Working with other high achievers has led me to one conclusion: they usually know what to do, but struggle to act on it. I call it the execution gap. You have the insight, but need to turn knowledge into changed behaviors, decisions and habits.

As the year comes to a close, high achievers are usually busy reflecting and planning. What went well, what did you miss and what can you do next quarter to push past performance plateaus?

Leadership books for high achievers can offer practical tips on how to take action once the planning stage has run its course. Here are some of the reads I believe will help top performers act on insights to improve their teams and organizations.

How These Leadership Books For High Achievers Were Chosen

Selecting the books on this list came down to three criteria. Did the content offer practical advice? I also looked for whether the message was geared toward seasoned leaders. Finally, was the book focused on action over theory? There’s nothing wrong with having abstract concepts in your back pocket. But I’ve found it’s more beneficial to know how to apply acumen in the real world.

1. Mandy Balak — Chasing Enough: The High Achiever’s Guide To Sustainable Success

In Chasing Enough , three-time founder and president of The Gathering, Mandy Balak moves you from knowing to doing. It’s a playbook for turning leadership insight into action. Its advice reached the top 20 on Amazon.ca in the leadership, leadership and motivation and motivational management categories during its launch week.

Readers who will get the most out of this book already know what to do. Information isn’t the problem. It’s armor, which doesn’t respond to a better system.

If you’re at the helm of high-performing teams that keep losing people, it’s not necessarily because you lack perceptiveness or leadership capacity. Mandy’s focus is to help leaders take time to reflect and set a better tone with their team. After all, your pace becomes the team’s real standard instead of the one you state.

A leader’s personal depletion can show up in the company as attrition. Balak’s book gives you a fifteen-point diagnostic your team can score together. Find the root cause and what you can do to correct it.

2. Marshall Goldsmith — What Got You Here Won’t Get You There

Goldsmith explores the blind spots that can become liabilities for high-performing leaders in What Got You Here Won’t Get You There . Reaching the management ranks is regarded as a sign of success. Staying there and continuing to climb the rungs on the leadership ladder can be different types of challenges when personal habits hold you back.

This book provides a list of unproductive habits that could be the reason for performance plateaus. Think about the urge to add value to others’ work and ideas. As a leader, it may be natural for you to want to tweak others’ suggestions.

While wanting to make everything better is admirable, it holds your team back by stifling learning and killing morale. Learn how to identify these tendencies and ways to stop them.

3. Dan Sullivan And Benjamin Hardy — The Gap And The Gain

The Gap and the Gain delves into the ways driven people measure progress. Written by the co-founder of Strategic Coach and an organizational psychologist, the book explores the differences between using two distinct methods. You can use the gap, which compares your current performance and self against an unattainable idea. Alternatively, you can use the gain, which measures how far you’ve come.

I’m sure you can guess which method is more productive. The gap usually leads to feelings of inadequacy, while the gain builds confidence. Sullivan and Hardy offer key practices, such as reframing your experiences and logging daily wins, to transition to the gain. The Gap and the Gain is one of those books for executives to help leaders redefine how they perceive progress.

4. Greg McKeown — Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit Of Less

Leadership books for high achievers can touch on the art of wearing multiple hats. Greg Mckeown’s Essentialism teaches you how to choose fewer, higher-impact priorities. Leaders who find themselves torn in too many different directions can learn to cut out what’s not essential so they can make room for what matters.

Rather than saying “I must,” leaders can say “I choose to” by saying no to what doesn’t fit. Essentialism isn’t just about learning to eliminate the unnecessary. It’s about discerning what is necessary, setting boundaries and building a routine to remove obstacles to achieving the necessities.

5. Liz Wiseman — Multipliers: How The Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter

In Multipliers , Liz Wiseman examines why certain leadership styles either diminish their teams’ capabilities or bring out the best in those abilities. Sometimes leaders have good intentions, but their styles shut down the thinking process too quickly. Wiseman pinpoints three core styles: multipliers, diminishers and accidental diminishers.

Readers who fall into the last category will learn five disciplines for moving from accidental diminishers to multipliers. Instead of stepping into processes and projects too fast, high-performing leaders will learn how to stop trying to rescue their teams’ work. Disciplines Wiseman refers to as debate makers and investors, can drive collective, constructive team discussion and transfer ownership to the group.

Closing the knowing-doing gap starts with reflection and gathering practical tips from leaders who have done it before you. Pick one of the leadership books for high achievers from the list. Go through its ideas by the end of the fourth quarter and choose one you want to apply. Remember, leadership execution may start with a concept. But it takes concrete steps to make it happen.