Five Books Every Creative Leader Should Read

This recommendation for “How to Change the World” by David Bornstein comes from THNKer Vithika Yadav, a human rights professional with over a decade of experience working on human trafficking, modern day slavery, sexual rights and gender rights. Her latest project is Love Matters India.

“This book really influenced me about being a social entrepreneur and embracing innovative ideas. Reading How to Change the World helped me have the courage to take risks and go for things that seemed difficult and sometime impossible.”

It’s no wonder that THNKer Jennifer Kanary Nikolova recommends the compilation of essays “The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Stimulation“.

Jennifer is an artist who created a mixed reality tool that enables its users to gain empathy and simulate entering the mind of a person experiencing psychosis. Originally designed as an artistic research project for her PhD, the tool is now growing into a social enterprise that mental health professionals are lining up to experience.

“‘The Handbook of Imagination and Mental Stimulation’ is a book of neuroscientists who speak about the brain, mirror neurons, and what is empathy. It explores misstepping into another person’s shoes. When are we failing in empathy even though we have the tools to empathize? What are the moments that we’re not using empathy and what are the neurological barriers stopping us from using these tools?”

Through his organization HYBR, THNKer Charles Ojei is helping entrepreneurs, multinational corporations, governments, non-profits, and investors to scale solutions in Africa. A master of entrepreneurial insights himself, Charles recommends reading “Like a Virgin“ by Richard Branson.

“It’s a journey about Richard Branson’s own leadership experience; the ups and the downs. It’s an especially great read for leaders who are in the space of entrepreneurship. It talked about his little beginnings and how he started, his weaknesses and how he leveraged them by focusing on his strengths. It’s very frank and candid testament of his journey of becoming one of the greatest business leaders of all time. The book includes what Branson calls ‘secrets they won’t teach you at business school’; these are things he learned while doing.”

Paradox Process Facilitator and THNKer Ted Wallach loves to go outside the box and push himself and others to new places. He says that “Finite and Infinite Games“ by James P. Carse is essential reading for those who’ve read every traditional leadership book on the shelf. 

“It breaks down the world into a dichotomy that’s an essential frame for understanding what you’re up to and what the game is that you’re playing. If you’re not aware of the kind of game you’re playing, the fact that you’re playing a game, and how games work, then I think you can get stuck in a coded machine that already exists which is leading us off the brink.”

For a change of pace, this book was written by two THNKers: THNK Co-Founder Menno van Dijk and THNKer Mark Turrell.

In their book “Scaling: Small Smart Moves For Outsized Results“, Menno and Mark show how to achieve big goals with minimum effort.

The book introduces you to a new approach regarding how things scale, describing a combination of networks and emergence that uses the power of waves to create mass movements. The authors then offer a practical toolset of Scaling Frames that help you generate ideas, create strategies that scale, and build more achievable business plans.

Developed for entrepreneurs and practitioners from all types of organizations, the scaling methods have been successfully applied in product development, marketing, partnering, and internal operations of small and large organizations, from non-profits to start-ups. Scaling will change the way you do business, spread social change, and make really big things happen.