Summer reading 2026

Building on his popular Harvard Business School course Leadership and Happiness, Brooks begins each essay with sharp observations and behavioural science research that shed light on how happiness really works, then offers experiential wisdom and practical advice. Beautifully written, the essays range from ancient philosophy to literature, pop culture, and the contemporary world of work. They explore topics and challenges such as “Procrastinate This, Not That,” “Why Success Can Feel So Bitter,” and “Five Pillars of a Good Life.”

• Title: The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life 
• Author: Arthur C. Brooks
• Library Link
• ISBN: 9798892792271
• Year: 2025
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Authors Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner, veteran executives and leaders in Amazon Web Services who've worked with hundreds of large firms, show you how to become an Octopus Organization in this hyper practical manual of best practices from organisations that have left behind the old, broken model of large-scale change and adopted this modern, nimbler model of small-scale, continuous change. The Octopus Organization shifts to focus on incremental experiments and persistently improves through a newfound ability to evolve and adapt. It is a complex, living system driven by internal capabilities such as talent, relationships, workflows, and purpose, and by external forces such as new technologies and changing customer desires.

• Title: The Octopus organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation
• Author: Jana Werner & Phil Le-brun 
• Library Link 
• ISBN: 9798892791410
• Year: 2025
• Publisher: Harvard Business Press

Drawing on decades of research, renowned psychologist Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic reveals an uncomfortable our obsession with authenticity. From Silicon Valley's authenticity worship to failed diversity programs, he exposes how our fixation on "true selves" undermines both individual and organizational success, not to mention empathy and prosocial behaviour. 
 
The most successful people aren't those who rigidly "stay true to themselves"—they're the ones who adapt and evolve, largely by paying a great deal of attention to how others see them and adjusting their behaviour to the requirements of each situation. The evidence is when we focus less on expressing our authentic selves and more on understanding others, we don't just advance our careers—we become better. 
Blending cutting-edge psychology with razor-sharp cultural critique, Don't Be Yourself doesn't just challenge conventional wisdom—it offers a playbook for long-lasting career success. 

• Title: Don't Be Yourself : Why Authenticity Is Overrated (and What to Do Instead).
• Author: Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic
• Library Link 
• ISBN: 9781647829841
• Year: 2025
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press

Known as one of India’s leading coaches, Prof Chatterjee has developed core transformative techniques over three decades in leadership, education, and personal development. This book aims to impart the most impactful lessons from the author’s career, making them accessible to professionals across diverse industries. The lessons are easy-to-read and will be complemented by a collection of original charcoal sketches and hand-drawn pages which will form a critical component of the author’s formal 2025 coach training program.

• Title: 1 Minute Wisdom: Transformative Coaching for Life, Learning and Leadership
• Author: Debashis Chatterjee
• Library link available mid-July
• ISBN: 9780143476245
• Year: 2025
• Publisher: Penguin Business

It is a question we all wrestle with more than once. How do we find our way in the world? How do we make it past the cliffs, significant events that can radically change a life? How do we keep the inner fire burning bright, long and late? 
 
Inspired by relentless curiosity, Jim Collins devoted a decade to studying these questions and to minutely analysing those moments when life flips from clarity to confusion and casts us into a befuddling fog.

• Title: What to make of a life
• Author: Jim Collins
• Library Link
• ISBN: 9781529979756
• Year: 2026
• Publisher: Harper Edge

As more women take up corporate leadership positions, the idea that they lack confidence no longer holds up. And yet, as old stereotypes are challenged by new realities, some crucial misconceptions remain. Do women really lack confidence? Or are we more prone to think that others have less confidence in our abilities? Based on years of research and practice in leadership and psychotherapy, Professor Ginka Toegel critically examines how the “lack of confidence” myth took hold and argues that it deserves to be challenged. Research, in fact, does not consistently support the notion of significant gender differences in self-reported self-confidence. Instead, the author takes a fresh look at persistent myths in self-help literature, such as the ideas that women “don’t ask,” are “risk-averse,” or are especially prone to “imposter syndrome”, and provides both tools and evidence to empower women to challenge these outdated beliefs and take the next steps in their careers. 

• Title: The confidence Myth: How Women Leaders can Break Free from Gendered Perceptions
• Author: Ginka Toegel
• Library Link
• ISBN: 9783031973055
• Year: 2025
• Publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland

From a brilliant longtime AI insider with intimate access to the world of Sam Altman's OpenAI, an eye-opening account of arguably the most fateful tech arms race in history, reshaping the planet in real time, from the cockpit of the company that is driving the frenzy. When AI expert and investigative journalist Karen Hao first began covering OpenAI in 2019, she thought they were the good guys. Founded as a nonprofit with safety enshrined in its mission, the organization was meant, its leader Sam Altman told us, to act as a check against purely mercantile, and potentially dangerous, forces. What could go wrong?  

An astonishing eyewitness view from both up in the command capsule of the new economy and down where the real suffering happens, Empire of AI pierces the veil of the industry defining our era 

• Title: Empire of AI: dreams and nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI
• Author: Karen Hao
• Library Link
• ISBN: 9780593657508
• Year: 2025
• Publisher: Penguin Press

Digital opportunities and threats emerge faster than organisations can fully absorb them. AI accelerates change even further, reshaping decisions and work across the organisation. In this environment, leadership enables digital progress that is continuous, coherent, and shared. 

Grounded in leadership-as-practice thinking and extensive real-world research, The Digital Leadership Practice Test offers a practical way to make sense of this challenge. It explains why organisational agility has become the defining measure of progress and how digital-agile practices take shape in everyday work. Leadership is treated not as something individuals possess, but as work that people accomplish together. 

• Title: The Digital leadership practice test
• Author: Stijn Viaene
• Library Link
• ISBN: 9789059967236
• Year: 2026
• Publisher: Lannoo Campus

In Reshape Your Career, entrepreneur Bärbel Buyse offers a structured eight-step roadmap to help you step out of uncertainty into conscious choices. It gives you clarity when everything feels in motion and a framework to move forward with intent. You will learn how to recognise a tipping point, close your old career chapter well, take an energising pause and design each element of your new professional life into a unique shape that truly fits who you are today. 

Reshape Your Career is for professionals ready to turn a tipping point into a deliberate new beginning. 

• Title: Reshape your Career
• Author: Bärbel Buyse 
• Library Link expected in the beginning of July
• ISBN: 9789059963436
• Year: 2026
• Publisher: LannooCampus