The Best Business Books for Entrepreneurs

From microaggressions to the wage gap, The Memo empowers women of color with actionable advice on challenges and offers a clear path to success. Most business books provide a one-size-fits-all approach to career advice that overlooks the unique barriers that women of color face. In The Memo, Minda Harts offers a much-needed career guide tailored specifically for women of color.

You can also check out her new book, Right Within: How to Heal from Racial Trauma in the Workplace, which comes out on October 5th, 2021.

If your business involves communicating with another human being at all, this is a must-read. Drawing upon research and interviews conducted with over 2,000 people, Schawbel looks at how vital human connection can be, and why we should not rely solely on digital forums in order to truly connect with others. He developed the "Work Connectivity Index" to help managers connect with employees to be more productive and happier.

So many women hit their 40s or 50s and realize: it’s time for a career change. Maybe you’re yearning to try something new, or you’re sensing that layoffs are coming and you need a backup plan. Perhaps you paused, or downsized your career to raise children, and you’re ready to rejoin the workforce. How do you reboot, relaunch, return to, or reinvent a career at age 40? Or 50? Or 60? And how can you create a career and life that will provide you with purpose and financial security for years to come? In Comeback Careers, New York Times bestselling author and co-host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe Mika Brzezinski and her sister-in-law Ginny Brzezinski have teamed up to show you that career reinvention is possible at any age.

In this book, the authors look at what it takes to make a great team productive, happy, and goal-oriented. By asking readers to examine their employees strengths and weaknesses, and to be honest about goals and limitations, they offer a clear path to building teamwork that will help your team of 5 or 5,000 succeed.

Fortitude is more than just stamina or strength, it's the mental toughness required to succeed under pressure, with changing variables and lots of stress. In this book, Allgood outlines methods to becoming more confident, more focused, and how to succeed in a demanding work environment—and what new business isn't demanding?

Written by a former rocket scientist, this book explains that rocket science doesn't require excessive intelligence, but rather a very pointed way of thinking that allows people to achieve what was previously unimaginable. This line of thinking can be highly beneficial in business, and Varol outlines how you can shift your mindset in nine accessible strategies.

With empowering insights to help women navigate the narrowest corridors of sexism, tech-industry pioneer Magdalena Yesil shares on-the-ground career advice that is as powerful as any MBA. Pioneering Silicon Valley entrepreneur and investor Magdalena Yesil came to the United States in 1976 with two suitcases and $43, blind to the challenges she would face as a woman and immigrant in Silicon Valley. Today, she is best known as the first investor and a founding board member of Salesforce, the now-multibillion dollar company that ushered in the era of cloud-based computing.

In this highly globalized age, doing business with someone from another culture or country is almost always a given. Because of differences in our cultures and the way we think and communicate, this can be fraught-–ut it doesn't have to be. In this book, Meyer explains how cultures differ when it comes to business, and offers the best strategies for bridging that cultural gap.

Based on his immensely popular TED Talk, Dudley's book is for anyone in a leadership position. It will show readers how to identify their leadership values and clarify a leadership strategy, and then apply that strategy in their working lives, with an emphasis on building positive daily routines to help leaders achieve their goals and nurture their employees.

No matter what your business is, big or small, Bunnell will offer you useful, applicable tips to build your business, find more customers, and turn the customers you have into fans. By tapping into your strengths, Bunnell frames his strategies as a way to help your customers, which in turn makes you indispensable to them.

Written by the former CEO of Dunkin Donuts, this book details Travis's belief that businesses succeed when they embrace challenges and pushback, which is why he advocates for all levels of employees to be given the freedom to speak up and question processes. In doing so, businesses are also teaching their employees to engage with disagreements and challenges in a civil manner, encouraging growth and original thinking.

Carter Cast has spent his entire career in business, and that career hasn't always been smooth sailing. When his own career challenges forced him to re-examine his work life, Cast began to study what sorts of behaviors and attitudes had various impacts on careers, and he went on to develop the five career archetypes. By studying these archetypes, readers will identify pitfalls to avoid, and paths to success.

In today's workplace, crisis management is an essential skill. Whether it's a security threat, data breach, or social media snafu, business leaders need to know how to respond quickly with grace under pressure. Using real-life case studies, the authors outline the best ways businesses handle crises, and point to situations and responses to avoid.