We negotiate every day. Maybe without even realizing it. We negotiate with ourselves, family members, and managers. It is a basic skill you need to master to get the most out of your career and life. These books on negotiation skills can help you:
- Navigate complex deals and partnerships
- Resolve conflicts at home or work
- Align with stakeholders on project objectives
- Ask for a more flexible schedule to spend more time with your family
- Get a pay raise
These top books on negotiation skills can help you develop these crucial skills to succeed – from high-stakes situations to getting your child to do their homework.
In the end, negotiation skills are life skills every woman needs to develop.
Top 10 Books on Negotiation Skills
1. Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life by Stuart Diamond
Learn the negotiation model used by Google to train employees worldwide, U.S. Special Ops to promote stability globally, and families to forge better relationships.
Based on thirty years of research among forty thousand people in sixty countries, Wharton Business School Professor and Pulitzer Prize winner Stuart Diamond shows in this unique and revolutionary book how emotional intelligence, perceptions, cultural diversity, and collaboration produce four times as much value as old-school, conflictive, power, leverage and logic.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Unlike traditional negotiation books that emphasize power and leverage, Diamond focuses on empathy, adaptability, and collaboration—crucial skills for women in leadership.
“Think about meeting your goals, not about wining over someone else.”
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2. Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert B. Cialdini
A must-read for mastering influence, this book explores the psychological principles behind persuasion—crucial for any negotiation. Cialdini breaks down six principles of influence – reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social proof, liking, authority, and scarcity. He shows you how to use these principles to change the behavior of others.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Teaches ethical strategies to build trust and win deals without aggression.
“A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”
3. Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston
Want to negotiate better? Start by listening better. This book, written by a psychiatrist and business coach, reveals powerful techniques to make a good first impression, make a stranger feel understood, and achieve buy-in–the linchpin of all persuasion, negotiation, and sales.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Shows how deep listening can help you influence others without force.
“Inside every person is a real person. Who is just as afraid or nervous or in need of empathy as anyone else. Make a person feel felt.”
4. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It by Chris Voss
Life is a series of negotiations, and negotiation is at the heart of collaboration. Former FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss shares field-tested tactics from high-stakes hostage situations—adapted for business, leadership, and everyday life.
Step-by-step, Voss shows you how to establish rapport, create trust and tactical empathy, spot liars, and more.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Provides practical, actionable scripts for tough negotiations.
“Negotiation is not an act of battle; it’s a process of discovery. The goal is to uncover as much information as possible.”
5. Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
Women often find it hard to ask. This is one of the best books on negotiation skills for women that reveals why women often hesitate to negotiate and how they can break through cultural and psychological barriers to ask for what they deserve. This book can help you to recognize how our institutions, child-rearing practices, and unspoken assumptions perpetuate inequalities, and make a change within yourself.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Backed by research, this book helps women recognize self-sabotaging behaviors and develop confidence in negotiations.
“I tell my graduate students that by not negotiating their job at the beginning of their career, they’re leaving anywhere between $1 million and $1.5 million on the table in lost earnings over their lifetime,” Linda Babcock says.
6. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury
One of the most famous books on negotiation skills of all time is based on the Harvard Negotiation Project, a group that deals with all levels of negotiation and conflict resolution. It offers readers a straightforward and step-by-step method to disentangle people from problems, focus on interests – not positions, and work together to find creative and fair options. Ultimately, this book on negotiation skills will help you negotiate successfully with anybody at any level.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Teaches a win-win approach instead of resorting to aggression or compromise.
“Focus on interests, not positions.”
7. Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything by Alexandra Carter
Negotiation is not a zero-sum game. It’s an essential skill for your career that can also improve your closest relationships and your everyday life. This powerful book on negotiation skills reframes negotiation as asking the right questions—helping women feel more in control and less intimidated. Carter offers a simple yet powerful ten-question framework for successful negotiation that extends far beyond one “yes” and instead creates value that lasts a lifetime.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Helps women break free from negotiation anxiety and focus on self-advocacy and curiosity.
“The most powerful negotiators don’t tell. They ask.”
8. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brené Brown
Leading takes courage and, surprisingly, vulnerability. Vulnerability helps create meaningful connections and can help us communicate better, and be more creative. Brené Brown brings her research on vulnerability, courage, and leadership into the world of negotiation, showing how empathy can be a strength, not a weakness. This is not only one of the best business books for women, but one of the top books on negotiation skills.
Why It’s Worth Reading: It can help create meaningful relationships, embrace empathy, and give and receive feedback better to feel happier at work and home.
“Clear is kind. Unclear is unkind.”
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9. You Can Negotiate Anything: The World’s Best Negotiator Tells You How To Get What You Want by Herb Cohen
From mergers to marriages – it is all negotiable. A classic that makes negotiation feel approachable, fun, and doable for everyone. Inside, you’ll learn the keys to using Herb Cohen’s proven strategy for dealing with your mate, your boss, your credit card company, your children, your lawyer, your best friends, and even yourself.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Makes negotiation easy to understand, even for beginners.
