Best Business Books of 2025 (So Far): What Leaders Are Actually Reading
If you’re choosing just a handful of business books to power the rest of your year, 2025 has delivered. From AI and geopolitics to workplace fairness and practical product playbooks, this mid-year roundup curates what’s actually hot with executives, operators, and creators right now—plus a spotlight on a fresh leadership framework we’re especially excited about: Management as Music by Matt Allen.
Below, you’ll find the titles leaders are discussing on stages and in Slack threads, the award longlisters everyone’s sampling, and page-turners you can hand to your team without hesitation. Each pick includes a quick why-it-matters and a practical takeaway, so you don’t just read—your org benefits.
Spotlight: Management as Music by Matt Allen
Why it’s hot: Leaders keep saying, “We need alignment… and agility… and inspiration”—often in the same breath. Allen’s big idea: manage the way great ensembles make music. It’s memorable, teachable, and surprisingly actionable across functions.
- Story as melody. Craft a clear, repeatable narrative so teams can “hum” the strategy without slides. (Ch. 1: The Melodic Imperative.)
- Humility of harmony. Balance strong individual voices with listening and blend. (Ch. 2.)
- Use dissonance intentionally. Healthy tension drives progress when resolved well. (Ch. 5.)
- Modulate for change. Plan transitions the way music modulates keys—signal it, scaffold it, stick the landing. (Ch. 6.)
- Safe spaces enable creativity. Build “pentatonic” spaces where smart risks rarely sound wrong. (Ch. 8.)
- Counterpoint beats echo chambers. Invite well-framed dissent so truth beats title. (Ch. 11.)
- Leave room for silence. Pauses make the important parts land. (Ch. 10.)
Try this today: In your next leadership meeting, assign roles: melody (vision owner), harmony (cross-functional integrator), rhythm (ops cadence), and counterpoint (designated challenger). Close with a “rest” (two minutes of silent capture) before decisions.
Management as Music is a Westbrae Literary Group publication. You can buy a copy here.
AI, Chips & Geopolitics: Big-picture reads leaders are debating
1) The Thinking Machine by Stephen Witt. A propulsive inside look at Nvidia and Jensen Huang—the company and CEO defining the AI hardware era. Takeaway: Don’t just buy tools; build moats like CUDA—software ecosystems that turn hardware into platforms.
2) House of Huawei by Eva Dou. A deeply reported history of China’s most consequential tech company and what its rise means for supply chains, standards, and national strategy. Takeaway: Map your exposure to state-aligned vendors; scenario-plan for sanctions and standards shocks.
3) Abundance by Ezra Klein & Derek Thompson. A case for building more—faster—by fixing the bottlenecks in housing, energy, and innovation. Takeaway: Treat permitting and procurement like product problems: identify blockers, ship policy pilots, measure adoption.
4) Breakneck by Dan Wang. A sharp lens on U.S.–China geoeconomics and why “engineering cultures” matter more than headlines. Takeaway: Invest in actual capability: talent pipelines, supplier depth, and learning curves—not just capital budgets.
5) Chokepoints by Edward Fishman. How sanctions and economic power flows are re-wiring globalization. Takeaway: Put “sanctions resilience” into your enterprise risk register and audit payment, logistics, and IP exposure.
Work & Culture: Better ways to build teams people want to join
6) Make Work Fair by Iris Bohnet & Siri Chilazi. Evidence-based fixes for fairness that move beyond performative DEI. Takeaway: Replace “awareness” trainings with decision-design: structured interviews, calibrated rubrics, transparent promotion criteria.
7) Today Was Fun by Bree Groff. A humane, practical guide to making work worth doing again—without the hustle theatrics. Takeaway: “Thin-slice” joy: bake micro-rituals (personal intros, buddy walks, Friday demos) into your team cadence to rebuild energy.
8) Patriarchy Inc. by Cordelia Fine. A witty, rigorous teardown of DEI myths with tools for genuine equity. Takeaway: Stop selling equity as a “performance hack.” Measure it as a fairness outcome with real accountability and resource shifts.
Strategy & Innovation: From idea to shipped impact
9) Click: How to Make What People Want by Jake Knapp with John Zeratsky. From the creators of Sprint: crisp recipes to validate and build what customers will actually love. Takeaway: Run a one-week “click test” sprint: define the job-to-be-done, storyboard, prototype, five user tests—then decide.
10) Ping: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication by Andrew Brodsky. The field guide for when to Zoom, write, or send a voice note—and when to say nothing. Takeaway: Publish a team “comm plan” (channels × urgency × complexity) to cut meetings and response anxiety.
11) The Insider’s Guide to Innovation at Microsoft by Dean Carignan & JoAnn Garbin. Practitioner case studies from one of the world’s most prolific builders. Takeaway: Pair bottoms-up experiments with executive air cover; define “permission to try and ship” explicitly.
Markets, Money & the Messy World
12) Waste Wars by Alexander Clapp. A bracing investigation into the global afterlife of our trash—and the business systems behind it. Takeaway: Treat waste like a supply-chain KPI: audit where it goes, not just how much you produce.
13) The Wealth Ladder by Nick Maggiulli. An accessible upgrade path from “good with money” to long-term optionality; useful for first-time managers navigating comp, equity, and savings. Takeaway: Set your team up with an equity 101 and automatic saving rules—reduce cognitive load, increase participation.
14) Gambling Man by Lionel Barber. A high-velocity portrait of Masayoshi Son’s bets and the incentives that fueled them. Takeaway: Separate founder charisma from capital structure risk when assessing partnerships.
How we chose these
We optimized for three signals that correlate with staying power: (1) longlist/shortlist recognition from credible prizes; (2) sustained media coverage and conversation among operators; and (3) clear, useful takeaways you can apply in one week or less. Several picks are brand-new releases; others are 2025 longlisters or best-sellers with real-world traction.
Make it a reading plan (and make it stick)
- One theme per month. August–October: AI & geopolitics (The Thinking Machine, House of Huawei, Chokepoints). November: culture (Management as Music, Make Work Fair, Today Was Fun). December: product & ops (Click, Ping).
- 15-minute teachbacks. After each book, a volunteer shares three slides: big idea, one policy/process change, and a metric to watch.
- Ship something. Tie each read to a tiny experiment (new hiring rubric, comms charter, or a 5-user prototype test).
Where Management as Music fits best
If you’re driving cross-functional change, scaling a new business unit, or trying to lower friction between product, sales, and ops, the music metaphor sticks. Use it at offsites to name roles (melody/harmony/rhythm/counterpoint), define “rests” (no-meeting blocks), and normalize dissonance that resolves into better decisions.
Want help rolling it out? Start with a 60-minute workshop: 10-minute overview, 20-minute role-mapping, 20-minute “dissonance to decision” exercise, 10-minute commitments.
FAQ
Are older hits still worth it? Yes—evergreens like Atomic Habits and Unreasonable Hospitality continue topping best-seller charts. If you haven’t rolled their ideas into process yet, prioritize them alongside the 2025 crop.
How do we choose for our team? Match books to blockers: fairness & hiring (Make Work Fair), async overload (Ping), stalled innovation (Click), cross-functional drag (Management as Music), macro risk (Chokepoints).
Happy reading—and building.
