Prioritizing with Pareto analysis (80/20 rule)

Super Thinking helps turn critical thinking from an elusive concept to concrete tools you can wield for better decision making at work and beyond. Pick it up if you want to think smarter in all aspects of your career.

Originals by Adam Grant

What sets highly successful innovators apart? That’s the question organizational psychologist Adam Grant tackles in Originals.

This book profiles pioneers across industries to determine what traits they share. Some key findings include:

  • Original thinkers champion ideas early, before they become popular, not simply for status or approval
  • Non-conformity and sticking up for unique perspectives breeds innovation
  • Procrastination allows more divergent thinking time
  • Willingness to test unproven concepts and accept occasional failures leads to big breakthroughs

Grant uses compelling stories paired with academic studies to show what enables trailblazers to dream differently. The book will inspire you to contribute more original ideas in your own career.

Grit by Angela Duckworth

What makes high achievers so successful? More than pure talent or advantage, it’s actually their persistence and passion, argues psychologist Angela Duckworth in Grit.

Duckworth calls this combination of perseverance and single-minded desire “grit.” Her research shows grit is a better predictor of success than IQ or other factors.

Grit explains how cultivating long-term stamina serves you better than relying on bursts of intensity or inspiration. Duckworth studied real world overachievers from West Point cadets to National Spelling Bee finalists to uncover common habits that foster grit.

These insights will help you stick to demanding work and long term goals. Grit provides guidance on how to grow your capacity for passion and persistence. Essential mindsets for taking your career to new heights.

Contagious by Jonah Berger

What makes certain ideas or behaviors catch on like wildfire? Marketing professor Jonah Berger breaks down the science behind virality in Contagious.

Some of his surprising findings include:

  • Social currency – people share things that make them look good
  • Triggers – associating your idea with common habits boosts sharing
  • Emotion – high-arousal feelings like awe compel more transmission
  • Public – seeing something gaining adoption makes people more likely to join

Beyond viral marketing, these principles can help you be more influential at work. For example, recognizing triggers for when people are most receptive to your ideas. Tapping into shared emotions or identities that bring colleagues together.

Contagious will strengthen your social skills and leadership presence by showing what drives people to willingly spread messages.

Deep Work by Cal Newport

Staying focused is an increasingly rare and valuable skill. That’s the premise behind Cal Newport’s case for Deep Work – the ability to concentrate on demanding cognitive tasks without distraction.

This book makes the compelling case that mastering deep work is crucial to thriving in a 21st century career. Newport shares neuroscience-based rules for training your brain to focus, like:

  • Ritualizing deep work by giving it dedicated time
  • Eliminating attention residue from context switching
  • Working in high-distraction environments only when necessary
  • Quitting social media to reclaim cognitive capacity

In an interrupt-driven digital world, becoming skilled at deep work gives you a huge advantage over peers. This book upgrades your mental skills for the most important responsibilities.

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

What role do habits play in both success and failure in one’s career? New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg unpacks the science of habits in The Power of Habit.

This book demonstrates how habits form through cue, routine, and reward cycles. It provides inspiring stories of using habit formation to achieve goals as diverse as losing weight and revolutionizing civil rights.

On the flip side, Duhigg exposes common work habits holding people back – like not speaking up about concerns or avoiding critical feedback. He offers specific guidance on rewiring habits at both the individual and organizational level.

Understanding habits gives you the power to gradually shape your career through small improvements over time. The Power of Habit will give you new self-awareness and tools to build the routines you want.

Thinking In Systems by Donella Meadows

Most problems in our careers involve complex social, political, or technological systems with many interdependencies. But our natural tendency is to focus on individual parts in isolation.

Thinking in Systems by Donella Meadows teaches you to avoid this pitfall by zooming out to see the big picture. Meadows outlines 12 leverage points for intervening in systems from paradigms down to details.

For example, identifying whether flawed goals or rules are causing issues vs. just attitudes or events. And knowing where to intervene for maximum impact.

This is invaluable perspective for your career. Whether you’re leading a team, managing a department, or designing a product, systems thinking helps you prioritize and solve problems. It complements technical skills with the ability to see context and alignment.

Principles by Ray Dalio

Billionaire hedge fund manager Ray Dalio shares the principles powering his success in business and life in this book also called Principles.

The ideas capture Dalio’s intense data-driven approach. He built Bridgewater Associates into one of the world’s most profitable firms by relentlessly pursuing truth and radical transparency.

Principles explains practices like:

  • Setting clearly defined goals and tracking progress
  • Encouraging blunt critique of weaknesses or mistakes
  • Mentally rehearsing different scenarios before high-stakes meetings
  • Making decisions based on the reasoning, not the speaker

Dalio also provides personal guidance on cultivating meaningful relationships and an equanimous mindset.

