10 Best Military Leadership Books for Army Leaders

My goal today is to share what I believe to be the 10 best military leadership books for Army leaders.

Leadership isn’t something you learn overnight. It’s a skill you develop over years of experience, training, mentorship, mistakes, successes, and continuous learning. One of the best investments you can make in your military career is building a personal leadership library and developing the habit of reading good leadership books.

Throughout my time on Active Duty, in the Army National Guard, and in the Army Reserve, I discovered that many of my best leadership lessons weren’t learned in a classroom or during a formal military school. Some came from experience, some came from good mentors, and quite a few came from books.

The great thing about reading is that you get to learn from people who have already faced many of the challenges you’re dealing with right now. You can study the experiences of successful military leaders, business executives, coaches, entrepreneurs, and leadership experts without having to learn every lesson the hard way yourself.

I’ve always believed that military leaders should read outside the military as well. Leadership principles don’t suddenly stop working when you leave the front gate. Motivating people, building teams, communicating expectations, developing subordinate leaders, creating accountability, solving problems, and earning trust are important whether you’re leading an Army company or running a civilian organization.

Whether you’re a new lieutenant, seasoned NCO, Company Commander, First Sergeant, or simply a Soldier who wants to prepare for greater responsibility, the following books are worth adding to your leadership library. Some are military books and others come from the business world, but each offers lessons that can help you become a better leader.

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. If you purchase through one of the links below, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

How I Chose the Best Military Leadership Books

There are thousands of leadership books available, so narrowing this list down to just ten wasn’t easy. I didn’t choose these books simply because they’re popular or because they appear on other lists of the best leadership books. I selected them because I believe they contain practical lessons that Army officers, NCOs, and other military leaders can actually use.

During my military career, I served on Active Duty, in the Army National Guard, and in the Army Reserve. Along the way, I learned that good leadership principles apply regardless of your rank, component, or assignment. Whether you’re leading a squad, platoon, company, staff section, or larger organization, you still have to communicate effectively, build trust, establish standards, develop people, solve problems, make decisions, and accomplish the mission.

That’s why you’ll notice this list includes both military leadership books and traditional business leadership books. I don’t believe military leaders should limit themselves to reading books written exclusively for the military. Some of the best lessons I’ve learned about developing people, building teams, managing priorities, creating accountability, and improving organizations came from authors outside the military.

When choosing these books, I looked for several things. First, I wanted books with leadership principles that could actually be applied in the real world. Leadership theory is great, but I’m much more interested in something you can read tonight and start using with your Soldiers tomorrow.

Second, I wanted books that address different aspects of leadership. Some focus heavily on character and integrity. Others teach you how to develop subordinate leaders, build stronger teams, communicate expectations, improve organizational performance, or increase your influence. Together, they provide a well-rounded leadership education rather than ten books that basically teach the same thing.

Finally, I selected books that can benefit military leaders at different stages of their careers. A brand-new lieutenant might get something completely different from one of these books than a Company Commander with ten years of experience. The same applies to a new Sergeant compared with a seasoned First Sergeant.

That’s actually one of the things I enjoy most about good leadership books. You can read the same book at different points in your career and walk away with completely different lessons because your experience and responsibilities have changed.

If you’re looking for the best military leadership books, Army leadership books, or leadership books for Army officers and NCOs, I believe these ten are a great place to start. You certainly don’t need to buy all of them at once. Pick the one that best matches where you are in your career right now, read it, take notes, and most importantly, put what you learn into practice.

best military leadership books for army leaders

The Best Leadership Books for Army Officers, NCOs & Citizen Soldiers

Let’s get started.

1. Once an Eagle

By Anton Myrer

Quick Summary

If I could recommend only one military leadership book, Once an Eagle would probably be it. This isn’t your typical leadership book filled with short chapters, checklists, and leadership theories. It’s a novel, but don’t let that fool you. There are leadership lessons scattered throughout the entire book.

The story follows two Army officers with dramatically different approaches to their careers and leadership. Sam Damon represents the leader who focuses on duty, service, character, and taking care of his Soldiers. Courtney Massengale represents the ambitious careerist who understands politics, appearances, and how to advance himself.

Watching their careers develop provides an interesting look at the difference between being successful at getting promoted and being successful at leading people. Those two things aren’t always the same.

