Leadership Consultant and Business Philosopher, Jim Rohn, was once quoted saying that "the book you don't read won't help".

I often ask people how many self-help or motivational books they have read and the most common answers are that they haven't read since high school or university; that they don't like reading at all or that they are too busy to read. Yet many people find it easy to spend hours watching TV or read newspapers and their favorite magazines. 

Watching TV or reading newspapers and magazines is not the problem. The challenge is when this becomes our only source of information apart from interaction with others. Jim Rohn says that we "need to nourish our minds like we would our body". He further states that "the mind cannot survive on junk food". Most of the time the information we get from TV and newspapers is less than nourishing. And most of us know the statement "Garbage In-Garbage Out".

Leaders are particularly exposed and vulnerable when they don't read self-help books. This is because they are confronted more and more with an increasingly knowledgeable and informed followership, needing quality answers to questions and challenges facing them everyday. A leader consequently needs to be able to communicate and explain more effectively to better lead his team. But before the leader can do this, he needs to improve his thinking. This comes from not only studying solid information found in e.g. principle-centered self-help books, but also applying this information effectively.

What would be a good resolution for the next few months to come? How about reading a good book like 'How to win friends and influence people', starting off with only 15 minutes per day? If you find it too hard to do, how about reading just 1 page per day? You will be able to complete a 100 page book in about three months time following this strategy. This will add up to four books per year! Don't you think you will be better off than not having read any self-help books at all?

"Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers."

Burke Hedges, Author of Read & Grow Rich