Leaders are Readers

What are you reading? For pleasure? For professional development? For spiritual growth? Leaders are life-long learners. Leaders are life-long readers. Tell me what your reading and I’ll know a great deal about your leadership skills. I love to read. It’s how I learn. Give me the instruction book and leave me alone if you want me to put something together. Some books are quickly read and forgotten, some should be kept for reference. Other books are like loved ones or old friends who return for a visit after a long interruption. I began this year reading for pleasure, professional development and pleasure.

Book’s I’m reading for pleasure: I am reading five books currently for pleasure: three biographies, a recent new survey of the Second World War, and a chess classic:

Jon Meacham’s Thomas Jefferson: the Art of Power, Random House, 2012. I always enjoy Meacham’s books and this is no exception. In this new biography, Meacham describes the tension between Jefferson’s principles and his pragmatism. How Jefferson practiced leadership and used the levers of power is instructive for leaders at all levels today.

William Manchester & Paul Reid, The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Defender of the Realm, 1940-1965, Little Brown and Company, 2012.  Having read the first two volumes of this trilogy I have waited for nearly 25 years for this final volume. Alas, Manchester died and it was completed by his friend Paul Reid. This final volume covers Churchill’s life through the first time he became prime minister during World War II until his death. All WSC did during this period was defeat Hitler, Hirohito, write his memoirs, and win the Nobel Prize for Literature for his five volume history of The English Speaking Peoples. Otherwise, he didn’t accomplish much. This final volume is worthy of the man called the “greatest Briton ever.”

The final biography I’m reading (or will read) at this time is Thomas Kidd’s Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots, Basic Books, 2011. Kidd is an up and coming colonial historian of note and an important voice for young evangelicals today. Henry is one person all lovers of liberty should seek to know and understand.

I also plan to read, Andrew Roberts, The Strom of War, Harper Collins, 2011, a new survey of the Second World War. Roberts is no revisionist but provides a cogent narrative matched by faithful research and masterful detail. Since the death this past year of Sir John Keegan, a noted military historian, Roberts fills an important void.

This year marks the fortieth anniversary of my amateur chess career. I learned the game during the famous world championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. For several years my youngest son has been a serious student of the game. Now the pupil is outpacing the teacher! He is one of the best chess players his age in North Texas. He beats me two-thirds of the time. So now I have to change and upgrade my game. That’s why I’m spending time this winter with an old friend, I. A. Horowitz’s Chess Openings: Theory and Practice, Simon and Schuster, 1964. I have to remind myself I’m reading for pleasure and that I’m tired to getting the stuffin’ beat out of me. J

Books I’m reading for professional development: Like many others, I challenged my readers that the Church in the USA must re-think and re-deploy our strategy for cultural engagement. I’m not sure what we need to do to go forward. I only know that what we’ve done, ain’t working.  So I’m working through two books I hope will help be able to articulate a new strategy: Will Mancini, Church Unique: How Missional Leaders cast Vision, Capture Culture and Create Movement, Jossey-Bass, 2008 and Donald A. Carson’s, Christ and Culture Revisited, William B. Eerdsmans, 2008. I’ll be sharing insights and reactions on this blog as I work through these two books.

Spiritual Development: I am planning to teach a 10-12 lesson series from Deuteronomy in the spring entitled, “People of the Promise!” In preparation, I am re-reading another old friend, Peter Craigie’s The Book of Deuteronomy, Eerdsmans, 1976 in The New International Commentary on the Old Testament.

What are you reading? Let me know. Share it with others. Remember: Leaders are learners, learners are leaders.