Professional Reading

Lifelong learning is important, particularly if you want to be a leader. Not only are you a much more interesting conversationalist, you will more importantly remain up to date in your field of work and in the environment in which you do your job. If leaders are going to adapt to change they need to first know what those changes are, and the easiest way to do that is to continue your education indefinitely.

Formal education is useful; go get yourself that master’s degree. It does not even have to be related to your specific industry. You will find that learning, no matter what the subject, provides you the mental tools to succeed in any field. Simply learning new ways of thinking offers a lot of benefits.

But do not limit yourself to formal programs; after a half dozen master’s degrees you will find the marginal benefit gets pretty small! Instead, complement some formal education with ongoing informal education…go learn on your own through reading. One way to develop new ideas of your own is to expose yourself to others’ perspectives, which will often spark an idea in your mind or help you develop your own best process for innovation.

You should be doing some regular reading, such as newspapers, magazines, and academic or professional journals. For some good weekly reading, for instance, consider something like The Economist, which discusses business in the context of many different cultures and political situations. It offers good “general” reading, but you should also consider magazines unique to your particular field, so you can keep up on what others are doing and hopefully spark some ideas of your own. Step away from “headline” news sites and read through a real daily paper; The Wall Street Journal provides national and world news along with plenty of business news, of course, while the International Herald Tribune and the Financial Times serve as great global papers as well (and if you insist on picking a paper based on your political views, there are plenty to choose from). Through other people’s actions you can liable to learn a lot about your field, your operating environment, and your options when it comes to leadership, so start reading and take advantage of others’ mistakes and successes.

Don’t forget books. Reading about your industry, reading about leadership, whatever, you should be reading. If you want to know what to read you can get ideas from your peers, your employees, your friends…what have others found interesting? Look for suggested reading lists by users on Amazon that reflect your interests. Take a look at Facebook — there’s a nice “Books I’ve Read” application that allows you to see what people with similar interests are reading.

Encourage professional reading among your employees. Make learning a part of their job and allow them to make time during the day to do some reading. When I was working in a strategic planning position in an international relations office I used to read Foreign Affairs and other foreign policy journals, but I was often made to feel I should be doing that on my own time. I always figured my boss and my peers should have been happy I was keeping up with things in our field instead of sarcastically chastising me for “wasting time.”

Too many leaders look only for measurable results at the end of the work day, and forget the intangibles. But in knowledge work, it is often the intangibles that lead to tangibles. You should be engaged in professional reading if you want to stay relevant, and you would be wise to encourage that among your employees, too. It is hard to come up with fresh ideas if you do not continue to advance your knowledge.