A Few Great Leadership Novels

Lasting lessons can be found in fiction

I’ve encountered executives who confess that they have not done any reading - outside of business reports – since college. That is a giant oversight. With that omission, they are missing perspectives that can be invaluable.

There are excellent management books out there, but it’s a mistake to restrict your leadership reading to nonfiction. These novels are sprinkled with great and memorable insights:

The Centurions by Jean Larteguy. General David Petraeus’s favorite novel. Check out the scene where the French officer being held in a Viet Minh POW camp realizes that the French strategy in Indochina is the equivalent of using only 32 cards in a deck while the Viet Minh use 52. The resulting advantage goes far beyond traditional warfare.

The Last Hurrah by Edwin O’Connor. Both informative and funny. An old Irish American politician fights for re-election as mayor of Boston, carefully cranking up his coalition of interest groups as the local newspaper plots to destroy him. Little does he realize that the changing times will also play a role. There are several film versions of this but none of them come close to the novel.

The Aubrey-Maturin novels by Patrick O’Brian. An outstanding series about Jack Aubrey, a Royal Navy officer during the Napoleonic wars and his friend Stephen Maturin, a skilled surgeon. Patrick O’Brian was honored at a luncheon with the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. The film, Master and Commander, starring Russell Crowe, captured the flavor of the series. I recommend reading the books but be sure to start with the first volume.