Coaching Leadership Tools
Anatomy of the Soul
by Curt Thompson
Synopsis: Integrates neuroscience with Christian spiritual formation.
How It Helps: Anchors emotional, relational, and spiritual coaching work powerfully.
Where It’s Limited: Primarily personal; requires coaching to translate insights organizationally.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0
by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves
Synopsis: Practical strategies to grow self-awareness, empathy, and relationship management.
How It Helps: Supports emotional domain coaching and relational strength-building.
Where It’s Limited: Lacks deep spiritual or ethical integration without support.
Extreme Ownership
by Jocko Willink & Leif Babin
Synopsis: Military-rooted leadership model: take ownership of everything in your world.
How It Helps: Develops resilience, responsibility, and strategic ownership mindsets.
Where It’s Limited: Tone can feel harsh without balancing relational leadership wisdom.
Helping People Win at Work
by Ken Blanchard
Synopsis: Leaders as coaches—building partnerships with those they lead.
How It Helps: Aligns beautifully with relational leadership coaching and mutual success models.
Where It’s Limited: Assumes healthy work culture; hard to apply in toxic environments.
Leadership 2.0
by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves
Synopsis: EQ-centered strategies for effective leadership development.
How It Helps: Good starting point for emotional intelligence growth in leadership roles.
Where It’s Limited: Focuses mainly on individual development; less team-oriented.
Leadership and Self-Deception
by The Arbinger Institute
Synopsis: How self-betrayal distorts leadership—and how to change it.
How It Helps: Awakens leaders to their blind spots, critical for emotional and relational health.
Where It’s Limited: Repetitive without coaching accountability and application.
Leadership Strategy and Tactics
by Jocko Willink
Synopsis: Practical advice for day-to-day leadership decisions and team dynamics.
How It Helps: Sharpens tactical leadership moves and team management insight.
Where It’s Limited: Military context might feel rigid for faith-based or nonprofit leaders.
Leading Kingdom Movements
by Mike Breen
Synopsis: Visionary call to lead disciple-making movements rather than merely manage churches.
How It Helps: Inspires Kingdom-first vision for transformational leadership.
Where It’s Limited: Language and focus very missional—needs translation for marketplace leaders.
Problems of Christian Leadership
by John Stott
Synopsis: Honest reflections on sustaining leadership under pressure.
How It Helps: Deep soul care for leaders facing discouragement or moral weariness.
Where It’s Limited: Context heavily favors traditional church leadership.
Sticky Teams
by Larry Osborne
Synopsis: How to build and maintain healthy leadership teams in churches.
How It Helps: Great resource for church-based coaching work around unity and stability.
Where It’s Limited: Church-specific context may require adaptation for nonprofits or businesses.
The 6 Types of Working Genius
by Patrick Lencioni
Synopsis: Identifies six key energies needed to move ideas to impact.
How It Helps: Vital for understanding personal and team coordination strengths.
Where It’s Limited: Newer model; requires contextual wisdom for application.
The Advantage
by Patrick Lencioni
Synopsis: Organizational health—not strategy—is the ultimate competitive advantage.
How It Helps: Champions holistic organizational development and internal clarity.
Where It’s Limited: Best when leadership maturity is already present.
The Anatomy of Peace
by The Arbinger Institute
Synopsis: Healing personal and organizational conflicts through heart transformation.
How It Helps: Essential for coaching toward empathy-based leadership and peacemaking.
Where It’s Limited: Idealistic when systemic or structural injustices are in play.
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team
by Patrick Lencioni
Synopsis: A fable-based framework exposing the pitfalls that destroy team health.
How It Helps: Diagnoses hidden relational fractures within organizations.
Where It’s Limited: Requires added structure and coaching to heal deep dysfunctions.
The Making of a Leader
by Bobby Clinton
Synopsis: Maps the stages of Christian leadership development over a lifetime.
How It Helps: Builds perspective for spiritual leadership formation and faith journeys.
Where It’s Limited: Geared more toward ministry than corporate leadership paths.
The One Minute Manager
by Ken Blanchard
Synopsis: Simple management principles: set goals, give quick feedback, correct gently.
How It Helps: Supports leaders developing clarity, accountability, and relational management.
Where It’s Limited: Oversimplifies complex human dynamics common in real teams.
Thinking, Fast and Slow
by Daniel Kahneman
Synopsis: Deep exploration of human decision-making and cognitive biases.
How It Helps: Builds self-awareness about decision-making patterns and leadership clarity.
Where It’s Limited: Dense and academic; may overwhelm without guided application.