Six Books for Your MBA Summer Reading List 2021

A well-stocked bookshelf can be a great tool for any aspiring MBA candidate or MBA student, no matter where they are from in the world.

Of course, you might already have a reading list – whether for your classes, extra-curricular activities, or maybe just for your love of books – but summer is the perfect time to find new books that can give you advice on how to develop ideas to bring onto your MBA programme and boost your potential leadership skills for the future.

TopMBA rounded up six of the best business books for you to read this summer.

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

With over four million copies sold worldwide, this New York Times bestseller gives readers pointers on how to form healthy habits, break bad ones and optimise behaviours that’ll help them achieve their goals.

Author James Clear – whose work has appeared in Entrepreneur magazine, the Wall Street Journal and CBS’s This Morning – has given speeches at some of the world’s biggest companies, including Honda, Intel, General Electric, McKinsey & Company and LinkedIn.

The 80/20 CFO: How to Make Strategic Transformations in Your Company by Janice Berthold and Suzy Taherian

Next is a book that all aspiring CFOs should have on their bookshelf. The 80/20 CFO is a helpful guide on how to build credibility and trust within an organisation, capture the attention of stakeholders, and make significant changes to important business operations.

This book is ideal for business school candidates who have a clear career plan in mind and are looking for advice to improve their practical and soft skills in the workplace and beyond.

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown

In this book, researcher, professor, podcaster, and author Brené Brown teaches leaders how to make a difference in a cultural landscape defined by instability.

Brown said: “One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of four skillsets that are 100 percent teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No. Because choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here.”

This is a perfect read post-COVID-19, as companies will look for MBAs with the ability to step up and lead through business challenges and periods of uncertainty.

Richer, Wiser, Happier: How the World’s Greatest Investors Win in Markets and Life by William Green

Drawing from exclusive interviews with some of the business world’s biggest investors, financial journalist William Green reveals how billionaires manage to maximise profits while minimising economic catastrophes and everything in between – from making important decisions to cutting costs and reassessing strategies in times of crisis.

This book is ideal for readers of Forbes, the Financial Times, Time and Fortune, as well as for aspiring entrepreneurs and venture capital (VC) workers.

The Authority Gap: Why women are still taken less seriously than men, and what we can do about it by Mary Ann Sieghart

Regardless of your gender, The Authority Gap is an extremely important read for all aspiring business leaders. Sieghart highlights the unconscious and deliberate bias that exist against women in the workplace, using a plethora of research, data, and interviews with pioneering women to advocate for a better future across disciplines and industries.

Decoding Greatness: The Hidden Strategy for Achieving Extraordinary Success by Ron Friedman

Decoding Greatness is the perfect book for all MBAs handling high-stakes business projects, whether in the finance, consulting, technology, or banking sectors. Social psychologist Ron Friedman explains how people can use reverse engineering to unlock their full potential, develop their ideas, and become top performers.