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Business Insider argues that while CEOs heavily favor nonfiction – think The 48 Laws of Power or The Intelligent Investor – it’s fiction that can truly sharpen leadership skills. Figures like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos have long championed practical, instructive books. Yet experts like Tess Pawlisch – a communications CEO – and Harvard’s Joseph Badaracco emphasize fiction’s unique value: it cultivates empathy, emotional intelligence, adaptability, and moral depth.
Pawlisch warns that relying solely on nonfiction – often authored by similar demographics – limits a leader’s ability to connect across diverse experiences. She says reading fiction, such as Isabel Allende’s The House of the Spirits, fosters “muscle memory for nuance, contradiction, imagination”. Students of Badaracco’s Harvard course “The Moral Leader” report more grounded, humanized leadership after engaging with fictional narratives.
Creative industry voices echo the sentiment: Jordan Geary notes that “men who read fiction … are simply better at reading people. It’s like leg day for your soul.” Fiction builds social awareness and depth – qualities that rigid nonfiction rarely delivers.
