Great Leaders Read All The Time
Sep 16 2012
They (i.e., Harvard Business Review) say that great leaders read all the time. That is certainly true of many great leaders (e.g., founder/CEO of WholeFoods) but there are great leaders who probably don’t have the time to read especially with family and work responsibilities, and I think they get some of their information in other ways (i.e., short bursts of knowledge that they have to assimilate over time). There are tons of not-so-great leaders out there and admittedly they aren’t avid readers. They have a hard time empathizing with others because they haven’t broadened their knowledge base by relating to other people’s stories from different parts of the world.
When I was working on the series of articles on success, I noticed that most of the leaders I interviewed were very well read and a handful had liberal arts, psychology, or humanities degrees. You can certainly tell when someone is well read, not just in the latest business trends but also in works of fiction and other great classic literature by the way they interact with people. I wish I had time to read more novels. I can’t even seem to make it to my neighborhood mom’s monthly book club!
Here are a couple of interesting but short reads:
The Secret Behind Creativity – discusses ideas on how to be creative
MBA Mondays: Guest Post From Dr. Dana Ardi – from Fred Wilson’s blog. A guest post by someone Fred respects in the world of HR, culture building, and recruiting/retaining great talent.
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