Maj. Gen. Mark E. Bartman, Ohio adjutant general, has released his suggested reading list to enhance individuals' professional development, with regard to leadership and embracing diversity and inclusion in their formations.

Contact the Diversity & Inclusion and Equal Employment Office at Beightler Armory to obtain hard copies of the book(see points of contact in column at left), and most are also available in hard copy or e-book format through book stores and online retailers, as well as local libraries.

2018 List

Diversity & Inclusion

• On the Run: Fugitive Life in an American City, Alice Goffman, Picador, 2014

• What Works: Gender Equality by Design, Iris Bohnet, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2016
  

• The American Spirit, David McCullough, Simon & Schuster, NY, 2017

• The Road to Character, David Brooks, Random House, NY, 2015

• Shooting Ghosts, Thomas J. Brennan, USMC (ret) & Finbar O’Reilly, Viking, NY 2017 (about the struggle with PTSD)

Leadership

• The Practice of Adaptive Leadership, Heifetz, Grashow & Linsky, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA, 2009

• Leadership on the Line, Heifetz & Linsky, Harvard Business Press, Boston, MA, 2002

• The Generals, Winston Groom, National Geographic, Washington, DC, 2015

• The Aviators, Winston Groom, National Geographic, Washington, DC, 2013

• On War and Politics, Arnold Punaro & David Poyer, Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, MD, 2016

• Grant, Ron Chernow, Penguin Press, NY, 2017

History, Politics & Miscellaneous Reading

• Two Paths: America Divided or United, John R. Kasich, St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2017

• The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State, Graeme Wood, Random House, NY 2017

• Mission Accomplished?, Peter Hahn, Oxford University Press, NY, 2012 (about US and Middle East politics)

• Apollo 8, Jeffery Kluger, Henery Holt and Co., NY, 2017

• Among the Headhunters, Robert Lyman, Da Capo Press, Boston, MW, 2016 (about World War II–The Hump)

• Strangers in their Own Land, Arlie Russell Hochschild, The New Press, NY, 2016 (about the 2016 election)

• Lights Out, Ted Koppel, Broadway Books, NY, 2015 (about cybersecurity)

• Incendiary: The Psychiatrist, the Mad Bomber, and the Invention of Criminal Profiling, Michael Cannell, Minotaur Books, NY, 2017

• The End of College, Kevin Carey, Riverhead Books, NY, 2015 (about higher education in the future)

• A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, Adam Rutherford, The Experiment LLC, 2017 (about the DNA trail)

• Everybody Lies, Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, Harper Collins, NY, 2017 (about big data; R-rated book)

The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in an Era of Endless War
By Yochi Dreazen, Published by Crown/Archetype, 2014

The unforgettable story of a military family that lost two sons—one to suicide and one in combat—and channeled their grief into fighting the armed forces’ suicide epidemic.

Maj. Gen. Mark Graham was a decorated two-star officer whose integrity and patriotism inspired his sons, Jeff and Kevin, to pursue military careers of their own. His wife Carol was a teacher who held the family together while Mark's career took them to bases around the world. When Kevin and Jeff die within nine months of each other—Kevin commits suicide and Jeff is killed by a roadside bomb in Iraq—Mark and Carol are astonished by the drastically different responses their sons’ deaths receive from the Army. While Jeff is lauded as a hero, Kevin’s death is met with silence, evidence of the terrible stigma that surrounds suicide and mental illness in the military. Convinced that their sons died fighting different battles, Mark and Carol commit themselves to transforming the institution that is the cornerstone of their lives.

A Passion For Leadership, Lessons On Change and Reform From Fifty Years of Public Service
By Robert M. Gates, Published by Knopf/Penguin Random House, 2016

From the former secretary of defense and author of the acclaimed #1 best-selling memoir Duty, a characteristically direct, informed and urgent assessment of why big institutions are failing us and how smart, committed leadership can effect real improvement regardless of scale. Across the realms of civic and private enterprise alike, bureaucracies vitally impact our security, freedoms and everyday life. With so much at stake, competence, efficiency and fiscal prudence are essential, yet Americans know these institutions fall short. Many despair that they are too big and too hard to reform.

Ashley's War: The Untold Story of a Team of Women Soldiers on the Special Ops Battlefield
By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Published by HarperCollins, 2015

In 2010, the Army created Cultural Support Teams, a secret pilot program to insert women alongside Special Operations Soldiers battling in Afghanistan. The Army reasoned that women could play a unique role on Special Ops teams: accompanying their male colleagues on raids and, while those Soldiers were searching for insurgents, questioning the mothers, sisters, daughters and wives living at the compound. Their presence had a calming effect on enemy households, but more importantly, the CSTs were able to search adult women for weapons and gather crucial intelligence. They could build relationships —woman to woman— in ways that male Soldiers in an Islamic country never could.

Everybody Matters, The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family
By Bob Chapman & Raj Sisodia, Published by Portfolio/Penguin, 2015

Starting in 1997, Bob Chapman and others pioneered a dramatically different approach to leadership that creates off-the-charts morale, loyalty, creativity and business performance. The company utterly rejects the idea that employees are simply functions, to be moved around, "managed" with carrots and sticks or discarded at will. Instead, they manifest the reality that every single person matters, just like in a family. That’s not a cliché on a mission statement; it’s the bedrock of the company’s success.