That’s one of the reasons I believe this book is especially valuable for Army officers and NCOs. During your career, there will be times when doing what’s best for your Soldiers or your organization isn’t necessarily what’s easiest or best for your career. You’ll also encounter leaders who are more concerned about looking good than actually doing good.

This book forces you to think about what kind of leader you want to become and, more importantly, what kind of legacy you want to leave behind.

Key Takeaways
  • Character matters when nobody is watching. It’s easy to talk about Army Values when everything is going well. Your true character normally shows up when you’re under pressure, when you have something to lose, or when doing the right thing isn’t the easiest option.
  • Put the mission and your Soldiers ahead of your ego. Good leaders understand that leadership isn’t about them. Your job is to accomplish the mission while taking care of your people, developing them, and preparing them for greater responsibility.
  • Don’t confuse rank with leadership. Rank gives you authority, but it doesn’t automatically give you respect. Your Soldiers will decide whether you’re worthy of their trust based on what you do every day.
  • Think about your legacy. Promotions, awards, assignments, and titles eventually disappear. What your Soldiers remember is how you treated them, what you taught them, and whether you made them better.

For military leaders, Once an Eagle is a reminder to periodically ask yourself a simple question: Am I becoming the type of leader my Soldiers deserve, or am I simply becoming better at advancing my own career?

Who Should Read This Book?

Once an Eagle is an excellent choice for Army officers, NCOs, Company Commanders, and anyone preparing for a military leadership position. I especially recommend it to young officers because it forces you to think about the type of leader you want to become before career pressures, promotions, assignments, and Army politics begin influencing your decisions.

If you’re looking for a military leadership book that combines an entertaining story with lessons about character, integrity, selfless service, and taking care of Soldiers, start with this one.

View on Amazon

2. Developing the Leader Within You 2.0

By John C. Maxwell

Quick Summary

John C. Maxwell’s Developing the Leader Within You 2.0 is a great starting point for anyone who wants to become a better leader because the book begins with a simple idea: before you can effectively lead other people, you need to learn how to lead yourself.

That concept applies perfectly to the military.

It’s easy to focus on what our Soldiers should be doing differently. We want them to improve their physical fitness, meet suspenses, maintain standards, communicate better, show initiative, and take responsibility. But effective leaders first hold themselves to the same standards they expect from everyone else.

Maxwell also explains that leadership is primarily about influence rather than position. That’s particularly important in the Army because we operate inside a very structured rank system. Rank might require someone to follow your lawful orders, but it doesn’t mean you’ve earned their respect or influenced them positively.

The best officers and NCOs I’ve known could influence people without constantly reminding everyone of their rank or position. People wanted to follow them because they trusted them.

Key Takeaways
  • Leadership starts with you. Before worrying about improving everyone around you, take a hard look at your own habits, discipline, attitude, communication, and performance.
  • Influence is more powerful than authority. You can order someone to complete a task, but genuine influence creates Soldiers who take initiative and perform because they believe in the mission and trust their leader.
  • Priorities determine effectiveness. Military leaders have more requirements than they have time. Learning to identify what truly matters helps you spend your limited time on activities that produce the greatest results.
  • Personal growth must be intentional. Don’t assume that another year in uniform automatically makes you a better leader. Experience only becomes valuable when you reflect on it and learn from it.

This book can help military leaders become more self-aware and intentional about their own development instead of simply waiting for the Army to develop them.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is ideal for new lieutenants, junior NCOs, aspiring military leaders, and anyone who wants to improve their personal leadership skills.

It’s particularly useful if you’re entering your first real leadership position and discovering that rank alone doesn’t make people want to follow you. The book will help you focus on self-discipline, priorities, influence, communication, and personal growth before worrying about fixing everyone around you.

View on Amazon

3. The Five Levels of Leadership

By John C. Maxwell

Quick Summary

The Five Levels of Leadership provides one of the simplest leadership models I’ve encountered. Maxwell explains that leadership develops through five different levels: Position, Permission, Production, People Development, and Pinnacle.

Most military leaders begin at Level 1: Position. You receive orders assigning you as the Platoon Leader, Company Commander, First Sergeant, Squad Leader, or another leadership position. People follow you initially because they’re required to.

There’s nothing wrong with positional authority. Every organization needs a chain of command. The problem occurs when a leader never progresses beyond it.

