Chapter 12: Leaders Are Readers: When You Find a Leader, You Find a Reader, and for Good Reason.
This chapter is an excellent summary of the true proverb: leaders are readers. Seeing reading as fuel for conviction, Mohler covers topics on how, what, and when to read. This practical chapter spends less time defending the main point and more time offering useful tips. His argument that leaders should read fiction because it is essential for communication is still true. Fiction teaches leaders how to tell a narrative in a compelling way. Mohler’s last remark that a leader’s “most faithful and productive thinking will often come as [he reads] from an author with whom [he] disagrees” is a truth that stings. It is easy to only read friendly discourse. But reading opposing viewpoints requires full engagement of the mind. So be sure to read good fiction and well-written counterarguments.
This post is part of a larger series of posts. Each post is a short reflection on a chapter of The Conviction to Lead: 25 Principles for Leadership that Matters by Albert Mohler (ISBN 978-0-7642-1004-4).
