Leadership
Be a Better Leader: 16 of the Best Leadership Blogs
As a business owner, by default, you’re a leader. You’re leading your team, you’re leading your organization, and you’re leading the direction your business is headed.
And if you want to be the most effective leader you can be, one of the best things you can do is maintain a student mentality, and continue to learn from other leaders and thought leaders on all things leadership. Even the most successful leaders in the world (or, arguably, especially the most successful leaders in the world) are willing to take a page from other leaders’ books to help clarify their own thinking, spark original thoughts and rethink tried and true.
And one of the best ways to expose yourself to the insights you need to become a better leader and take your business to the next level? Reading leadership blogs.
Let’s take a look at 16 of the best leadership blogs the internet has to offer so you can get reading (and get growing as a leader in the process).
Why Read Leadership Blogs?
Before we jump into the leadership blogs you should consider bookmarking, let’s quickly cover why you might want to read leadership blogs in the first place.
There are a number of ways reading leadership blogs can make you a better leader, including:
- Introducing you to new ideas. Part of being an effective leader is being open to new ideas and ways of doing things. Reading leadership blogs can give you different perspectives, help you expand your mindset, and find new ideas to explore and implement within your business.
- Helping you avoid mistakes. Getting insights into other leaders’ mistakes can help you avoid the same pitfalls in your own business—and leadership blogs are a great place to get advice on what not to do straight from leaders who have already been there.
- Challenging you. Often, the content in leadership blogs will challenge you to examine your actions in a new or different way—and while that challenge might feel uncomfortable, it can ultimately help you grow.
Clearly, reading leadership blogs is a must for your business. But what are the must-read blogs you need to add to your list?
1. Michael Hyatt
Consistently ranked one of the most influential leadership authors around, Michael Hyatt has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, CNN and The New York Times. Hyatt updates his blog consistently each week with brief (but insightful!) posts on a variety of leadership topics, including productivity, influence, collaboration and personal development. If you prefer your leadership insights on the go, make sure to subscribe to Hyatt’s This Is Your Life podcast.
Must-read post: 4 Steps to Communicating Vision
Twitter: @michaelhyatt
2. John Maxwell
With nearly 50 years of experience in leadership and organizational development, author, speaker and founder of The John Maxwell Co. John Maxwell’s leadership blog is an incredible resource you can use to become a better leader and business owner. And while Maxwell doesn’t publish as much blog content as he did in previous years, the content he does publish is incredibly sharp, practical and gets straight to the core issues.
Must-read post: Bounce Back From Your Setback
Twitter: @johnmaxwellco
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3. Michael McKinney
If you want helpful and insightful information on all things leadership—and you want it now—you should definitely check out leadership coach and author Michael McKinney’s leadership blog, LeadershipNow. In addition to traditional leadership articles, the website features a variety of content categories (including LeadershipMinute, bite-sized explorations of key leadership topics and LeadingResources, a continually updated list of must-read leadership books) to help you grow as a leader.
Must-read post: The 9 Strategies of Emotionally Intelligent Leadership
Twitter: @LeadershipNow
4. Harvard Business Review
The Harvard Business Review isn’t a blog, per se—but the well-respected magazine’s digital real estate is full of incredible leadership articles from a variety of thought leaders. With topics ranging from innovation to managing people, decision making to productivity (and just about everything in between!), you can find the answer to pretty much any leadership question with a quick search of HBR’s archives.
Must-read post: Burnout Is About Your Workplace, Not Your People
Twitter: @HarvardBiz
5. Ramon Ray
Ramon Ray is a best-selling author, speaker and entrepreneur. He’s also the founder of SmartHustle.com, a digital resource for business owners that features a robust catalog of leadership content. SmartHustle.com is also home to the Smart Hustle for Small Business podcast, where Ray interviews leaders for their insights into how to run a successful business—including leadership advice.
Must-read post: Why Community Building Unlocks Business Potential
Twitter: @ramonray
6. Dan Rockwell
If you don’t want to spend your time scrolling through blog posts that might as well be books (“How long is this post?!”) in order to get your daily dose of leadership wisdom, you’re definitely going to want to check out Dan Rockwell’s Leadership Freak blog. Rockwell’s near-daily posts are short, accessible and easy to digest—but are packed with helpful insights you can apply to your business and leadership style.
Must-read post: The Path to Meaningful Contribution Begins Here
Twitter: @Leadershipfreak
7. Kevin Eikenberry
Leadership & Learning with Kevin Eikenberry is a must-read, thought-provoking blog from a world-renowned leadership expert and two-time best-selling author. Recognized by Inc. magazine as one of the top 100 leadership and management thinkers in the world, you can’t really afford not to check out what Kevin has to say. With a great mix of practical advice and fresh takes on basic business principles, this blog should be a staple.
Must-read post: Leadership Is an Opportunity
Twitter: @kevineikenberry
8. Karin Hurt
Whether you’re an established leader or a new business owner who considers themselves a leader in the making, you’ll find insights into how to grow as a leader (and grow your organization in the process) on Karin Hurt’s award-winning Let’s Grow Leaders blog. In addition to blog articles, you’ll also find other helpful leadership resources on Let’s Grow Leaders, including the Leadership Without Losing Your Soul podcast and a resource center for leading remote teams.
Must-read post: How to Lead Decisively When You Don’t Know What’s Next
Twitter: @letsgrowleaders
9. James Clear
Part of being an effective leader is having the right habits—and if you want to learn how to develop better habits, you need to be reading James Clear. On his blog, the New York Times best-selling author of Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones unpacks the science and psychology of how to build better habits (and get rid of the habits that are holding you back)—along with a host of other topics that can help make you a better leader, including productivity, decision making, performance and motivation.
Must-read post: The 5 Triggers That Make New Habits Stick
Twitter: @JamesClear
10. Tanveer Naseer
Recognized by Inc. magazine as both a Top 100 Leadership and Management Expert and one of their 100 Great Leadership Speakers, leadership expert and TedX speaker Tanveer Naseer’s blog is full of helpful leadership articles on topics ranging from effective remote leadership to how leaders can build trust with their teams. Naseer’s blog is also home to his leadership podcast, Leadership Biz Cafe, where he interviews a variety of leadership experts for their insights into how to become a better leader.
Must-read post: Ask This Simple Question to Improve Clarity and Boost Employee Performance
Twitter: @TanveerNaseer
11. Suzi McAlpine
Executive leadership coach and keynote speaker Suzi McAlpine’s blog, The Leader’s Digest, is chock-full of resources to help readers transform into more effective and powerful leaders, including an impressive collection of articles on everything from unconscious biases in leadership to how to better make decisions or navigate conflict.
Must-read post: Why You Should Uncover Your Implicit Biases (And Yes, You Do Have Them)
Twitter: @suzimcalpine
12. Susan Mazza
Random acts of kindness are all about valuing other people and relationships. And on her Random Act of Leadership blog, leadership coach and motivational speaker Susan Mazza takes a similarly people-centric approach to her content, offering helpful insights on why personal development is so important for effective leadership, and how leaders can better connect with and inspire their teams.
Must-read post: How to Deal With the Gap Between Expectations and Reality at Work
Twitter: @susanmazza
13. Skip Prichard
If credentials are important to you when choosing a leadership blog, you’ll definitely want to give Skip Prichard a read. Prichard is an Inc. magazine Top 100 Leadership Speaker, author of the best-selling book The Book of Mistakes: 9 Secrets to Creating a Successful Future and has been featured in a variety of top media outlets, including The New York Times, BBC, Fast Company and the Harvard Business Review. On his blog, he explores a variety of leadership topics, including innovation, how to build successful teams and key lessons every leader needs to know.
Must-read post: How to Utilize Individual Strengths to Power the Team
Twitter: @SkipPrichard
14. Lolly Daskal
Lolly Daskal, leadership coach and author of the best-selling book The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness, explores a host of leadership topics on her blog—all explored in a simple, straightforward and impactful style that makes it easy digest the content and apply the lessons to your own business.
Must-read post: How to Be a Successful Leader From Home
Twitter: @LollyDaskal
15. Scott Mabry
Scott Mabry is a leader in the fintech space (he’s a VP at Mastercard company Transactis)—and he’s taken his experience over to Medium, where he explores a variety of leadership, work and personal development topics (and gets many “claps” from the community in response).
Must-read post: Strategy Isn’t Straight Lines
Twitter: @scottamabry
16. Mark Sanborn
A classic strategic thinker, Mark Sanborn is the author of an impressive eight books on leadership—as well as the creator of a number of successful videos and audio training programs. His blog features weekly posts that primarily focus on leadership and personal development, superior customer service and team building. His no-nonsense approach is straight to the point—and he uses case studies and real-world examples to show how you can use the strategies featured to develop into a better leader.
Must-read post: What Makes a Leader Successful Today? Intentionality and 3 Shifts
Twitter: @mark_sanborn
Read Your Way to More Effective Leadership
It doesn’t matter if you’re just launching your first start-up or if you have multiple successful businesses under your belt. Every business owner, regardless of the stage their business is in, should consistently be striving to be a better and more effective leader—and exposing themselves to new and helpful information (like the kind of information featured on leadership blogs) is a great way to do that.
And now that you know exactly which leadership blogs you should be reading, all that’s left to do? Get out there and read yourself into better, more effective leadership; your team and your business will thank you for it.
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This post was updated in October 2020.