According to Forbes, McKinsey senior partner Carolyn Dewar’s research into 2,000 chief executives over 15 years identified that the top 200 performing leaders share a crucial habit: voracious reading across subjects far removed from their day-to-day roles. The study, detailed in the book A CEO for All Seasons, profiles leaders including JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon, Adobe’s Shantanu Narayen, and Elevance Health’s Gail Boudreaux, all of whom prioritize reading as a strategic activity rather than entertainment. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella specifically sets aside one day monthly for reading and learning, having previously transformed Microsoft’s culture after reading psychologist Carol Dweck’s Mindset about growth mindset concepts. These executives treat reading as essential to “looking around corners” for emerging trends and novel approaches to challenges.
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Table of Contents
The Cognitive Diversity Advantage
What makes cross-disciplinary reading so powerful for leadership isn’t just the accumulation of knowledge—it’s the development of what cognitive scientists call “conceptual blending.” When leaders like Nadella read psychology books to solve technology company challenges, they’re engaging in pattern recognition across domains that specialists within their organizations might miss. This creates a form of cognitive diversity that’s increasingly valuable in complex, rapidly changing business environments. While teams benefit from demographic and experiential diversity, individual leaders who cultivate diverse mental models through broad reading can connect insights that others might overlook. The chief executive officer role has evolved from primarily managing operations to becoming the organization’s chief sense-maker, and broad reading provides the raw material for that sense-making process.
The Strategic Imperative of Learning Time
The most revealing aspect of this research isn’t that successful CEOs read—it’s that they systematically protect time for learning despite overwhelming demands on their attention. In an era where executive calendars are typically packed with back-to-back meetings and crisis management, carving out dedicated learning time represents a profound shift in how we conceptualize leadership work. This isn’t casual reading during downtime; it’s scheduled, intentional learning that these leaders treat with the same seriousness as board meetings or strategic planning sessions. The implication for leadership development is significant: we may need to reevaluate how we measure executive productivity if the most valuable work happens during what appears to be unstructured thinking time.
The Risk of Specialization in Rapid Change
The traditional career advice to “stay in your lane” has become dangerously obsolete in today’s business environment. When McKinsey researchers note that successful leaders expand their lanes rather than staying in them, they’re highlighting a fundamental shift in how expertise functions in complex systems. Deep specialization creates vulnerability to disruption, while broad knowledge across domains builds resilience. This explains why leaders like Shantanu Narayen at Adobe have successfully transformed their companies multiple times—they’re not just experts in their current business models but students of change itself. The most dangerous blind spot for modern leaders isn’t lack of industry knowledge but lack of perspective from outside their industry.
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Implementing Strategic Reading in Practice
For organizations looking to develop this capability beyond the C-suite, the challenge lies in creating systems that reward broad learning rather than punishing time spent away from immediate tasks. Many corporate cultures still implicitly value appearing busy over being thoughtfully engaged in learning. The most forward-thinking companies are beginning to treat learning time as a measurable leadership competency, building reading groups, creating learning sabbaticals, and even tying compensation to demonstrated growth in diverse knowledge areas. As Forbes and other business media continue to highlight these patterns, we may see a fundamental redefinition of what constitutes productive executive behavior in the digital age.
The Future of Leadership Development
If the most successful CEOs are those who maintain what Nadella calls a “learn-it-all” rather than “know-it-all” mindset, then traditional leadership development programs may need complete overhaul. Rather than focusing primarily on industry-specific knowledge or management techniques, future executive education might emphasize building what author David Epstein calls “range”—the ability to integrate knowledge across domains. The implications extend to board composition, succession planning, and even how we identify high-potential talent early in careers. Organizations that systematically cultivate broad readers at all levels may discover they’re building not just better leaders but more innovative and adaptable organizations overall.
