You’ve heard the saying “Leaders are readers.”
I no longer believe that is true!
That’s because just reading for reading’s sake is not a healthy leadership trait.
Great leaders are educators.
Meaning, they are always learning.
And always teaching.
They do this by reading, for certain! They are also podcast listeners; video watchers; conference attenders and intellectually curious.
Leaders learn wide, across many topics. This stops narrow-mindedness and gives them the ability to point the people they lead in the right direction.
Leaders also learn deep, digging into a few topics in detail. Which gives them the wisdom and experience to radically change how they lead.
People don’t want to follow a leader with empty knowledge.
People want to follow leaders with wisdom.
Experience.
And knowledge.
Great leaders are great learners and therefore great educators.
∴
Are you learning wide & deep to become the leader you need to be?
Footnote worth remembering: The saying “leaders are readers” was coined in the 1800s when reading was about the only option for learning.
We no longer live in a world where everyone feels the need to always strive for perfection.
“What did you do to get promoted?” she asked, hoping for a leadership gem. “I got lucky” I said, knowing it wasn’t the whole answer.
My neighbour’s bach (holiday home) sits on the sand dunes a short distance from the beach. The walking track from the bach to the beach sort of dog-legs through the sand dunes. It doubles back, and makes the walk longer than it could be. But while the path is longer, it is considerably easier and faster than trying to force a new path where one doesn’t exist.
I’m not sure what caused the epiphany. Maybe it was the brief moment I had sitting in crisp fresh air marveling at the lake and mountains nestled in the Swiss Alps. Perhaps it was processing time from long hours of driving. Or something I was reading, I cannot recall.
I can’t imagine what it’s like to go to war.
When I was a kid, before you could ‘google maps’ the entire earth, I day dreamed of exploring the vast pacific ocean and discovering some distant new island.
A few weeks ago three people, over the course of a week, reached out to ask why I wasn’t blogging? One example is from a young reader who private messaged me, “I was just wondering what happened with your blogs – I really enjoyed reading them”
Around our house we have duties that everyone has to do each week on rotation as a part of being in the family. Then there are the tasks like mowing the lawns which I can do for free, or the kids can do for money.