It Worked For Me, In Life and Leadership
By Colin Powell, Published by HarperCollins, 2012

Colin Powell, one of America’s most admired public figures, reveals the principles that have shaped his life and career in this inspiring and engrossing memoir. A beautiful companion to his previous memoir, the #1 New York Times bestseller My American Journey, Powell’s It Worked for Me: In Life and Leadership is a trove of wisdom for anyone hoping to achieve their goals and turn their dreams into reality. A message of strength and endurance from a man who has dedicated his life to public service, It Worked for Me is a book with the power to show readers everywhere how to achieve a more fulfilling life and career.

Leaders Eat Last
By Simon Sinek, Published by Portfolio/Penguin, 2014

Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don't is the much anticipated sequel to the global best seller, Start with Why by Simon Sinek. This book talks about how great leaders sacrifice their own comfort for the good of those in their care. With the help of numerous intriguing examples, the author attempts to prove that the best organizations foster trust and cooperation. As the author points out, this book is not a management theory, but it actually a biological one. Individuals thrive only when they feel safe among a group.

Leading Up
By Michael Useem, Published by Three Rivers Press, 2001

Today’s best leaders know how to lead up, a necessary strategy when a supervisor is micromanaging rather than macrothinking, when a division president offers clear directives but can’t see the future, or when investors demand instant gain but need long-term growth. Through vivid, compelling stories, Michael Useem reveals how upward leadership can transform incipient disaster into hard-won triumph. For example, U.S. Marine Corps General Peter Pace reconciled the conflicting priorities of six bosses by keeping them well informed and challenging their instructions when necessary. Useem also explores what happens when those who should step forward fail to do so — Mount Everest mountaineers might have saved themselves from disaster during a fateful ascent if only they had questioned their guides’ flawed decisions.

In the Shadow of Liberty: The Hidden History of Slavery, Four Presidents, and Five Black Lives
By Kenneth C. Davis, Published by Henry Holt and Co. (BYR), 2016, New York

Did you know that many of America’s Founding Fathers—
who fought for liberty and justice for all—were slave owners?

Through the powerful stories of five enslaved people who were “owned” by four of our greatest presidents, this book helps set the record straight about the role slavery played in the founding of America. From Billy Lee, valet to George Washington, to Alfred Jackson, faithful servant of Andrew Jackson, these dramatic narratives explore our country’s great tragedy—that a nation “conceived in liberty” was also born in shackles.

The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader
By John C. Maxwell, Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1999

In the tradition of his million-seller The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, author John C. Maxwell provides a concise, accessible leadership book that helps readers become more effective leaders from the inside out. Daily readings highlight 21 essential leadership qualities and include "Reflecting On It" and "Bringing It Home" sections that help readers integrate and apply each day's material.

The 360 Degree Leader Workbook
By John C. Maxwell, Published by Thomas Nelson, Inc., 2005

In his nearly 30 years of teaching leadership, John Maxwell has encountered this question again and again: How do I apply leadership principles if I'm not the boss? In The 360 Degree Leader Workbook, Maxwell addresses that very question and takes the discussion even further. You don't have to be the main leader, asserts Maxwell, to make significant impact in your organization. Good leaders are not only capable of leading their followers but are also adept at leading their superiors and their peers.

The Beast Side: Living (and Dying) While Black in America
By D. Watkins, Published by Hot Books, 2015

To many in the age of Obama, America had succeeded in “going beyond race,” putting the divisions of the past behind us. And then 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot by a wannabe cop in Florida; and then 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.; and then Baltimore blew up; and then gunfire shattered a prayer meeting at a church in Charleston, S.C. Suddenly the entire country awakened to a stark fact: African-Americans — particularly young black men — are an endangered species.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates
By Wes Moor, Published by Spiegel & Grau, 2011

Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in similar Baltimore neighborhoods and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners with their crews; both ran into trouble with the police. How, then, did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence? Wes Moore, the author of this fascinating book, sets out to answer this profound question. In alternating narratives that take readers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of surprising redemption, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a generation of boys trying to find their way in a hostile world.

"The chilling truth is that his story could have been mine.
The tragedy is that my story could have been his."

You Win With People
By Woody Hayes, Published by TPC, 1975

In legendary Ohio State Football head coach Woody Hayes' mind, leadership boiled down to two things: hard work and people. His own hard work set the standard for his people, and that gave rise to his often heard quote, You win with people! How hard are you working? Are you winning with your people? Work as hard as you can and strive to take care of people! You Win With People is a book for the football fan, but also highlights the importance of leadership and how leaders need to be forward thinking and prepared for the changes and challenges of the future. Writes Hayes in the book's foreword: "Many writers refer to the 1968-70 period as the "Golden Age" of Ohio State Football. As coaches we must never accept this, for football teams, like nations must always look to the future for the challenge of their Golden Age."