This book sums up decades of accumulated wisdom any professional can apply to reach greater heights.

Essentialism by Greg McKeown

Modern knowledge workers constantly grapple with information overload and a flood of obligations from all sides. Essentialism teaches you how to regain control by focusing only on the vital few priorities that truly move the needle for your goals.

Author Greg McKeown lays out a disciplined process for discerning the essentials and systematically ignoring the nonessentials. Some of his key tips include:

  • Apply more selective criteria for what deserves your time and energy
  • Eliminate the nonessentials others try to pile on your plate
  • Design routine and creative thinking time to explore what’s essential
  • Develop essential intent for your career to override competing agendas
  • Trade overloaded superficiality for purposeful focus on your highest point of contribution

Essentialism provides a framework for cutting through noise and distraction in order to make time for your most crucial work. Read this to zero in on the goals that matter most to advancing your career.

Start with Why by Simon Sinek

Most professionals focus their time and energy on the what and how of their work. Sales targets. Project plans. New features built.

But rarely do we connect with the deeper why – the core purpose or belief that compels us. Start with Why by Simon Sinek makes the case that the inspirational why is the most powerful driver of career fulfillment and motivation.

Sinek uses case studies of highly effective leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. and Steve Jobs to illustrate how starting with why builds loyalty, trust, and inspiration. It gives you meaning beyond a paycheck.

This book encourages you to get clearer on your own underlying career motivations. When you orient your daily work around your why, you tap into a deeper reservoir of determination and passion.

Own the Room by Carol Kinsey Goman

Presence and likeability are crucial to advancing your career. Own the Room shows how little tweaks in your communication style can make you seem more authoritative and charismatic.

Author Carol Kinsey Goman offers neuroscience-based insights for:

  • Modulating your vocal tone and cadence to better engage listeners
  • Adjusting your body language to display confidence
  • Matching others’ emotional energy and communication style
  • Using strategic silence and pauses to captivate audiences

Her advice also covers building quick rapport, reading body language cues, handling difficult people, and other scenarios faced at work.

Own the Room will help you become more situationally aware and purposeful with your unspoken signals. You’ll feel more natural interacting with leaders, collaborators, clients and audiences.

The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene

Understanding psychology and motivation helps you positively influence others and avoid manipulation. That’s what acclaimed author Robert Greene teaches in The Laws of Human Nature.

Greene takes lessons from historical figures, social science, and real world conflicts to break down 18 core human drives like:

  • The desire for self-preservation
  • Drive for pleasure and comfort
  • Pursuit of mastery and reputation
  • Laws of irrationality and cognitive dissonance

Recognizing these patterns of behavior in yourself and others gives you tremendous advantage. For instance, you can choose smarter tactics of persuasion tailored to intrinsic motivations. Greene also covers how to effectively read body language and verbal cues.

The Laws of Human Nature provides almost guaranteed improvement in your social skills and emotional intelligence for work.

Dare to Lead by Brené Brown

Being an effective leader takes courage and vulnerability, argues researcher Brené Brown in Dare to Lead. She makes the case that the top leaders commit fully to difficult conversations and choices.

Some of the key behaviors covered in the book include:

  • Letting go of what others think about you
  • Being clear in your vision and values
  • Speaking candidly, even about hard topics
  • Listening without judgment
  • Taking smart risks, even if they may fail

Brown also addresses common self-protection mechanisms like people pleasing or deflecting blame that hold leaders back.

You’ll finish this book with a dose of courage to have the daring conversations and make the bold moves leadership requires.

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Feel like you’re always forgetting things or letting balls drop at work? The Getting Things Done system by David Allen could be your solution for finally getting organized.

Allen’s methodology gives you a clear process for tracking all your tasks and commitments so nothing falls through the cracks. Key elements include:

  • Capturing anything and everything potentially on your plate into one trusted system
  • Clarifying next actions for each task for quick follow through
  • Reviewing periodically to clean up completed items and reprioritize
  • Applying “2 minute rule” to knock out trivial actions immediately
  • Grouping similar tasks to batch focus time

Getting Things Done reduces stress by eliminating the need to constantly remember. Your mind trusts the system to remind you. Implementing these habits can make you far more reliable and productive.

The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh

Legendary football coach Bill Walsh took the San Francisco 49ers from worst to best in the NFL over his tenure. His advice for building a winning team is applicable across business in The Score Takes Care of Itself.

