a ferocious reader

Storytelling played a role in the formative years of Theodore (Teddy) Roosevelt. Roosevelt became a “ferocious reader,” writes Goodwin. Books transported Roosevelt into “the lives of the adventurous heroes he most admired.”

Roosevelt once said that leaders in every field need to understand human nature. The best way to know how people feel is to read the works of “great imaginative writers,” he advised. 

Roosevelt’s love of reading and history would work to his advantage in helping to reach a peaceful solution during the six-month coal strike of 1902. By understanding the deep history of distrust between labor and management that had sparked the rebellion, he was able to empathize with everyday people and communicate with them plainly and simply. 

Carmine Gallo

Public Speaking Secrets That Made Four U.S. Presidents Influential Leaders by Carmine Gallo. Forbes. February 21, 2022. 

reading is an honor

Reading is an honor and a gift from a warrior or historian who – a decade or a thousand decades ago – set aside time to write. He distilled a lifetime of campaigning in order to have a “conversation” with you. We have been fighting on this planet for ten thousand years; it would be idiotic and unethical not to take advantage of such accumulated experiences. If you haven’t read hundreds of books, you are functionally illiterate, and you will be incompetent, because your personal experiences alone aren’t broad enough to sustain you. Any commander who claims he is “too busy to read” is going to fill body bags with his troops as he learns the hard way. The consequences of incompetence in battle are final. History teaches that we face nothing new under the sun. 

Jim Mattis

MATTIS, J. (2019). CALL SIGN CHAOS: Learning to lead. S.l.: RANDOM HOUSE. 42

I read books

You can become an expert in just about anything if you read enough books on the subject. If you don't believe me, ask Elon Musk. Whenever anyone asks him how he learned to build space-traveling rockets, this is his three-word answer: "I read books...."

Want to read your way to success yourself? Begin with a growth mindset -- the belief that your abilities are not fixed in stone but can change over time, and that you can expand and change them if you're willing to put in the effort....

And finally, put that expertise to the test. Dan Coyle, who's written several bestselling books about what makes some individuals, and some teams, more successful than others, recommends spending 30 percent of your time learning and 70 percent testing your newfound knowledge. So, to cement your expertise, test your own knowledge, preferably by trying things out in the real world.

That's what Musk did when he began building rockets, several of which crashed or went off-course before he and his team figured out how to fly them reliably. This summer, NASA trusted SpaceX rockets to send astronauts into space from the U.S. for the first time in nine years. It's a huge achievement, and it all began with a big stack of borrowed textbooks. 

Minda Zetlin

"In Just 3 Words, Elon Musk Explained How You Can Become Expert at Anything (Even Rocket Science)," Inc. Oct. 31, 2020

enlarged by reading

John Adams, ca 1816, by Samuel F.B. Morse (Brooklyn Museum)

I must judge for myself, but how can I judge, how can any man judge, unless his mind has been opened and enlarged by reading?

John Adams

Diary entry (age 25) as quoted in John Adams by David McCullough. Simon and Schuster, 2001. p.223

most effective leadership development

According to a Boston Consulting Group survey... "improving leadership development" and "managing talent" are top priorities for the companies surveyed, yet the respondents--more than 4,000 senior business leaders from around the world--also ranked these two areas as their greatest weaknesses.

Debbie Lovich, the leader of BCG's Leadership and Talent Enablement Center, says the trouble is that training become separated from companies' objectives.

"Senior executives often think that they must focus on the business and delegate talent development--which they see as 'training'--to HR or someone else without continued involvement," Lovich said in a press release. "With that approach, leadership development instantly becomes disconnected from the business priorities. The training that employees receive does not develop the skills that will enable them to have a meaningful impact on colleagues, customers, and business results."

The main reasons leadership development seminars, events, or workshops do not produce results is the same reason cramming for a skills-based test doesn't result in you mastering a skill.

BCG found three main reasons leadership and talent development programs do not produce results:

1. Many companies have one-off events and workshops, but "true capability is developed over time and regularly reinforced."
2. Programs that are aimed at "broad, generic themes" like success or leadership do not help to develop specific skills. Instead, programs should focus on two or three areas that your employees can work on.
3. The success of most programs is measured by attendance and attendee satisfaction. The best way to see if a workshop was successful, however, is to assess the skills attendees developed.

"People don't develop skills from simply reading a book or going to a one-off workshop," Lovich said. "They build skills by having to do something, failing, and trying again and again."

The most effective leadership development involves daily in-the-field experience with opportunities to practice and reinforce new skills, Lovich said. Regularly practicing new skills while working helps to make training relevant to the company's business.

"A few simple things done consistently well across daily routines can drive cultural change," she said. "By teaching through practical daily routines and providing simple tools to practice and observe leadership at work, organizations can give their people a practical way to improve every day."

Will Yakowicz

"3 Reasons Leadership Training Is a Huge Waste" Inc. 10/20/2015

by the close study of books

…With war threatening, [Nathanael Greene] turned his mind to “the military art.” Having ample means to buy whatever books he needed, he acquired a number of costly military treatises few could afford. It was a day and age that saw no reason why one could not learn whatever was required – learn virtually anything – by the close study of books, and he was a prime example of such faith. Resolved to become a “fighting Quaker,” he made himself as knowledgeable on tactics, military science, and leadership as any man in the colony.

David G. McCullough

1776. Simon & Schuster, 2005. p.23

all leaders are readers

Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.


Harry S. Truman
From The Greatest Quotations of All-Time, edited by Anthony St. Peter. 2010.

the leadership benefits of reading

Broad reading habits are often a defining characteristic of our greatest leaders and can catalyze insight, innovation, empathy, and personal effectiveness.

Note how many business titans are or have been avid readers. According to The New York Times, Steve Jobs had an "inexhaustible interest" in William Blake; Nike founder Phil Knight so reveres his library that in it you have to take off your shoes and bow; and Harman Industries founder Sidney Harman called poets "the original systems thinkers," quoting freely from Shakespeare and Tennyson. In Passion & Purpose, David Gergen notes that Carlyle Group founder David Rubenstein reads dozens of books each week. And history is littered not only with great leaders who were avid readers and writers (remember, Winston Churchill won his Nobel prize in Literature, not Peace), but with business leaders who believed that deep, broad reading cultivated in them the knowledge, habits, and talents to improve their organizations.

The leadership benefits of reading are wide-ranging. Evidence suggests reading can improve intelligence and lead to innovation and insight. Some studies have shown, for example, that reading makes you smarter through "a larger vocabulary and more world knowledge in addition to the abstract reasoning skills." Reading — whether Wikipedia, Michael Lewis, or Aristotle — is one of the quickest ways to acquire and assimilate new information. Many business people claim that reading across fields is good for creativity. And leaders who can sample insights in other fields, such as sociology, the physical sciences, economics, or psychology, and apply them to their organizations are more likely to innovate and prosper.

Reading can also make you more effective in leading others. Reading increases verbal intelligence, making a leader a more adept and articulate communicator. Reading novels can improve empathy and understanding of social cues, allowing a leader to better work with and understand others — traits that author Anne Kreamer persuasively linked to increased organizational effectiveness, and to pay raises and promotions for the leaders who possessed these qualities. And any business person understands that heightened emotional intelligence will improve his or her leadership and management ability.

Finally, an active literary life can make you more personally effective by keeping you relaxed and improving health. For stressed executives, reading is the best way to relax, as reading for six minutes can reduce stress by 68%, and some studies suggest reading may even fend off Alzheimer's, extending the longevity of the mind. 

John Coleman

For Those Who Want to Lead, Read. HBR Blog Network. Harvard Business Review. August 15, 2012