5 Books To Grow As A Leader In Data Analytics
Are you a senior analyst growing towards a management position, a new analytics manager, or an experienced one? If so, leaderships skills are essential for success, and these books will help you get there.
Becoming a leader is a long road, and reading five books will not change everything. However, these books are helping me understand some key concepts supporting my growth towards management, and I am sure they could help you.
The book selection I will present below is oriented toward being an analytic leader, but they could fit other roles. The first reason for this angle is that Analytics is my field; therefore, I better understand the challenges we can face. Secondly, as in many tech areas, managers in Analytics used to be senior individual contributors, and the transition requires adapting.
Here are the themes of the books I advise reading to develop your leadership skills. I particularly recommend reading the first one, as in my opinion, vulnerability, far from being a weakness, is the essential skill to be a great leader.
- Understanding empathy, fear, and courage
- A navigation guide for tech leaders
- Getting results in your new managerial role
- Building an analytical strategy
- Fixed vs. Growth Mindset
Dare to Lead — Brene Brown
Were you ever in a situation where you needed to have a difficult conversation? Where you had a fear of conflict and ended up avoiding the tough talk, withholding honest and productive feedback? Then this book might very well inspire you and give actionable action items.
Brene Brown, researcher and leadership coach, will guide you in this book in the quest of finding your inner courage, removing artificial barriers we build up, and being able to lead at your best.
Through research and personal experience, the author will explore how to find the courage to lead, remove the fear of failure and manage your emotions.
This book is perfect if you want to connect with your team at a deeper level, learn how to give and take feedback, build trust in the workplace, how failure makes us brave, …
The Manager’s Path— Camille Fournier
Should you schedule regular 1 on 1s? Should it be weekly? Would it be too much? What does it bring? We surely ask ourselves these relevant questions, and thankfully we are not the first ones.
If you are starting a management position, this is the go-to book. It has all the tips and tricks you will need to learn what to take as a manager. This is the best “guide” book on management that I read; it gives high-level directions and specific advice.
The author is going through all the management stages in a technical environment, how to be a mentor, manage one team or manage multiple ones.
I highly recommend going through this book several times on a need basis. Then, when a challenge arises, go back to the relevant chapter to get inspiration or answers.
Making of a Manager — Julie Zhuo
You are starting a new manager position; which type of team will you lead?
- Are you taking a management position in your growing team?
- Are you replacing your manager who left?
- Are you founding a new team?
- Are you managing an existing team?
All these positions will yield very different challenges. This book will help you understand how to navigate through the journey of your new job.
“Great managers are made, not born”
This concept is the opening of the book, we are never ready, we are not born managers, and we have everything to learn. Julie Zhuo has written this modern guide of what it means to be a manager, how to build trust within your team, lead a meeting, recruit, … You will be able to learn or re-discover traps that new managers can face in a light and refreshing writing.
Using her own experience as a young manager at Facebook, up to being VP of Product Design, the author will inspire you, give you tons of tricks, and ultimately make you a more confident manager.
Competing on Analytics — Davenport, Harris
Today’s business world should not rely on products, technology, or service. Instead, they should compete on analytics! Professor Davenport and Professor Harris argue and demonstrate this concept in their book published by Harvard Business Review Press.
Competing on Analytics provides a roadmap to be truly data-driven. You will learn how to create new analytical strategies, how to assess your company’s capabilities, and steer it to compete in the analytical world.
Thanks to the various examples from different fields (Marketing, product, supply-chain, HR,…) and several companies (Google, UPS, Disney), this book will be relevant for analytics leaders in most companies.
Minsdet — Dr Carol Dweck
Our mindset determines how we deal with situations, challenges, and ultimately how we grow. In this book, Dr. Carol Dweck discusses the differences between fixed and growth mindsets.
In a nutshell, people with a fixed mindset are seeking approval, think their abilities are set in stone. While growth mindset people are open to development, see failures as growth opportunities.
Even if you consider yourself having a growth mindset, there will be situations where your mindset will be fixed. However, by being aware of it and understanding the concept, you will change your mindset and grow in the right direction.
To lead, you will need to use the growth mindset as often as possible; this book gives all the keys to understanding the behaviors and setting ourselves on the road to unlocking our full potential.
I hope these books will be as helpful to you as they were to me. If you have other recommendations, feel free to reach out or add a comment.
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Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post that support my writing. If you go through them to make a purchase, I may earn a commission The decision is yours, as to whether or not you decide to buy something. It is completely up to you.
Cheers
