A Leader is a Reader

A Leader is a Reader!

A Leader is a Reader 

A great philosopher and a roman statesman Marcus Tullius Cicero once said, “ A man who does not know what happened before he was born, goes through life like a child’. ^[1] This statement explains some of the most prevalent problems in our society. People are influenced in their areas of life where they are ignorant whether in politics or in religion. When they see ignorance, they immediately seeks to take out advantage of their fellow men. And to prevent it from happening, the best way could not be other than reading.

A Leader is a Reader 

If a person desires to lead in their areas of gifting or talents, that is a noble task to do but it’s not manifested without understanding and wisdom. Unless one gains and assimilate the concepts regarding their areas of competence, they cannot lead from the front. And perhaps we already know it but I want to clarify it again that leadership is not merely about influencing & impacting ‘other’ people.

And yet time and again many people believe that its just about other people and less about themselves. Leading yourself & influencing your actions is again about leadership. And probably the most important criteria of a leader is that he or she is a reader. You cannot lead if you are ignorant in your areas of competence. I don’t understand why some people have this notion of eschewing reading and compare it with age. They say that they are too old to read. And perhaps that’s the reason why they are too old to lead!

A Leader is a Reader 

When you read, you are actually RE-ADDING to your existing knowledge and the result is that you end up being more competitive, arguably smarter and less ignorant. I remember Mark Twain quote which goes like this: “He who does not read is not better than he who cannot read”. And I can’t agree more with him. He is absolutely correct in portraying and even exposing the fact that the modern education system has a defective definition of a literate man. They consider you literate, when you can read and write in a particular language. But Twain is trying to signify some different meaning. How can this be so? Probably this is the time that we need to change the definition of a literate man.

The problem is that if your information is erroneous, you are going to pass it onto others and this chain creates a bunch of asinine people some of which are zealous about their erroneous information. So it’s not just about reading, it’s about deciding what’s the right thing for you to read. When you read, you are going to learn some things which you never really knew existed before. Here are some stats on how much successful people read: Elon Musk used to read for 10 hours when he was young, former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates read a book every week. Warren Buffett spends 5-6 hours a day reading, Mark Cuban often reads 3 hours  a day. ^[2]

A Leader is a Reader 

All in all, reading influences in ways we can’t even comprehend. Research proves that reading changes the way humans solve problems, store information, tell stories, interpret the world, and think about themselves. Whether you are an avid reader or whether you never really finished reading a book, the fact remains that reading can empower you in a multitude of ways.

Change in your mindset and beliefs starts with a simple and powerful act. Pick up a book… open it… and start reading… so that you can start growing in ways you never imagined before.

 

Bibliography

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[1]	Marcus Tullius Cicero. (2020, December 19) goodreads. [Online]. https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/18978-to-be-ignorant-of-what-occurred-before-you-were-born
[2]	CHRIS WELLER. (2020, December 19) Business Insider. [Online]. https://www.businessinsider.com/what-successful-people-read-2017-7

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