You may have heard the above quote in the title to this post before - "leaders are readers and readers are leaders." I just came across some words in Hugh Hewitt's book In But Not Of, that deal with this. After giving his readers a booklist for catching up on the history of western civilzation, he comes to a total of fourteen books and says that this is just a smidgeon of what we should be reading every year. Then he goes on to say:
If the prospect of reading - a lot - daunts you, then you are not serious about genuine influence. The people who run the world are readers and constantly in search of more information.
Love it . . . He also has a good thougth in the same section about leadership.
But leadership is always looking for the next generation of leadership and that is not a specific talent. It is a package of skills and disciplines, one of which is intellectual curiosity. This curiosity is the first ingredient of leadership.
And Doc Noebel's corollary to that is to be a "reader of leaders. . ."
Posted by: TulipGirl | December 22, 2004 at 11:04 AM
I love it and I love books.
Posted by: Teem | December 22, 2004 at 11:31 AM
We just finished teaching Leighton Ford's book Transforming Leadership in our HS class last Sunday. I wish you had posted this last week :-)
Excellent piece of advice.
btw. Merry Christmas!
Posted by: Rong | December 22, 2004 at 11:33 AM
You should give a Jolly Award to the blog with the best book recommendations! He or she is leading the charge.
Posted by: Terry | December 23, 2004 at 05:34 PM
Good piece of advice. And, in closing—Merry Christmas everyone!
Posted by: Rey | December 24, 2004 at 04:43 PM
I had a professor who once noted that the world is full of books, but that each generation needed to write and produce more and more to keep in step with the age. Great advice. "So many books, so little time..."
Posted by: Phil S | December 24, 2004 at 06:21 PM
I adore books! I have stacks of them (well, on bookshelves for the most part) in every room of my apartment!
But what - you don't tell us what his book recs are? ;)
Posted by: Miss O'Hara | January 04, 2005 at 10:13 AM