As you develop relationships and earn trust, people begin following you because they want to. As your team produces results, your credibility increases. When you begin developing other leaders, your influence becomes even greater.

For Army leaders, I think this model provides an excellent way to evaluate your own leadership. Instead of asking, “What position do I hold?” ask yourself, “Why do people actually follow me?”

Key Takeaways
  • Your position is only the starting point. Getting promoted or receiving a leadership assignment gives you an opportunity to lead. What you do with that opportunity determines whether people eventually respect you as a leader.
  • Relationships matter. You don’t need to be best friends with your Soldiers, but you should know them, understand what motivates them, and demonstrate that you genuinely care about their success.
  • Results build credibility. Good leaders accomplish the mission. Your Soldiers need to see that your leadership produces better training, improved readiness, stronger teamwork, and meaningful results.
  • Develop leaders instead of creating followers. One of your greatest responsibilities is preparing your subordinate leaders to eventually operate without you.

The ultimate test of leadership isn’t how well the unit performs while you’re standing there. It’s how well it performs when you’re gone.

Who Should Read This Book?

This is a great book for Army officers, NCOs, Platoon Leaders, First Sergeants, Company Commanders, and anyone currently responsible for leading other people.

I think it’s especially valuable for leaders who have been in their position for several months because it gives you a simple way to evaluate why your Soldiers are following you. If you want to move beyond positional authority and become the type of leader people genuinely trust and respect, this book provides a useful roadmap.

View on Amazon

4. Small Unit Leadership: A Common-Sense Approach

By Dandridge M. Malone

Quick Summary

If you’re looking for a leadership book written specifically with military leaders in mind, Small Unit Leadership: A Common-Sense Approach deserves a spot on your bookshelf.

This book focuses heavily on the everyday realities of leading Soldiers at the small-unit level. Rather than discussing leadership only from a strategic or theoretical perspective, it deals with the practical side of getting Soldiers to work together, maintaining standards, building discipline, developing trust, and accomplishing the mission.

That’s important because most military leadership happens at the small-unit level.

You might read books about famous generals commanding hundreds of thousands of troops, but most Army leaders aren’t commanding armies. They’re leading squads, sections, platoons, companies, and staffs. Leadership at that level is personal. Your Soldiers see what you do every day.

They notice whether you’re prepared. They notice whether you keep your word. They notice whether you enforce standards consistently. And they definitely notice whether you expect them to do things you aren’t willing to do yourself.

Key Takeaways
  • Know your Soldiers. You can’t effectively lead people you know nothing about. Learn their strengths, weaknesses, goals, personalities, and capabilities.
  • Lead by example. Your personal example establishes what’s really acceptable in the organization. Soldiers pay much more attention to what you do than what you say.
  • Be consistent. Standards shouldn’t depend on who the Soldier is or what mood you’re in that day. Consistency builds trust and reduces confusion.
  • Handle small problems early. Many serious leadership problems begin as small issues that nobody addressed. Good small-unit leaders don’t ignore problems and hope they disappear.

This book is especially useful for junior officers and NCOs because it focuses on leadership situations you’re likely to encounter every day.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book should be high on the reading list for junior Army officers, NCOs, Squad Leaders, Platoon Sergeants, Platoon Leaders, First Sergeants, and Company Commanders.

Unlike many general leadership books, it speaks directly to the realities of leading Soldiers at the small-unit level. If you’re looking for practical military leadership advice you can use during drill weekends, annual training, field exercises, deployments, or everyday unit operations, this is one I’d strongly recommend.

View on Amazon

5. Developing the Leaders Around You

By John C. Maxwell

Quick Summary

One of the biggest transitions you make as a leader occurs when you stop measuring your success only by what you personally accomplish and start measuring it by what the people around you accomplish.

That’s the central idea behind Developing the Leaders Around You.

Weak leaders often try to do everything themselves. They become the person everyone depends on for every decision, every answer, and every problem. At first, this might make them feel important. Eventually, however, they become the bottleneck.

Strong leaders develop other leaders.

In the military, that means giving your subordinate leaders meaningful responsibility, allowing them to make decisions, coaching them when they make mistakes, providing honest feedback, and gradually preparing them for bigger assignments.

