What Three Books Have Had the Biggest Impact on You as a Business Leader?

1. 'Good to Great' - Jim Collins
2. 'Crucial Conversations' - by Kerry Patterson
3. 'Leadership & Self-deception' - Arbinger Institute

1. Think and Grow Rich - Napoleon Hill
2. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Steven R. Covey
3. The Art of War - Sun-Tzu

Anything by Brian Tracy, Zig Zigglar, Jim Rohn is also excellent.

1. The Black Swan - by Nicholas Taleb
2. When Genius Failed - by Roger Lowenstein
3. Stalingrad - by Antony Beevor

FREE (by Chistopher Anderson, author of the Long Tail)
WHy? Because we're all going to be faced with more and more complex revenue challenges in the continued drive to win customers

SuperFreakanomics (Steven D. Levitt & Stephen J. Dubner)
Why? Because it reminded me to renew attention to two business principles: Think outside the box when looking for solutions...
Think about the simple solution to fix problems -- not always the most complex.

http://www.economist.com/businessfinance/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14698784.

Thought this was a fun take on management "gurus".

1.Managing For Results........Peter Drucker;
2.Up the Organization........Robert Townsend;
3.A Passion for Excellence.......Tom Peters;
4.Leadership A to Z.......James O'Toole;
5.Financier the Biography of Andre Meyer........Cary Reich

Now, Discover Your Strengths, Marcus Buckingham & Donald Clifton ... helps you leverage the power of your true strengths rather than strengthening weaknesses

Never Eat Alone, Keith Ferrazzi ... build and nurture a strong network

Book Yourself Solid, Michael Port ... written for entrepreneurs it helps you think about yourself as a product when you're in job search mode

My three, all by David Maister:

1. The Trusted Advisor
2. True Professionalism
3. Managing the Professional Services Firm

Bonus book:

Profitpreneurship by Ren Carlton

"Lean Six Sigma for Services", Michael George
"Win Win Negotiating", Fred E. Jandt
"The Tipping Point", Malcolm Gladwell

No particular order, though I found "Six Sigma" much more engaging and thought provoking than most popular "management" books, which -by and large- take a single page worth of Power Point presentation notions and attempt to fill 300 pages with them by relating endless anectdotes and repeating the "core principles" ad nauseum.

I find you're much better off regularly scanning the headlines of good business review journals (at any good college business school library) and simply reading those than reading the stuff you find at the airport bookstores. You can usually find the headlines on the 'net. For some that consistently have high quality content (e.g., HBR), it's worth subscribing if a library isn't handy. Subscriptions are.about $100 or so per year, which is easily what you will spend on "guru" books for far less notional guidance or thought.