“Leaders are readers.”
Yep, if you want to do that leading thing well, you need to read. One challenge is sorting through all the “leadership” and other business books to find good ones. This post should help. Here are some pointers to reviews of and excepts from recent leadership (in the broadest sense) books.
In this post I point you to reviews of Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise and Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks.
From Kevin Eikenberry: Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise
“You probably don’t recognize the name Anders Ericsson, the lead of author of this book. But chances are you recognize some of his work. One of his studies of violin players in Berlin played a pivotal role in two popular books: Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. Specifically (and famously), Gladwell proclaimed the 10,000 hour rule – that to become a true expert in any field required 10,000 hours of a certain type of practice. In this new book, the authors discuss the work of Ericsson and his colleagues as they have tried to learn more about how we build expertise and how we can do so more reliably.”
From Marcella Bremer: Book Review: Business Secrets of the Trappist Monks
“Ora et labora: the twin pillars of monastic work are of equal importance. For a Trappist monk work is a form of prayer and prayer is a form of work. They practice mindfulness.”
Reading recommendations are a regular feature of this blog. Want more recommendations about what to read? Check out my Three Star Leadership blog, Michael McKinney’s LeadingBlog, and Bob Morris’ Blogging on Business.