If you’re a Company Commander, one of your responsibilities should be making your XO, Platoon Leaders, and subordinate leaders better. If you’re a First Sergeant, you should be developing your Platoon Sergeants and NCOs. The same principle applies at every level.

Key Takeaways
  • Invest time in your people. Leadership development doesn’t happen automatically. Schedule counseling, coaching, mentoring, and opportunities for your people to grow.
  • Delegate responsibility, not just tasks. Don’t simply tell someone what to do. Give capable subordinate leaders ownership of an outcome and let them figure out how to accomplish it.
  • Allow people to make mistakes. If every honest mistake results in a public execution, your subordinate leaders will eventually stop taking initiative.
  • Make yourself replaceable. Your goal should be to develop people who can eventually perform your job as well as—or better than—you can.

For military leaders, this book helps shift your mindset from doing everything yourself to building a team capable of succeeding without you.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is especially valuable for Company Commanders, First Sergeants, Platoon Leaders, Platoon Sergeants, senior NCOs, and anyone responsible for developing subordinate leaders.

Once you’ve reached the point where you’re responsible for other leaders, your job changes. You can’t measure your success only by your own performance anymore. If you want to become better at mentoring, coaching, delegating, empowering subordinate leaders, and preparing people for greater responsibility, this book deserves a place in your leadership library.

View on Amazon

6. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

By John C. Maxwell

Quick Summary

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership is probably John Maxwell’s best-known leadership book. Rather than presenting one leadership philosophy, Maxwell breaks leadership into twenty-one principles that can be studied and applied individually.

What I like about this approach is that you don’t necessarily have to read the entire book in one sitting. You can study one principle, think about how it applies to your current leadership position, and begin working on it immediately.

Several of the concepts translate particularly well to military leadership, including influence, priorities, trust, momentum, sacrifice, timing, and developing other leaders.

Military leaders sometimes get caught up in doctrine, regulations, policies, and procedures. Obviously, those things are important. However, leadership ultimately involves people, and many of the principles that motivate and influence people are universal.

Key Takeaways
  • Leadership ability affects everything else you do. You can be technically brilliant, but if you can’t communicate, influence, motivate, and organize people, your overall effectiveness will always be limited.
  • Trust takes time to build and seconds to destroy. Keep your commitments, admit mistakes, tell the truth, and avoid making promises you can’t keep.
  • Priorities matter. Being busy isn’t the same thing as being productive. Army leaders need to constantly identify which activities actually improve readiness and accomplish the mission.
  • Leadership requires sacrifice. Greater responsibility normally means giving up some personal convenience. That’s part of accepting leadership.

This book gives you a collection of principles you can revisit throughout your military career as your responsibilities increase.

Who Should Read This Book?

This is a good all-around choice for Army officers, NCOs, new military leaders, experienced commanders, and anyone interested in studying leadership as a lifelong skill.

Because the book covers so many different leadership principles, you’ll probably find different chapters useful at different stages of your career. It’s also a good book to keep on your shelf and revisit every few years as your responsibilities increase.

View on Amazon

7. Leaders Eat Last

By Simon Sinek

Quick Summary

Leaders Eat Last focuses on something I believe every military leader should understand: people perform differently when they know their leaders genuinely care about them.

The title itself fits military culture perfectly. Traditionally, good leaders make sure their Soldiers are taken care of before worrying about themselves.

But the idea goes much deeper than who gets in the chow line first.

Sinek discusses how trust, security, teamwork, and organizational culture affect performance. When people feel like their leaders will protect them, support them, and treat them fairly, they’re generally more willing to take risks, communicate problems, help their teammates, and give their best effort.

The opposite is also true. When Soldiers believe every mistake will be used against them, leaders take credit for successes but blame others for failures, or people are constantly worried about protecting themselves, teamwork suffers.

Key Takeaways
  • Take care of your people. This doesn’t mean lowering standards. You can maintain high standards while still treating Soldiers with dignity and respect.
  • Create an environment where people can communicate. Your Soldiers should feel comfortable bringing legitimate problems to you before those problems become emergencies.
  • Protect your team when appropriate. Good leaders accept responsibility. They don’t immediately start looking for someone else to blame when something goes wrong.
  • Trust improves performance. Soldiers who trust each other communicate better, cooperate more effectively, and are more willing to take initiative.

Taking care of Soldiers isn’t separate from accomplishing the mission. Taking care of people is one of the ways you accomplish the mission.

