How literature finds its way in a blog based on leadership challenges and dilemmas may at first look strange. However, reading in addition to being a flow activity is also useful, as a reader may gain information, without actually having to ask anyone, and sharing their ignorance. They can in other words gain knowledge and become initiated, without being at anyone else’s disposal.
But why on earth is literature so helpful? We rarely hear that it results in and enhances some form of practical knowledge.
Literature does however give us the opportunity to obtain scores of a secret knowledge. Not only do we become initiated in issues governing the mind, but also in relation to „the heart”!
Good books are not simply made up of stories, interesting twists in the plot. Good books bring fascinating characters to life, with complicated dilemmas as well as ambivalent emotions – with people whom we may well encounter in our private lives, or as leaders, indeed our colleagues might experience such emotions on a daily basis.
Literature is categorically a joy of flow activity, it enhances our creativity in imagery, emotional intelligence, our abilities with regard to empathy, it helps us switch off, but is thought provoking at the same time.
Russian literature is a unique branch of literature, „the great Russian soul” with its grand dilemmas, vexing emotions, a good example of this is Dosztojevszkij’s (Crime and Punishment) Pasternak’s (Doktor Zhivago) or Tolsztoj’s (War and Peace).
If literature really doesn’t appeal to you, then you can always read biographies: a clever person learns from other peoples’ life experiences, not from his/her own mistakes…
A person who reads lot of quality books, whether that be literature, biographical books or non-fiction can understand people better and can see the correlations – moreover once a person masters the art of quick reading, they won’t be disheartened when having to make a decision or forming an opinion, on the spur of the moment after reading a seventy-hundred paged professional document in a matter of a hours…
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