01-06-2025
Business Leaders Must Read These 5 Surprising Children's Books Now
Business leaders can learn invaluable lessons from these 5 children's books
Summer is a great time to catch up on reading. This is a list of children's books that business leaders should read. Why children's books? Because they are short. They are fun. And they pack in quick, deep leadership lessons business leaders can benefit from.
Leadership growth isn't only found in business books or 5 step strategies on a PowerPoint slide. You can find business communication lessons on making the case for change and turning the complex clear to thriving despite conflicts in children's books. Critical leadership skills can be learned through the creative and joyful act of reading children's books. Enjoy!
An endearing picture book about Vashti, a kid who didn't think she could make art. With the encouragement of her teacher, she finally, angrily, makes a dot on a paper. The teacher asks Vashti to sign the paper, and then frames it. That simple act of creation starts a journey for Vashti where she learns to tap into exploration and creativity, and even her own ability to mentor others .
This book is stunning — it gives the right dose of encouragement and reframing to inspire someone to do great things. The book illustrates how starting small can lead to big endeavors — especially when you have a great mentor alongside you.
Everyone has experienced some limiting beliefs at some point in their career. Like the teacher who reframes Vashti's struggle and breaks open her student's internal stalemate, great business mentors help colleagues grow.
Chris McAuley is one such mentor. He was working with an individual who needed to give presentations for her job, but her fear of being the center of attention was parallelizing. McAuley used a storytelling tool, Passion DNA, to help her see herself in a new light. As a guide on the side, McAuley was able to unlock her confidence and the change was immediately obvious to her boss. Read the full story here.
This book explains clearly and simply how everyone has an invisible bucket that can be filled through small acts of kindness or emptied by acts of thoughtlessness or cruelty. And when you help fill up someone else's bucket, you fill up your own as well!
This book is a metaphorical genius. Emotion is intangible. Kindness and bullying are abstract concepts. In the workplace, there's little guidance on emotions, but we know it when we witness them and feel them throughout the day. Yet everyone experiences these intangible abstractions differently. So how do we begin to articulate them? We search for the right metaphors.
'Did you know everyone everywhere is carrying an invisible bucket everyday?' With that simple metaphor, the author makes emotions something easy for everyone to understand. Metaphors are shortcuts to understanding our world.
Comparing the familiar with the unfamiliar is a leadership communication and storytelling tool that helps clarify the complex, giving audiences a way to quickly get the gist. Thoughtfully and deliberately using metaphors is a way to immediately connect with your audience.
In a pitch about the urgent need to invest in upgrading medical credentialing — an overlooked and complex process — Dr. Garry Choy compared it to instant credit checks: 'When you buy a car, you can get a credit check, instantaneously. Why don't we have that for doctors? Where they went to medical school never changed. Where they're licensed is public information. With a click of a button, why can't you aggregate the same information that you get when you buy a car?' Because instant credit checks are so familiar — and so fast — it makes it obvious that the same tools should be used in medical credentialing. See metaphors used to explain the complex topics.
In this children's book, a mouse family shares a lovely picnic together. After the picnic, the brother and sister have some fun by pestering a neighboring cat. But then the fun turns into danger.
The Barking Mouse has a wonderful plot twist. When facing imminent danger (a murderous cat intent on slaughtering the family of mice), the resourceful Mamá Ratón begins barking ferociously at the feline. The cat is puzzled, "A barking mouse?" he asks himself. He decides to play it safe, and retreats. Mama Raton's message to her children, "It pays to speak another language." In conflicts, the element of surprise and creativity is as important as being strong, out maneuvering your opponents. And yes, it's also critical to speak another language so we can reach our opponents more effectively.
We all face conflicts at work. How do we overcome them? While barking like a dog at the people involved in the conflict will not solve most of our problems, the element of surprise can catch people in the thick of an emotional argument off guard.
In a conflict at work when a person is opposing your point of view, they expect to engage in argument and are in 'fight' mode. Empathetic statements like 'Tell me more' or 'So what I hear you saying is…' can surprise them and help them regain control of their emotions. What's more, their answers may surprise you!
Malin Leschly, CDO of Logitech uses the question 'Tell me more. Where's that coming from?' especially when people are frustrated. She found that the conflict is not what she thinks it's about, nor even what the frustrated person thinks it's about. The conflict is actually about something different entirely. 'I think of listening as a superpower,' says Leschly.
Irreverent and humorous, this book takes on the classic tale of the Three Little Pigs, but told from the Big Bad Wolf's point of view. Did Mother Goose leave out some important details in her telling of the story? You will find out now.
The Wolf is still the murderer — the one who ate the first two pigs. It's still the third little pig who did him in, but when told from a different perspective, the story becomes much more layered and complex. Love this twist? We also recommend the novel James by Percival Everett, which just won the Pulitzer Prize. Everett takes on a similar project in the retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim, Huck's enslaved companion.
The twist in perspective helps readers understand that it's important to understand multiple points of view when trying to understand the truth. What are missing if you ignore the point of view of other stakeholders?
These books show how point of view can change everything — and sharing your point of view and being open to others perspectives is a critical business leadership skill.
Do you imagine your audience's point of view when you are preparing a presentation? A client used our exercise called Know Vs. Don't Know, a tool used to help you understand your audience, and she realized she had been preparing a presentation for her leadership team full of information they didn't need to know and wouldn't care about. With that newly gained perspective, she was then able to share relevant and necessary information with them. This is the essence of brainstorming and bouncing ideas off each other — our different points of view.
Astra and her family are moving to a new planet! Before they get into their sleeping pods for the long journey, Astra orders the 'ultimate cake' for a snack from the ship's computer. This turns out to be a terrible mistake. Can Astra and her robot friend save the ship and all its sleeping passengers from the killer cupcakes and marauding muffins?
This book's cast of unlikely characters — a kid with a stuffie, desserts that come to life, aliens who hunt the galaxy for spoons, and a terrifying spaghetti-shaped creature — will take you on a wild ride that is an equal mix of fun, suspense, touching and strange. Each character is more complex than they first appear and small actions have big consequences. Through the unexpected twists and turns, the book reminds readers how important our everyday choices are — from the words we choose to the small kindnesses we extend toward others. We want to know what will happen next.
Suspense isn't just for children's books and mysteries. Business leaders can also use suspense to engage their audience. Filmmaker Jason Blum describes suspense as: 'creating situations that are relatable, and throwing a wrench in it and watching how people respond.'
To show your character in an interview or performance review, suspense is a great way to stand out from the crowd. Describe a difficult situation and how you responded. This takes guts. You have to be honest about the dilemma you faced. But showing how you prevailed illustrates your character — even if the outcome was not what you had hoped for.
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We hope you add some children's books to your summer reading list. Though the books are often short, simple, the business lessons they can provide are deep, meaningful and lasting. Business leadership lessons are everywhere — if you are open to learning!
