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Microsoft Chairman and CEO Satya Nadella delivering a keynote at CES in Las Vegas (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images) Getty Images October is National Book Month, but for the world’s top-performing CEOs, reading isn’t reserved for a specific month. It’s a strategic habit they regularly practice throughout their careers. “The best CEOs make time for reading,” according to McKinsey senior partner Carolyn Dewar in an interview about her new book A CEO for All Seasons. Dewar and her three McKinsey co-authors set out to identify the habits of excellence by starting with a list of 2,000 chief executives who have led global companies over the past 15 years. Eventually, they whittled the list down to the top 200 leaders who drove remarkable transformations and delivered stronger results than their peers. The final list of leaders they selected to profile includes many of the world’s most admired chief executives, such as JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, and Gail Boudreaux, the CEO of Elevance Health (formerly Anthem) who appeared on the Forbes’ 2024 list of the 100 Most Powerful Women. What struck me as I read the book was that the featured leaders—some of whom I’ve met or interviewed—all share an underappreciated habit that often goes unnoticed by the business press. They’re voracious readers. The best CEOs not only read more books than their peers, but they also read broadly across subjects far removed from their day-to-day roles. “This is something that struck us across all of the interviews as well with these exceptionally high performing CEOs,” Dewar said. “They make real time for reading and learning all the way through their tenure.” MORE FOR YOU Make time for reading. How can busy professionals “make time” for reading despite maintaining intense schedules that would make most people collapse from fatigue? They make time because they consider it a crucial activity and part of their job role. Reading gets its own time in the calendar because it’s so much more than a relaxation or entertainment exercise—it’s part of a strategy for growing a career and a company. A CEO For All Seasons by McKinsey senior partners “They don’t see it as self-indulgent or separate from their jobs,” says Dewar. “They say to themselves, if the CEO isn’t the one reading and looking around corners, who else is? Dewar says high-performing CEOs—and those who aspire to leadership—are insatiably curious, with an intense desire to learn. Successful leaders find that reading physical books or, increasingly, listening to audiobooks, is essential for spotting new trends or novel ways of looking at today’s challenges through a different lens. Read outside your lane. For decades, “stay in your lane” was respectable career advice. It made sense in a world that moved much more slowly than it does today. Organizations valued people who were specialists and could do one thing very well. Reinventing yourself and your company today in a rapidly changing world means expanding your lane, because staying in it could be the riskier move. When innovative leaders choose books to read, they rarely stay in their lane—their established field. And that’s because they never know where a spark might come from. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, who’s also featured in A CEO for All Seasons, is widely admired for reinventing Microsoft’s growth areas when the tech giant was struggling to stay relevant. According to the McKinsey authors, Nadella accomplished the turnaround, in part, by fostering a corporate culture that stressed being a “learn-it-all” and not a “know-it-all.” Nadella models the learn-it-all mindset by setting aside one day a month just to read and learn. In advance of the reading day, he contacts peers, experts, or team members and asks for their recommendations. Nadella reads broadly and strategically. For example earlier this month he announced a restructuring of roles, placing another executive as the CEO of Microsoft’s commercial business. Nadella purposely re-arranged his role so he could dedicate more time to studying and leading the work Microsoft is doing in AI. Satya Nadella reads strategically. In his memo announcing the new structure, Nadella reminded the organization that innovation at the highest level requires “each one of us to be at our very best in terms of rapidly learning new skills…this isn’t just evolution. It’s reinvention.” Nadella led Microsoft’s big pivot earlier in his tenure after he read Mindset by Carol Dweck, the researcher who coined the term “growth mindset.” The concept that Nadella credits for changing the culture was rooted in psychology, not technology. While we don’t know what’s next on Nadella’s reading list, we know he’ll have one. During an AI conference, Nadella said he had read The Dream Machine, about a visionary psychologist, J.C.R Licklider, whose ideas led to the development of the personal computer. Nadella didn’t read it because he needed to learn the history of the PC. He read it because ‘Lick’ imagined a future where people would work with computers to solve problems together. So, while the topic isn’t new, Nadella is applying the book’s lessons to a new chapter in the relationship between human and machine. Nadella’s reading strategy is a reminder that insights often come from outside your core expertise. The best CEOs don’t just read what they like because it’s familiar to them. Instead, they explore ideas from outside their field to change the way they think, lead, and innovate. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
