I’ve been privileged to spend time around senior business leaders and some government officials. I pay attention to what they’re reading. You’ll see leading newspapers like WSJ and NYTimes. You’ll see a few of the recent “trendy” books that have especially good recommendations. I’ve often seen religious books — the Bible, Talmud, Buddhist, and Hindu Vedic texts most commonly. What intrigues me are the frequent instances of leaders reading biographies.
I suspect these leaders are operating in a world of problems which don’t have easy solutions. Yet we instinctly understand there are both spiritual dimensions to our challenges and we could learn by observing how other leaders handled the challenges in their time (whether well or not). When we realize that we’re beyond formulas and recipes, we turn to spiritual works and biographies.
Read biographies of people you admire, and a few you do not. This is not an exhaustive list of biographies I’ve enjoyed and benefitted by reading. I’m sharing in hopes you find something that piques your interest:
Titan (biography of John D. Rockefeller) — Ron Chernow
Benjamin Franklin – Walter Isaacson
Leonardo da Vinci – Walter Isaacson
The Last Lion (biography of Winston Churchill in 3 volumes) – William Manchester
Eisenhower in War and Peace – Jean Edward Smith
The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt – Edmund Morris
Theodore Rex — Edmund Morris
Team of Rivals – Doris Kearns Goodwin
Truman – David McCullough
John Adams – David McCullough
Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow
Robert E. Lee – Emory Thomas
Lew Kwan Yew: The Man and His Ideas – Kwang and Fernandez
Washington: A Life – Ron Chernow
Einstein: His Life and Universe – Walter Isaacson
The House of Morgan – Ron Chernow
Margaret Thatcher (authorized biography) – Charles Moore
Indira Ghandi – Inder Malhotra
Victoria: The Queen – Julia Baird
A Chance to Die: The Life and Legacy of Amy Carmichael – Elisabeth Elliot
