The shelf is full. The practice is not.

I get asked this more than almost anything else.

“Dinkar, what should I be reading?”

It is a good question. There is no shortage of books on leadership. Walk into any airport bookshop and you will find an entire shelf of them, most making the same promises in different fonts. So let me be direct about why I have chosen these seven specifically. Not because they are popular, though some are. Because they have shown up in my coaching work again and again over twenty-four years – in sessions with CEOs, in conversations with senior managers stepping into larger roles, and in my own thinking when I need to get clearer about what leadership actually demands.

These are not books you finish and move on from. They stay with you. They ask something of you.

1. What Got You Here Won’t Get You There – Marshall Goldsmith

This is the first book I recommend to almost every leader I work with, particularly those who have recently been promoted.

Goldsmith’s insight is deceptively simple: the behaviours that drive success at one level often become the very behaviours that limit growth at the next. Needing to win every argument. Adding your opinion when nobody asked. Failing to acknowledge others. These are not character flaws, they are success habits that have outlived their usefulness. In my coaching engagements, I see this constantly. The shift from individual performer to leader of leaders is harder than it looks, precisely because the old behaviours still feel like strengths. This book gives leaders the self-awareness to see what they cannot see on their own.

2. Mindset – Carol S. Dweck

I reach for this one when a leader is stuck – not because of strategy or skill, but because of the story they are telling themselves.

Dweck’s distinction between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset has profound consequences for how a leader responds to feedback, handles pressure, and builds the people around them. 

At Groval Selectia, we have seen organisations where the leadership team’s fixed mindset quietly strangles performance, where people stop raising problems because they already know the response will be defensive rather than curious. This is not just a personal development book. It is an organisational diagnostic. A leader who is energised by their team’s growth rather than unsettled by it is a leader worth following.

3. The Professional – Subroto Bagchi

This is the book I recommend to every Indian leader who wants to understand what it truly means to be trusted – not just capable.

Bagchi writes about professionalism not as a set of rules but as a way of being. The quiet disciplines, the values under pressure, the commitments that nobody sees but everybody feels. What makes this book distinctive is that it speaks from and to the Indian professional context with rare honesty. In my experience, the gap between a good leader and a great one is rarely competence. It is character. Bagchi puts that into words with clarity that very few writers on leadership have managed.

4. The Effective Executive – Peter Drucker

If I could hand one book to every leader stepping into a CXO role for the first time, this would be it.

Drucker’s argument is straightforward: effectiveness is a discipline, not a talent. It can be learned and it must be practised. He is not interested in how knowledgeable you are or how hard you work. He is interested in whether you are doing what actually matters. In a world of relentless meetings and overflowing inboxes, this book is a quiet but powerful reminder that a leader’s scarcest resource is not money or people, it is time. Knowing where yours actually goes is where everything else begins.

5. Team Roles at Work – Meredith Belbin

I am a certified Belbin Coach, so I carry some bias here. But my recommendation comes from two decades of watching what happens when leadership teams do not understand how they are composed.

Belbin identified nine distinct roles people naturally play in teams – not job titles, but behavioural tendencies. The most effective teams are not made up of the most talented individuals. They are made up of people whose strengths complement rather than replicate each other. 

In the Indian business context, where teams are often built on seniority and loyalty rather than role balance, this framework gives leaders a language for building something that actually works. Read this book and then look at your own team. The gaps will become obvious very quickly.

6. Leaders Eat Last – Simon Sinek

This is the book I turn to when a senior leader asks me the question I hear most often in India: how do I get my people to truly own the work?

Sinek’s answer is grounded in biology and organisational research: the most effective leaders create environments where people feel safe – not comfortable. Safe to raise problems. Safe to try things that might not succeed. Safe to be honest rather than tell the leader what they want to hear. When that safety exists, people stop protecting themselves and start protecting the organisation.

This connects directly to what we see at Groval Selectia – leaders who are mission-oriented consistently build higher-performing, more loyal teams than those who are self-oriented.

7. The Obstacle is the Way – Ryan Holiday

This is the book I recommend when a leader is facing something that feels like it might break them.

Holiday draws on Stoic philosophy to make one argument, stated simply: the obstacle is not in the way. It is the way. Pressure, setbacks, and resistance are not interruptions to the leadership journey. They are the material from which strong leaders are built. I have seen this play out in boardrooms and coaching sessions more times than I can count. The leaders who endure are not the ones who avoided difficulty. They are the ones who moved through it without losing themselves.

Seven books. Seven different territories – self-awareness, mindset, character, effectiveness, team dynamics, trust, and resilience.

One thread running through all of them: leadership is built from the inside out.

A strategy can be copied. A structure can be replicated. What cannot be replicated is a leader who has done the inner work. That, in my view, is what separates the leaders who endure from those who simply perform.

Before you pick up the first book – Ask yourself these:

Good books do not change leaders. Honest reflection does. Carry these questions into your reading and see what surfaces.

1. Which behaviours that made you successful early are you still holding onto, even though they may no longer be serving you or your team?

2. When your team brings you a problem, is your first instinct curiosity or defence?

3. Where does your time actually go each week and does that reflect what you say matters most?

4. When you last faced a significant setback, did you move through it or did it move you?

5. Do the people around you feel safe enough to tell you the truth — or have they learned what you want to hear?

There are no right answers here. Only honest ones. And sometimes the most important leadership development begins not with a book, but with the willingness to sit with a question to hear what it is really asking.

Ready to lead with greater clarity and purpose?

At Groval Selectia, we work with senior leaders, CXOs, and high-potential managers across India to build the self-awareness, presence, and capability that lasting leadership demands. If even one of these books sparked a question about how you are leading today, that question is worth exploring.

For a detailed conversation.
Write to us at [email protected] or visit www.grovalselectia.com