Who Should Read This Book?

This book is particularly useful for Company Commanders, First Sergeants, Platoon Leaders, Platoon Sergeants, NCOs, and anyone trying to build a stronger military team.

If you’re dealing with poor morale, weak communication, low trust, or Soldiers who don’t seem engaged with the organization, this book can help you look at those problems from a different perspective. It’s also an excellent reminder that taking care of Soldiers and accomplishing the mission aren’t competing priorities.

View on Amazon

8. Good to Great

By Jim Collins

Quick Summary

Good to Great isn’t a military leadership book, but many of its ideas apply extremely well to Army organizations.

Jim Collins and his research team studied companies that made the transition from average performance to exceptional long-term performance. They attempted to identify the characteristics these organizations had in common.

One of my favorite concepts from the book is getting the right people on the bus. In simple terms, the quality of your people matters tremendously.

Military leaders don’t always get to choose everyone on their team, but they do have significant influence over how people are trained, developed, assigned, mentored, and utilized.

Another valuable idea is disciplined execution. Great organizations don’t normally become great because of one motivational speech or one brilliant idea. They improve because people consistently execute the fundamentals.

The same thing happens in successful military units. You don’t create a great company during one drill weekend or one annual training. You build it month after month by consistently improving training, maintenance, personnel readiness, communication, accountability, and leader development.

Key Takeaways
  • Put people in positions where they can succeed. Learn the strengths of your Soldiers and subordinate leaders and use those strengths whenever possible.
  • Face reality. Don’t hide readiness problems, personnel issues, maintenance problems, or training deficiencies just because the truth is uncomfortable. You can’t fix a problem you’re unwilling to acknowledge.
  • Build disciplined systems. Good units don’t depend entirely on one superstar leader. They create systems, standards, battle rhythms, and expectations that produce consistent performance.
  • Consistency beats the flavor of the month. Constantly changing priorities can exhaust an organization. Identify what matters, communicate it clearly, and stay focused long enough to produce results.

This book is particularly valuable for commanders and senior NCOs who are trying to improve an entire organization rather than simply improve their personal leadership.

Who Should Read This Book?

Good to Great is especially valuable for Company Commanders, First Sergeants, staff officers, senior NCOs, battalion-level leaders, and anyone responsible for improving an entire military organization.

If you’ve inherited a unit or section struggling with readiness, accountability, systems, standards, or execution, many of the concepts in this book can help you think differently about organizational improvement. It’s less about becoming a better individual leader and more about building an organization capable of consistently performing at a high level.

View on Amazon

9. The One Minute Manager

By Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson

Quick Summary

Don’t let the simplicity of The One Minute Manager fool you. It’s a short book, but several of its basic concepts can immediately improve how you lead and communicate with Soldiers.

The book focuses on three basic management practices involving goals, positive reinforcement, and correcting performance problems.

One of the biggest problems I’ve seen in organizations is that leaders sometimes assume people understand what they’re supposed to do without clearly communicating expectations. Then they become frustrated when the final result doesn’t match what they had in mind.

Clear expectations eliminate a lot of unnecessary leadership problems.

The book also emphasizes providing feedback close to the actual behavior. That’s something military leaders can use immediately. Don’t wait six months for a formal counseling session to tell someone they’re doing a great job—or that something needs to change.

Good leadership communication should happen constantly. Formal counseling has its place, but the little conversations you have throughout the month can often have a greater impact.

Key Takeaways
  • Set clear expectations. Your Soldiers should understand what success looks like, what standard they’re expected to meet, and when the task needs to be completed. Clear expectations reduce confusion and make accountability much easier.
  • Recognize good performance. When someone does something well, tell them. A few sincere words from a respected leader can have a significant impact on motivation and morale.
  • Correct problems quickly. Don’t let poor performance continue for months and then surprise the Soldier during a counseling session or evaluation. Address issues while they’re still small and easy to correct.
  • Focus on behavior rather than attacking the person. Correct the specific action or performance issue while maintaining the Soldier’s dignity. Your goal should be improving performance, not proving that you’re in charge.

For Army leaders, the biggest lesson is simple: communicate expectations clearly and provide feedback frequently.

Who Should Read This Book?