“Be patient, be personal, be informed—and you can bargain successfully for anything.”
10. Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen
Negotiation isn’t just about asking—it’s also about listening and responding to feedback. This book teaches you how to handle criticism, praise, and unsolicited advice in a way that helps you grow. This book offers a powerful framework to help you turn evaluations, advice, criticisms, and coaching into productive listening and learning.
Why It’s Worth Reading: Helps women develop resilience and a growth mindset.
“Receiving feedback sits at the intersection of these two needs—our drive to learn and our longing for acceptance.”
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Which of These Books on Negotiation Skills Should I Read?
Picking the best books on negotiation skills can feel overwhelming. Focus on how you want to improve your negotiation skills – in a general sense, for your business, or to negotiate a better pay raise or more opportunities at work.
What Are The Best Books for Female Entrepreneurs?
These books can help you close deals, focus on your why, and make better business decisions.
Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Revised Edition by Robert B. Cialdini
If you want to build trust and win deals (and pitches), this is a great book for female entrepreneurs.
Just Listen: Discover the Secret to Getting Through to Absolutely Anyone by Mark Goulston
If you want to make a good first impression and achieve buy-in-the linchpin of all persuasion, negotiation, and sales, this is a great book for you.
What Are The Best Books for Your Career and Female Leaders?
These books can hep you build emotional intelligence, and self-awareness, and can help you give and receive feedback better.
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brené Brown
Vulnerability helps create meaningful connections and can help us communicate better, and be more creative. This is one of the best books for female leaders.
Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well by Douglas Stone & Sheila Heen
This book offers a powerful framework to help you turn evaluations, advice, criticisms, and coaching into productive listening and learning.
Women Don’t Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever
A game-changing book that reveals why women often hesitate to negotiate and how they can break through cultural and psychological barriers to ask for what they deserve.
Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything by Alexandra Carter
This powerful book on negotiation skills reframes negotiation as asking the right questions—helping women feel more in control and less intimidated.
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What Careers Need Good Negotiation Skills?
Some of the highest-paying and most interesting jobs for women need good negotiation skills. If you are a leader or work in a team, you need these crucial skills. Here are 5 jobs that need excellent negotiation skills.
1. Top Executive
Executives often make strategic decisions, are big-picture thinkers, and are also responsible for creating a good company culture – they heavily rely on strong negotiation skills.
2. Human Resource Manager
They oversee hiring plans and processes, consult with executives, and help create a healthy company culture. They need to negotiate contracts and help resolve conflicts within organizations.
3. Project management
Lead teams, motivate people, and assign tasks. They also need to negotiate with stakeholders, set expectations, and resolve issues.
4. Tech Sales
You will be responsible for selling technology as a product or service, which will require negotiation (think win-win).
5. Learning and Development Specialist
You will create, design, and deliver employee training programs or educational programs for employees. You will work with people to understand their needs and develop programs that meet those needs.
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How to Apply These Lessons in Real Life
There are many ways you can start to practice your negotiation skills today. From negotiating to get your child to do homework or when talking with a colleague on the direction of a project.
Here are 5 easy things you can do today to practice negotiating:
- Research and know your priorities (think strategically)
Understand your vision and mission, and how you can communicate it.
- Listen actively
Don’t listen to respond, listen to comprehend.
- Embrace Silence
Silence can strengthen your power, create necessary pauses, and drive your point home – strive for 3-second silences when negotiating.
- Build Rapport
Work to understand others and develop a good relationship.
- Ask good questions
Asking the right questions helps you gain understanding, and build trust, and rapport.
Lastly, remember to advocate for yourself and your values.
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Start Living on Your Terms
Women and negotiation are often talked about, we want to help women be bold and think big. These books on negotiation skills can help you get what you want in life, your career, and business. The art of negotiation relies on emotional intelligence, active listening, and strategic thinking – a lot of which are part of women’s strengths. These negotiation books can help you develop those skills so you can live life on your own terms – and feel more happier and fulfilled in the process.
“Think about meeting your goals, not about wining over someone else.”
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FAQs: Negotiation Skills
What is the best book to read about negotiation?
It depends on your goals, but these books are a great starting point:
Getting More: How You Can Negotiate to Succeed in Work and Life by Stuart Diamond
Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In by Roger Fisher and William Ury
Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brené Brown
These books on negotiation skills can help you think about your own goals and work together to find creative solutions.
What is the rule #1 of negotiation?
The most important principle of negotiation is to walk into any meeting or situation informed. When it comes to negotiation, knowledge is power.
What is the Oprah rule?
The Oprah rule is simple yet incredibly powerful. People don’t always remember what was said during the negotiation and it will likely be perceived differently by different people, but they will always remember how you made them feel at the end of the conversation. Always strive to make people feel supported and respected. It sets the basis for powerful negotiations and conversations.
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