I’ve long been impressed by how many super-high-achievers were part of Peter Drucker’s ecosystem; friends, colleagues, confidants, and especially his wife of sixty-eight years, Doris Drucker. Below is a curated reading list of books from a select group of these people. It is limited to two titles for those who have written a number of books and it does not include every author who has written about Drucker. I have also excluded compilations of essays about Drucker. Those categories can possibly form the basis of future blog posts.
And while some of the books are Drucker-focused, many are not. It is also important to remember that he had many friends, colleagues, and confidants who were also high-achieving, yet did not publish books.
All of these books are worth reading, as are other titles by the authors who have written additional books:
Warren Bennis: On Becoming a Leader; Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership (with Patricia Ward Biederman)
Bob Buford: Drucker & Me: What a Texas Entrepreneur Learned From the Father of Modern Management; Halftime: Moving from Success to Significance (20th Anniversary Edition)
William A. Cohen: A Class with Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher; The Practical Drucker: Applying the Wisdom of the World’s Greatest Management Thinker
Jim Collins: Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies (with Jerry I. Porras); Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi: Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience; Good Business: Leadership, Flow, and the Making of Meaning
Max De Pree: Leadership Is an Art; Leadership Jazz
Doris Drucker: Invent Radium or I’ll Pull Your Hair
John E. Flaherty: Peter Drucker: Shaping the Managerial Mind
Charles Handy: The Age of Unreason; The Second Curve: Thoughts on Reinventing Society
T. George Harris: Romney’s Way: A Man and an Idea
Frances Hesselbein: Hesselbein on Leadership; My Life in Leadership: The Journey and Lessons Learned Along the Way
A.G. Lafley: Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works (with Roger L. Martin); The Game-Changer: How You Can Drive Revenue and Profit Growth with Innovation (with Ram Charan)
Jean Lipman-Blumen: Hot Groups: Seeding Them, Feeding Them, and Using Them to Ignite Your Organization (with Harold J. Leavitt); The Allure of Toxic Leaders: Why We Follow Destructive Bosses and Corrupt Politicians–and How We Can Survive Them
Joseph A. Maciariello: A Year with Peter Drucker: 52 Weeks of Coaching for Leadership; Drucker’s Lost Art of Management: Peter Drucker’s Timeless Vision for Building Effective Organizations (with Karen Linkletter)
C. William Pollard: The Soul of the Firm; The Tides of Life: Learning to Lead and Serve as You Navigate the Currents of Life
Rick Warren: The Purpose-Driven Life: What on Earth Am I Here For?
Rick Wartzman: Drucker: a Life in Pictures; What Would Drucker Do Now?: Solutions to Today’s Toughest Challenges from the Father of Modern Management
Given that is has been more than 15 years since Peter Drucker’s death, a number of people on this list have also passed away since then: Bennis, Buford, De Pree, Doris Drucker, Flaherty, Harris, and Maciariello. However, through their written contributions and more, their legacies live on for readers now and in the future.