Walsh focused obsessively on getting the right people aligned around simple disciplines:

  • Hire smart, ambitious team players over flashy individual performers
  • Set standards of quality applicable across the organization
  • Teach fundamentals until they become second nature
  • Design practices where participants can channel their efforts together
  • Motivate through peer accountability and positivity

This book will help any leader establish the conditions for their team to execute and win consistently without micromanagement. The score takes care of itself.

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

Why do some leaders amplify intelligence and capability in others while some diminish it? That’s the provocative question Liz Wiseman tackles in Multipliers.

Through research with over 150 leaders, Wiseman identifies five types of diminishing leaders who rely too heavily on their own expertise. By contrast, multiplying leaders release and extend the smarts of their team.

Multipliers teaches how to shift habits like:

  • Giving focused challenges rather than prescribed direction
  • Adjusting leadership style situationally, rather than rigidly
  • Drawing out insight through good questions
  • Setting high expectations for growth

You’ll finish this book with specific practices to become a multiplier leader who gets the most from your team and makes them better.

First, Break All The Rules by Marcus Buckingham

What do the best managers consistently do to bring out the strongest performance in their people? First, Break All the Rules shares the counterintuitive insights uncovered in Gallup’s massive research on management practices.

Some findings that go against traditional wisdom include:

  • Forget work-life balance. Focus on fitting work to each person’s strengths.
  • Don’t try to motivate people. Hire self-motivated people and get out of their way.
  • Eliminate weakness and build on talent. Fixing shortcomings is insufficient for growth.
  • Don’t be a good coach. Be a good casting director and cast people well to roles.

This book will push you to rethink hiring, motivation, development, and management from the ground up through a strengths-based lens.

Superbosses by Sydney Finkelstein

What sets exceptional managers who churn out future business stars apart? That’s the focus of management professor Sydney Finkelstein’s study of “superbosses.”

By studying legends like football coach Bill Walsh and executive Alice Waters, Finkelstein identified unconventional approaches superbosses share like:

  • Imposing immense pressure and challenges on proteges
  • Moving top performers around frequently to broaden exposure
  • Instilling an apprenticeship mindset from day one
  • Selecting for innate curiosity and creativity over credentials
  • Maintaining ties and networks with proteges long after they’ve left the nest

Superbosses teaches managers how to bring out the very best in their people and build an enduring pipeline of talent.

Give and Take by Adam Grant

Do givers or takers rise to the top in business? Organizational psychologist Adam Grant upends conventional wisdom with his argument for givers in Give and Take.

Grant makes an evidence-based case that “givers” who freely offer their time and help to colleagues ultimately succeed more than “takers” who ruthlessly claw for recognition and status.

He introduces the critical third group of “matchers” who reflexively reciprocate favors and good deeds. Matchers limit both unbound generosity and selfishness.

This book will challenge you to avoid tit-for-tat reciprocity and examine when contributing value without expectations pays off in the long-run. Give and Take provides counterintuitive motivation to expand your generosity at work.

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

Giving caring but clear feedback is critical to management, but most neglect it to avoid ruining relationships. Radical Candor by Kim Scott offers a smart framework to be direct while building trust.

Scott advises managers to care personally about each member’s success, but also challenge them directly. Otherwise problems go unaddressed. She covers how to:

  • Criticize performance, not the person
  • Praise good results more than good intentions
  • Overcommunicate key priorities and expectations
  • Listen attentively before responding
  • Apologize sincerely after losing your cool

Leaders can’t just be liked or feared. They need to provide guidance that unlocks growth but also demonstrates genuine concern. Radical Candor will make you a better coach.

Range by David Epstein

Is it better to specialize early like a professional athlete or remain a wide-ranging generalist? Range makes a compelling case for generalized learning before narrow specialization.

Author David Epstein cites evidence showing innovators often have wide eclectic experience to draw upon. Specialists excel in predictable environments but get disrupted by change.

Key principles from the book include:

  • Develop breadth of knowledge across domains before deep diving
  • Explore many interests to discover latent talent
  • Creativity often arises by applying insights across fields
  • Settling into one area too early can limit growth

As careers become longer and less linear, Range argues breadth and optionality pay off. You have permission to embrace being undecided between options as you build transferable skills.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell

What makes some people achieve extreme success while others languish? In Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell debunks notions of natural talent or luck in favor of hard work and timing.

He profiles outliers like Bill Gates and The Beatles to illustrate key principles like:

  • Success compounds – initial advantages magnify over time
  • The 10,000 hour rule – mastery comes from deep practice over years
  • Opportunities from generation, family, demographics etc. influence chances

This book will shift your thinking about what drives excellence. Gladwell makes clear that talent and opportunity are necessary but insufficient without effort over long periods. It’s inspiring motivation to keep grinding.

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