This is an excellent quick read for new lieutenants, junior NCOs, Squad Leaders, Platoon Leaders, small-unit leaders, and anyone who wants to become better at communicating expectations and providing feedback.

I’d especially recommend it to someone taking over Soldiers for the first time. The concepts are simple, but that’s exactly what makes them useful. You can read the book quickly and immediately begin applying several of its ideas to counseling, task delegation, recognition, and performance correction.

View on Amazon

10. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

By Patrick Lencioni

Quick Summary

No military leader succeeds alone. Whether you’re part of a squad, platoon, company, battalion staff, or command team, your ability to work effectively with other people has a tremendous impact on your success.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team examines five common problems that prevent teams from performing at their best: absence of trust, fear of conflict, lack of commitment, avoidance of accountability, and inattention to results.

I think this model applies extremely well to military units.

For example, if your command team doesn’t trust each other, people stop communicating honestly. If leaders are afraid of disagreement, bad ideas sometimes go unchallenged. If expectations aren’t clear, commitment suffers. If nobody holds peers accountable, standards decline.

Eventually, individual agendas become more important than the unit’s mission.

I’ve always believed a strong command team should be able to disagree with each other professionally. Your XO, First Sergeant, Platoon Leaders, and other key leaders shouldn’t simply tell the commander what they think the commander wants to hear.

Good leaders encourage honest discussion. Once the decision is made, however, everyone needs to get behind it and move forward together.

The book helps leaders understand that many performance problems aren’t really individual problems. They’re team problems.

Key Takeaways
  • Build trust first. Leaders should be able to admit mistakes, ask for help, and acknowledge when they don’t know something. Pretending to have every answer usually reduces trust rather than increasing it.
  • Don’t be afraid of professional disagreement. Healthy teams can disagree behind closed doors, discuss difficult issues, and challenge ideas without making things personal. This often produces better decisions.
  • Get commitment before execution. Once the team makes a decision, everyone needs to understand the plan and support it. Mixed messages from leaders create confusion throughout the organization.
  • Create peer accountability. Strong organizations don’t depend entirely on the Commander or First Sergeant to enforce every standard. Team members hold each other accountable.
  • Keep the mission ahead of individual agendas. The success of the organization should matter more than who gets credit, who looks good, or whose idea gets selected.

This book is especially useful for command teams because it provides a simple framework for diagnosing why a group of individually talented people might still struggle to work together.

Who Should Read This Book?

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is particularly valuable for Company Commanders, First Sergeants, XOs, Platoon Leaders, staff officers, senior NCOs, and members of military command teams.

If your organization has talented people but still struggles with communication, accountability, trust, teamwork, or getting everyone moving in the same direction, this book can help you identify the underlying problem.

I think it’s especially useful for command teams because it gives everyone a common language for discussing problems that are often difficult to address directly.

View on Amazon

Final Thoughts

Reading leadership books won’t automatically make you a great leader. I’ve met plenty of people who could quote leadership books all day long but couldn’t lead their way out of a wet paper bag.

The real value comes from applying what you learn.

My recommendation is simple. Pick one leadership book each month. Read it slowly. Highlight important passages. Take notes. When you finish the book, identify two or three ideas you can actually implement.

Then put them into practice.

If you’re a Platoon Leader, maybe you improve the way you communicate with your Platoon Sergeant. If you’re a Company Commander, perhaps you become more intentional about developing your XO and Platoon Leaders. If you’re an NCO, you might improve your counseling or start giving your Soldiers more responsibility.

You don’t need to implement fifty new leadership techniques at once. Sometimes one good idea, consistently applied, can dramatically improve the way you lead.

I also encourage you to read outside the military. Study successful business leaders, coaches, entrepreneurs, historical figures, and leaders from other professions. You don’t have to agree with everything an author says to learn something useful from them.

Leadership is a lifelong journey. The most effective Army officers, NCOs, and commanders I’ve known never stopped learning. They remained students of their profession and understood that earning another stripe, bar, leaf, or star didn’t mean they suddenly had all the answers.

Build your own leadership library. Read regularly. Study other leaders. Learn from their successes and their mistakes. Most importantly, take those lessons and use them to become a better leader for the Soldiers entrusted to your care.

That’s one investment in your military career that can continue paying dividends for decades.

If you have a favorite military or leadership book that isn’t included on my list, leave a comment below and let me know what you recommend.