4 Helpful Books I Read This Summer.

If you are a leader and desire to grow deeper in emotionally healthy and spiritually grounded leadership, you probably should read these four books.

Emotional intelligence is a buzz word for a reason.

It's one thing to have an emotionally healthy and spiritually grounded life. It's a whole another thing when these practices overflow into how you lead others. If you know how to do the former well and you desire to grow in the latter, keep reading.

I read these four books listed here in the summer. They have added tremendous value to my life especially in the areas of leadership and a well integrated, emotionally healthy, spiritually grounded life. And I would like to share them with you.

#1. The Emotionally Healthy Leader: How Transforming Your Inner Life Will Deeply Transform Your Church, Team, and the World.

by Peter Scazzero

The first book I read by Peter Scazzero was Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: It's Impossible to Be Spiritually Mature, While Remaining Emotionally Immature. It was so impactful that I wanted to read more books by him. I read the Emotionally Healthy Leader over the summer. The book provides a well-integrated framework to help leaders develop a robust interior life in Christ which then impacts how they make decisions, build teams, create healthy culture, and influence others. This book is a must-read for every leader in any context.

#2. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day: A 40-Day Journey with the Daily Office.

by Peter Scazzero

This book is a devotional that includes easy to digest short pieces to deepen your daily time with God. Through carefully selected passages of scripture, readers are invited into contemplative silence and reflection to exam self through the lens of scripture. It pairs very well with the previous book -- The Emotionally Healthy Leader. It has helped me deepen my awareness of God's presence in my life, increase my self-knowledge, and intentionally growing closer to God. I love that it's centered around being with God and not "doing for" God.

#3. On Leadership: HBR's 10 Must Reads.

by Harvard Business Review, Peter F. Drucker, Daniel Goleman, and William W. George

​This book is a collection of selected important articles from Harvard Business Review on leadership to help readers maximize their own performance and also their organizations performance. The articles tackle various topics in leadership such as motivating others to excel, helping your team build confidence, transformational leadership, leading with empathy, risk-taking, and much more. Regardless of what level of leadership you are in or aspiring to grow into, it brought clarity for me to see my areas of strength and areas that need growth.

#4. Emotional Intelligence 2.0.

by Travis Bradberry, Jean Greaves, and Patrick Lencioni

​In today's culture, Emotional Intelligence (EQ) has become a buzz word for a reason. It has become the number 1 predictor of success, and many leaders gravitate towards it to harness its power. This book offers a step-by-step strategy to help readers increase their EQ via four core EQ skills -- self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. It has helped me see some of my blind spots especially in terms of how they show up in my leadership.

I hope this list was helpful to you. Thanks for reading.

I would love to know.....what are the most helpful books you read on leadership and emotionally healthy spirituality? Please leave your comments below.