Top 10 Must Read Books on Performance Coaching

October 28, 20238 min read

Top 10 Must Read Books on Performance Coaching

The process of becoming a coach requires extensive training, introspection, and guidance. While completing a professional certification program is required, coaches at all phases of their careers may benefit from a wealth of fantastic materials that will aid in their growth and development. Here are our top picks for coaching books that any aspiring or established leader in leadership development should read.

Top 10 Must Read Books on Performance Coaching - Coach Foundation

For coaches, learning is never complete. There are approaches, coaching techniques, and fresh scientific discoveries.

In this article, we will discuss best-selling Performance Coaching Books.

Let's Start!

In Brief : Top 10 Must Read Books On Performance Coaching
  • Executive Coaching With Backbone And Heart - Priced at $57, this book provides a structured approach to executive coaching, offering tools and insights for both novices and seasoned practitioners.
  • Changing On The Job - Available for $35, this book explores adult growth theories, helping readers become intelligent leaders capable of navigating complex challenges.
  • Man’s Search For Meaning - This classic, available for $35, delves into Frankl's experiences in Nazi concentration camps, emphasizing the human pursuit of meaning in the face of adversity.
  • High Output Management - Priced at $35, this practical guide by Grove, a former tech executive, offers insights for CEOs, startup founders, and managers on creating highly productive teams.
  • Coaching Questions - Available for $15, this book, essential for coaches, provides a wealth of questioning techniques, models, and exercises.
  • Simple Habits For Complex Times - Priced at $22, this book offers three crucial behaviors to help leaders navigate complex challenges in a constantly changing business environment.
  • Thinking, Fast & Slow - A modern classic available for $11, Kahneman explores the two systems that govern human thinking, providing insights into decision-making in both personal and professional contexts.
  • The Coaching Habit - Priced at $13, this book offers practical coaching techniques for managers, drawing on neuroscience and behavioral economics.
  • Black Box Thinking - Available for $60, Syed explores the concept of marginal gains and the importance of learning from failures for high performance.
  • Mindset - Priced at $8, Dweck's book explores the impact of mindset on success and offers insights on fostering a growth mentality for personal and professional development.

How performance Coaching Books Help a Coach

Performance coaching is a technique that assists individuals or groups in identifying their areas of strength and development in order to attain their objectives. These are the four steps that it takes.

These books will help performance coaches to implement these four steps in actual coaching.

The science of human motivation and behavior serves as the foundation for performance coaching. People are driven by a variety of things, including the desire for autonomy, power, affiliation, and success. A performance coaching book will take into account these underlying motivations to make performance coaches successful in their lives.

10 Books for Every Performance Coach

Reading books on performance coaching published by performance coaches or authentic writers that explain everlasting concepts is one of the easiest ways to learn or teach proper coaching. 

Below is the list of the top 10 books worth reading for every performance coach. Reading these books will assist every performance coach to enhance their skills and get more success in their practical life.

1. Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart

Executive Coaching With Backbone And Heart - Coach Foundation

Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart was written by Mary Beth O'Neill and first published on March 20, 2000. Praise for Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart In this book, O'Neill brings form and structure to the art of executive coaching. Novices are provided a path while seasoned practitioners will find affirmation.

Mary Beth O'Neill's executive coaching gave the tools and clarity to become a far more effective leader and change agent. The bottom line was succeeded with a monumental organizational turnaround that had seemed impossible to accomplish. O'Neill writes in a way that allows you to see this experienced coach in action.

Mary Beth brings a keen business focus to coaching by not just contributing insights but by helping the team gain the insights that we need to solve problems. She can see through the sometimes chaotic dialogue and personalities in order to help a team focus on the real issues and dynamics that can impede organizations from achieving their goals.

Effective leaders require courage, compassion, and initiative. O'Neill's systems-based coaching serves as a guide for both coaches and executives to better enable good decisions and good decision-makers.

The original edition of Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart is available on Amazon for $57.

1. Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart - Coach Foundation

2. Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World

Changing On The Job Developing Leaders For A Complex World - Coach Foundation

Changing on the Job Executive Coaching with Backbone and Heart was written by Jennifer Garvey Berger and first published on November 30, 2011. People from all walks of life are calling for leaders who are more sophisticated and capable of tackling challenges that are more complicated than anything the human race has ever had to face. But we must nurture and promote these leaders as soon as it is humanly possible since they won't just appear on the scene. A way to do this is via changing on the job.

Changing on the Job focuses on theories of adult growth and development to assist readers in becoming more intelligent people who are capable of leading in any situation, as opposed to merely providing readers with "paint by numbers" instructions on how to fulfill the position of a leader. 

Author Jennifer Garvey Berger presents a set of building blocks to assist in developing an agile workforce while enhancing performance by moving from the theoretical to the practical and utilizing real-world examples.

This book is an essential tool for building both the capacities of the talent they assist and their own. It is written for coaches, HR specialists, smart leaders, and anybody who wants to succeed at work.

The original edition of  Changing on the Job is available on Amazon for $35.

2. Changing on the Job: Developing Leaders for a Complex World - Coach Foundation

3. Man’s Search for Meaning

Mans Search For Meaning - Coach Foundation

Man’s Search for Meaning was written by Viktor Frankl and first published in 1946. Since it was originally published in 1946, Viktor Frankl's gripping narrative of his time spent in Nazi concentration camps and his profound investigation of the human desire to create meaning in the face of the darkest hardship have provided comfort and direction to generations of readers. 

Frankl believed that, contrary to what Freud said, the essential human motivation is not pleasure but rather the pursuit of what one finds significant. This belief is at the core of his logotherapy theory, which derives its name from the Greek word for "meaning." Frankl's famous work continues to encourage us all to find purpose in the mere act of existing, despite all barriers, as new generations encounter new difficulties and a world that is becoming more complicated and unpredictable.

A brand-new, never-before-published book by Frankl titled Yes to Life: Despite Everything is now available in English and is a must-read complement to this classic work.

There were two covers used in the publication of this book. One of the various covers will be included when books are sent to customers.

The original edition of  Man’s Search for Meaning is available on Amazon for $35.

3. Man’s Search for Meaning - Coach Foundation

4. High Output Management

High Output Management - Coach Foundation

High Output Management was written by Andrew Grove and first published in 1983. One term may encapsulate the crucial ability to start and run new businesses—the art of the entrepreneur. 

High Output Management, which Grove developed as a result of his experiences working at one of America's top technological firms, is ideal for CEOs, startup founders, sales managers, accountants, consultants, and teachers alike. 

High Output Management is a practical guide for navigating real-life business scenarios and a potent management manifesto with the potential to revolutionize the way we work. Grove covers techniques for creating highly productive teams, demonstrating methods of motivation that lead to peak performance.

The original edition of  High Output Management is available on Amazon for $35.

4. High Output Management - Coach Foundation

5. Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Skills

Coaching Questions A Coachs Guide To Powerful Asking Skills - Coach Foundation

Coaching Questions was written by Tony Stolzfus and first published on April 24, 2008. The most crucial coaching skill is the ability to ask insightful questions. In this book, master coach trainer Tony Stoltzfus collaborates with 12 other expert coaches to give a wealth of useful questioning techniques, models, and exercises. 

He then uses more than 1,000 actual instances of probing inquiries to demonstrate these coaching techniques. Coaching Questions is a book that will find a place on every coach's short list of useful resources since it covers the full spectrum from fundamental tactics like options and actions to complex concepts like challenge and reframing. 

A coach's guide to effective questioning techniques, coaching questions tells us:

1. Hundreds of questioning tools, models, and tactics.

2. The top 10 asking errors that coaches make, along with advice on how to avoid them.

3. Almost 1200 examples of effective questions drawn from actual coaching contexts.

4. A life-purpose model with four parts organizes the instruments for discovering your destiny.

5. Overviews of 15 well-liked coaching specialties, each with a tool and examples.

6. A training regimen to assist you in becoming a "Master of Asking.

The original edition of  Coaching Questions is available on Amazon for $15.

5. Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Skills - Coach Foundation

6. Simple Habits for Complex Times: Powerful Practices for Leaders

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