2 Leadership Books you should read before August 2020

The year 2020 came to us all with many promises and hopes. There were lots of great expectations from the year. If you are like me, you probably have your list of plans and goals for the year. You remember, right?

Then, Covid-19 happened to us all and for months, no one bothered about plans or goals but simply how to stay alive as we all locked ourselves up in our homes, anticipating the passage of the pandemic.

Even CNN had to stop most of its programs to accommodate the Covid-19 updates. Real-time reporting was the order of the day across most countries.

There was no aspect of the human life that was not affected by the pandemic, while many were affected adversely, some were affected positively. Believe it or not, many actually benefited as a result of the pandemic. many businesses expressed a huge boost in sales, especially subscription-based businesses that provide entertainment such as Netflix and Zoom Video.

Despite the challenges that we all faced with the coming of the pandemic, the truth of the matter is that a whole lot of things will not go back to normalcy.

In order to ensure you are ready for the post-COVID-19 world and the challenges that it is bringing, below are two books which I believe every Leader should read in preparation for the return to normalcy.

Sometimes you win, Sometimes you learn

(Life’s greatest lessons are gained from our losses.)

Author: John C. Maxwell

In this amazing book, John C. Maxwell proves once again why he is my number one choice author when it comes to subjects of Personal Growth.

In the book, he teaches that the greatest lessons we learn in life most times are from our losses or from situations we do not consider favourable. This is because he believes that every human being experiences loss at one point or the other in his or her life.

The challenge however is that not everyone learns from it. John C. Maxwell in his usual manner leaves you with guidelines on what to do when you go through loss and how best to turn your losses to your favour.

These lessons are captured in his eleven elements that make up the DNA of Those Who Learn from their Losses and are handled separately from chapters 2 to 12:

1. When you’re losing, everything hurts
2. Humility – The Spirit of Learning
3. Reality – The Foundation of Learning
4. Responsibility – The First Step of Learning
5. Improvement – The Focus of Learning
6. Hope – The Motivation of Learning
7. Teachability – The Pathway of Learning
8. Adversity – The Catalyst of Learning
9. Problems – The Opportunities of Learning
10. Bad Experiences – The Perspective for Learning
11. Change – The Price of Learning
12. Maturity – The Value of Learning
13. Winning isn’t everything but learning is

Our key takeaway from the book,

“Experience isn’t the best teacher; evaluated experience is.”

“When I make a mistake, it’s not because I’m a failure or worthless. I just didn’t do something right because I still haven’t improved enough in some part of the process. And that motivates me to keep growing and improving.”

Failing Forward

by John C. Maxwell

This book, also by John C. Maxwell is another book which I believe you should read in order to get your mindset into shape to handle the challenges that are coming. According to Maxwell, as we live and continue to grow in life, we will discover that when it comes to challenges and problems, the question is not whether you will experience problems or not, but how you are going to deal with the problems and challenges when they arise.

Take, for instance, the current pandemic, as I explained earlier, no one envisaged it. It came suddenly that many were left without any plans on how to handle it.

1. What’s the Main Difference Between People
2. Get a New Definition of Failure and Success
3. If You’ve Failed, Are You a Failure?
4. You’re Too Old to Cry, but It Hurts Too Much to Laugh
5. Find the Exit Off the Failure Freeway
6. No Matter What Happens to You, Failure Is an Inside Job
7. Is the Past Holding Your Life Hostage?
8. Who Is This Person Making These Mistakes?
9. Get Over Yourself—Everyone Else Has
10. Grasp the Positive Benefits of Negative Experiences
11. Take a Risk—There’s No Other Way to Fail Forward
12. Make Failure Your Best Friend
13. Avoid the Top Ten Reasons People Fail
14. The Little Difference Between Failure and Success Makes a
    Big Difference
15. It’s What You Do After You Get Back Up That Counts
16. Now You’re Ready to Fail Forward