Top 8 Workplace Culture Books
- Nancy Maher
- Oct 2
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 6
When given the choice between culture and salary, 73% of respondents prioritise a positive organisational culture over money - Wiley Workplace Intelligence
Workplace culture is the heartbeat of every organisation – it shapes how people feel, connect, and thrive every day. And leadership behaviour is the foundation of great workplace culture.
Every action leaders take – from how they communicate to the way they handle challenges – sets the tone for the entire organisation. Therefore, if you want to improve organisational culture, leaders and managers at all levels need to make individual changes in how they lead, communicate, and support their teams.
And whether you're a leader looking to inspire your team, a CEO looking to refresh your company culture, or simply curious about what makes great cultures tick, the right book can be a game-changer.
We’ve rounded up eight essential workplace culture books to help you find the best leadership business books. These books on workplace culture cover leadership approaches, collaboration, team culture, working across diverse global teams, and practical ways to build workplaces where people genuinely love to show up and are empowered to do their best work.
Contents
What Is Meant By Workplace Culture?
How do you explain your workplace culture? Workplace culture is like an organisation’s personality. It’s the organisation’s shared values, beliefs, behaviours, and practices that shape how employees interact and collaborate. Workplace culture is everywhere in an organisation – it affects daily decisions, leadership styles, how employees feel about their work, and how the organisation is perceived externally. It can be collaborative, inclusive, innovative, or toxic.
What Is The Ideal Workplace Culture?
A positive workplace culture builds trust, psychological safety, autonomy, and recognition, leading to higher engagement and wellbeing. In contrast, toxic workplace culture breeds disrespect and exclusion, harming morale and performance - see Top 80 Workplace Culture Statistics 2025
Top 8 Workplace Culture Books
Here's our list of our 8 top must-read workplace culture books, including new business books, books on leadership and culture, books on facilitation and workshop culture, team culture books, and inclusive culture books. You'll find plenty of inspiration on ways to improve your workplace culture.
Courageous Cultures: How to Build Teams of Micro-Innovators, Problem Solvers, and Customer Advocates by Karin Hurt and David Dye
Courageous Cultures shows how building a workplace where everyone feels safe to speak up, share ideas, and solve problems creates a huge competitive edge. Hurt and Dye highlight how "micro-innovators" problem solvers, and customer advocates at every level drive innovation and engagement daily. The book offers clear, practical tools and steps to create high-performing teams where courage and contribution become the norm, not the exception. This is one of the best books on workplace culture for teams to use in peer coaching circles or as a leadership development tool. Take each chapter as a team exercise, accompanied by free discussion guides.
Inclusion On Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work by Ruchika Tulshyan
One of our go-to workplace culture books. After discovering Ruchika Tulshyan on a podcast, I started following her thought leadership on LinkedIn and discovered her book. Tulshyan offers a clear, practical roadmap to create workplaces where everyone feels they belong. Tulshyan focuses on intentional strategies to tackle workplace bias, center the experiences of women of colour, and move beyond vague diversity efforts toward meaningful change. The book combines research, stories, and actionable steps to help leaders build cultures rooted in equity, psychological safety, and authentic inclusion.
Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World by Marcus Buckingham and Ashley Goodall
I love the provocations in this book. While I don't agree with all of them, the book serves as a great leadership development tool to help leaders really think about the beliefs that we tend not to challenge. The authors challenge common workplace myths like "people hate change" or "managers are the key to company culture". The authors use research to reveal surprising truths that help build better, more inclusive organisations.
Radical Respect: How to Work Together Better by Kim Scott
We are big fans of Radical Candor, so of course, we had to check out the latest book by Kim Scott. Radical Respect is a practical guide to creating workplaces where everyone feels valued and respected, even when people disagree or make mistakes, while building cultures that balance collaboration with individuality.
It complements Radical Candor, which did not touch on issues of bias, bullying, and prejudice. Scott explains how true respect means recognising each person’s humanity—not just admiring their skills or agreeing with their ideas. My preference is always for books that offer leaders or teams practical tools, which is precisely what it does.
The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
At work, we collaborate to build great stuff together - whether workshops or meetings. We may also socialise outside of work in team events or by going for lunch together. When we gather a group of people together, it can be expensive, and if we don't plan it thoroughly, it's a lost opportunity to reinforce our team or company culture. Leaders are not born with facilitation skills. If you need some inspiration for your next event, consider checking out this book. Parker shows how to make every meeting, party, or event meaningful and memorable. It’s about designing gatherings with a clear purpose and care, so people connect deeply instead of just showing up out of habit.
The Culture Code: The Secrets of Highly Successful Groups by Daniel Coyle
At the start of the book, Coyle asks what “might be the oldest question of all.”
Why do certain groups add up to be greater than the sum of their parts, while others add up to be less?
The answer: culture
Coyle takes us on a journey to explore what makes successful groups and organisations tick, with real examples of workplace culture. Using stories and science, this book demonstrates how leaders can build safety, vulnerability, and purpose within their team culture. If you are interested in books about team culture and the culture-building approaches of organisations, including Google, Pixar, and the US Navy SEALs, then dive in.
The Culture Map: Decoding How People Think, Lead, and Get Things Done Across Cultures by Erin Meyer
I wish I had had this book early on in my career. I've spent my career working in international companies with culturally diverse teams, trying to figure it out as I went along. Erin Meyer’s The Culture Map is a brilliant guide to understanding how cultural differences influence communication, leadership, decision-making, and teamwork across countries.
Meyer uses real-world anecdotes and a spectrum model to show where different cultures fall on these scales. I particularly appreciate her in-depth exploration of feedback culture. If you have an international client base or team, this is essential reading to help leaders recognise potential misunderstandings and adapt their style to work more effectively with diverse teams. I highly recommend this as a management book for new managers or leaders working in a culturally diverse team for the first time.
Workshop Culture: A Guide to Building Teams That Thrive by Alison Coward
As workshop facilitators with experience working in agile teams, we appreciated Alison Coward's in-depth exploration of workshops. Coward explores the importance of running intentional, well-designed workshops and their ability to transform teams into productive and engaged groups. Coward, a team culture coach, argues that great workshops aren’t just occasional events—they should be the foundation of everyday teamwork. This management book offers a clear, practical toolkit with actionable exercises to improve collaboration, communication, and continuous improvement within teams. Highly recommend for new managers and leaders who want better ways to collaborate and have fun along the way.
📚Additional management book recommendations
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