Some of the books that I’ve found useful in Production throughout the years
.. Pretentious, I know.. but hopefully they can help.
Jocko Willink - ex Navy Seal turned business coach - A deep and insightful look at responsible leadership and how to be the best team lead possible at all times.
Ed Catmull - ex Pixar + Disney - A glance into, possibly the most successful, creative company in the world. Anyone leading a creative team should understand how to best foster creativity and this book is a treasure trove of useful information. It also made me incredibly excited to get to work and make awesome stuff.
Chris Voss - ex Hostage Negotiator turned business coach - An amazing toolkit for how to have difficult conversations. Is incredibly useful when trying to discern the reason behind left-field requests that we tend to get so often in games.
Chris Hadfield - Commander of the ISS - talks through the process of becoming an astronaut and going to space. There's a lot of learnings in here about being thrown into a super-high-performance team and being able to work to the best of your ability within that. It's also just an incredibly interesting read.
Bob Iger - Ex-Disney CEO - gives a view of executive leadership at one of the largest media companies in the world. Understanding the stresses on executive positions helps give a perspective that's useful for someone responsible for the product of a company.
Kim Scott - ex Apple and Google lead - Fostering candor in a team can lead to better decisions, better risk management and a happier, healthier workplace. This book is full of useful advise, anecdotes and things to live by as a leader.