Every business founder makes mistakes from time to time. Every founder will also face a proper crisis during their tenure—if not now, then soon.
Sometimes, one leads to the other. Even if the crisis threatening your enterprise is not of your own making, you need to act as if it is by meeting the challenge head-on and doing everything in your power to prevent it from taking your livelihood away.
It sounds easy enough, but of course, it’s anything but. You’ve read all too many stories of founders who paid a heavy price for their failure to contain a crisis. You don’t need to read another.
It’s a matter of when, not if, your business faces a turning point. Read these five books to prepare.
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And you won’t—not here. These five books offer another path, illuminated by the personal experiences of business leaders who confronted and overcame dire threats to their companies. Each contains valuable, actionable lessons for founders who worry that they may be next. Read them now to prepare for the crisis that you know in your heart could be just around the corner.
1. Rod Neuenschwander — From Crisis to Clarity: A Proven Framework to Transform Your Business on the Brink
Years ago, Rod Neuenschwander got the call no one ever wants to receive. His trusted business partner and dear friend had died unexpectedly, leaving behind a heartbroken family and a thriving commercial enterprise now facing an uncertain future.
Neuenschwander had little time to process the loss, let alone grieve his friend properly. The business was already at a critical juncture, and as its primary driver of new and repeat business, his partner deserved the credit for holding it together. All the progress they’d made together was now at risk.
From Crisis to Clarity tells the story of what happened next. It’s a deeply personal read that highlights the thin, blurry line between success and desperation.
Neuenschwander ended up persevering—spoiler alert—but the experience was gut-wrenching and very well could have gone the other way. The lessons he shares are relevant to every entrepreneur contemplating—or actively facing—a crisis in their business.
2. John Maxwell — Leading in Tough Times: Overcome Even the Greatest Challenges with Courage and Confidence
Uncertainty dominates the business climate and macroeconomic outlook in 2025, as it has frequently in the past.
John Maxwell wrote Leading in Tough Times during one such period of prior instability, as the world emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic. Back then, pandemic-related supply chain challenges were multiplying, kicking off the inflationary wave that would define the next three years. Countless businesses failed during this time through no fault of their own.
Maxwell’s book is less about the proximate causes of the early-2020s supply shocks and more about steering the company ship through troubled waters. His timeless advice focuses on the things leaders can understand and at least partially control: their personal shortcomings and their teams’, the business challenges they are most likely to face, and the hidden strengths they can use to transform crises into opportunities.
3. Ben Horowitz — The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Ben Horowitz’s The Hard Thing About Hard Things is a book for every founder who has arrived at the realization that no one is coming to save them. In other words, it’s a book for every founder.
As the cofounder of one of the most successful venture capital firms to come out of Silicon Valley in the last 30 years, Horowitz is just about the best author you could ask for a book like this. The narrative describes some truly high-drama moments, like firing close friends for poor performance and poaching top talent from competitors. It’s a litany of crises big and small—par for the course in the tech industry, but eye-opening for everyone else.
4. Jeff Hilimire — The Crisis Turnaround
In The Crisis Turnaround, Jeff Hilimire shares dozens of bits of managerial wisdom gleaned over decades of leadership experience. Like Maxwell, he wrote the book during the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic, but his advice applies to any situation that falls outside the definition of standard operating procedure.
It’s also an engaging read. Told through the believable persona of an upwardly mobile but at-times overwhelmed young entrepreneur, The Crisis Turnaround makes it easy for readers to see themselves doing extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances.
If you enjoy it, know that it’s part of Hilimire’s widely respected, multi-volume Turnaround series. The others are worth your time as well.
5. David Dotlich, Peter Cairo and Stephen Rhinesmith — Leading in Times of Crisis: Navigating Through Complexity, Diversity and Uncertainty to Save Your Business
Leading in Times of Crisis harkens back to the global financial crisis, an earlier period of disruption that seasoned entrepreneurs will remember well.
Like the COVID-19 pandemic, the GFC wiped out thousands of healthy businesses and created profound economic distortions that lingered for years. Yet it also seeded the technology and energy booms that would transform America and the world, creating untold opportunity for far-sighted leaders.
Authors David Dotlich, Peter Cairo and Stephen Rhinesmith didn’t know that when they wrote Leading in Times of Crisis. Yet their advice remains relevant today, emphasizing the importance of values-driven “whole leadership” that centers customers, employees and other stakeholders. They argue that teams get stronger when they stick together and avoid the temptation of zero-sum thinking—a message that’s every bit as true today as it was two decades ago.
The world’s most respected business leaders tend to live by simple, timeless principles, like Berkshire Hathaway founder Warren Buffett’s famous line: “Be greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy.”
These maxims are valuable in their own right, but they don’t contain the whole truth about the world. Even wildly successful people like Buffett freely admit that they don’t have all the answers. Anyone who says otherwise is being untruthful with themselves and with you.
For this reason, among many others, it’s important to try to understand as much about the world as you can from as wide an array of sources as possible. While your knowledge won’t magically reveal the solution to every possible crisis your business faces, it may just help you meet the next one before it spirals out of control.