I remember a football star in high school bragging that he had never read a book. He wound up as a payroll clerk in a grocery chain. Even today people tell me they never read fiction. That's interesting, because I'd rather be immersed in the rich worlds of Dickens, Steinbeck, Irving, Updike, Austin, and Flaubert than almost anyone else. I find that over 90 percent of all business books written are turgid and impractical.
History, science fiction, biographies, philosophy-they all provide for an education that make us objects of interest to others. We learn about human motivation, historical trends, political maneuverings, serendipitous developments-in other words, all the issues that confront us daily in the world of business.
I don't relate well to "one trick ponies" who can only talk about technology, or leadership, or finance (or sports, or food, or television). I abhor the rumor-as-fact and opinion-as-reality of social media. Reading and educating ourselves are not inimical to other pursuits. They simply put our other pursuits in better context and enable us to enjoy life more.
If you haven't read The Grapes of Wrath then the Great Depression is just an abstraction. Life as we understand it should be anything but.
Alan Weiss
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Reprinted with permission
Is leadership a learned behavior or an innate personality trait? While there are certainly naturally charismatic individuals who are considered "born leaders", leadership is a measurable set of behaviors that can be learned and taught. This is the conclusion arrived at by researchers Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner after years of rigorous research. Starting in 1982, Kouzes and Posner set out to understand what happened when leaders performed at their personal best. They conducted hundreds of interviews and reviewed hundreds of cases studies and survey questionnaires. What emerged were five fundamental practices common to extraordinary leadership achievements:
