Top book recommendations of 2022: Leaders reveal books that changed and inspired them

Cristina Gamboa, CEO, World Green Building Council: There's a space for everyone to be successful. That book always brings it home and gives me the sight to be positive, clear, simple, humble. I really enjoyed it, and I always go back to its principles.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Welcome to Meet the Leader, a podcast where top leaders share how they're tackling the world's toughest challenges. In today's special compilation episode, we share the books that shaped some of the world's top leaders in business and civil society. Subscribe to Meet the Leader on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your favourite podcasts.

And please take a moment to rate and review us. I'm Linda Lacina from the World Economic Forum, and this is Meet the Leader

James Chen, Founder, Clearly: In that book what comes through is this idea that passion matters as much as strategy.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: It's December, and if you are like me, you're probably in the market for a few good book recommendations.

Maybe there's a hard-to-buy person on your list. Maybe you have a little bit of PTO squirrelled away and you wouldn't mind to spend an afternoon with a good book, one that you know will be worth it. Or maybe you've got some big goals for 2023 and wouldn't mind a read that will get you motivated and start you off on the right track.

I talked to a range of leaders in 2022 and I was always impressed and delighted by the range of books some of the smartest people in the world were changed and inspired by. There are of course resources that you'll want to pick up again and again, but there's also kids' books with surprising lessons for adults, and classics you may have forgotten but shouldn't, ones that will help you think and lead more efficiently.

Now, if you're looking for other book recommendations, I have to mention that you should dig into my colleague Beatrice DiCaro’s podcast, the Book Club Podcast, for a range of thought leaders, novelists and thinkers who will keep you both intrigued and interested.

But before you dig into her podcasts, let's kick off this episode with a recommendation from Shez Partovi. He's the Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer at Royal Phillips, a health technology company, and his job helps innovation work for patients. His pick, Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die’ by Chip and Dan Heath, helps people in that effort. And it is a great book to get us ready for the new year. Here’s Shez.

Shez Partovi, Chief Innovation and Strategy Officer, Royal Philips: So my favourite book, well, I have many favourite books, but this one, in the context of being a change agent, in the context of making people realize that focusing on experiences and centricity — Made to Stick, Why Some Ideas [Survive] and Some Ideas Die.

The Heath brothers wrote that book, and Made to Stick is around the power of simple communication, because you want ideas to stick. And so if you're a change agent, which I believe part of my job, a big part of my job, is to be a change agent, and my team's, is knowing how to communicate so things stick is critical.

You know, the great quote is “the problem with communicating is you think you've done it.” And so, to overcome that, I use the techniques in that book all the time. It's got an acronym which maps to a certain sort of approach. So, I use that concept and I recommend it to all the teams to read it because being a change agent means you have to make ideas stick.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Nela Richardson is the chief economist at ADP, a human capital management company. She's also the co-head of the ADP Research Institute. Her choice helps people ground themselves in an institution most people don't know enough about - one that has shaped the past year - our central banks. Here is Nela on 21st century monetary policy,

Nela Richardson, Chief Economist, ADP: I've recently picked up Ben Bernanke’s new book [21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19] on central banks. And I think that that in this moment is really important. With so many global central banks around the world really redefining themselves in the presence of inflation, which the world hasn't seen for decades, this is an important book to look at the history of central banks, particularly in the United States, arguably the most important, given the prominence of the dollar in world markets at the treasury markets as safe havens. But look at not just the success stories, but the missteps and how monetary policy plays a role in the vitality of not only financial markets but in the labour market as well.

So, I'd pick up that book. I’d thumb through it at least to really get a perspective on all the decisions that central banks are going to have to make over the course of the next two to three years to get inflation reigned in.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Alex Liu is the managing partner and chairman of Kearney, a global consultancy.

His favorite book harks back to his roots and his love of college basketball and how both shaped him. He'll explain more.

Alex Liu, Managing Partner and Chairman, Kearney: I grew up in a family of coaches and teachers. My father was a professor. My children are teachers in some way, and their mother is still a special education teacher. I love college basketball — watching it, I'm not good enough to play it and never was. There is a book called A Coach's Life, by Dean Smith, a former UNC, University of North Carolina basketball coach. He's not only a great coach, he coached Michael Jordan and all and had great success, but he had philosophy and principles that I always loved from an early age. For example, 'play hard, play smart, play together', and I can live with any outcome if I can achieve those three things.

I use that a little bit in my own leadership philosophy, which is I want my teams to work hard, work smart, work together, and I will accept any outcome because I know we've given our best.

And I want to do it in a just way. He integrated the basketball scene in the segregated South, where I grew up in, and he encapsulated a lot of his principles and perspectives in that book, A Coach’s Life.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Kristian Teleki is the Executive director of the Friends of Ocean Action at the World Economic Forum. His pick helps people connect more to helping the ocean. Here's Kristian.

Kristian Teleki, Executive Director, Friends of Ocean Action: Something I've read in the last few years is a book by a fellow by the name of Bren Smith. It's called Eat like a Fish. And it's an interesting journey of someone who was a diehard fishermen, but he was seeing real changes in front of his own eyes: catching smaller fish, less fish, changes in the ecosystem, climate change impacting before his eyes.

And he started thinking, what are the ways I could change my behaviour and allow me still to fish, allowing me still to make some money, but it's regenerative to the ocean so I can still take fish out, but I rethink the way I'm doing it and so that my activities are actually regenerative to the ecosystem that I have an influence on. And so he's fishing one particular time of the year. He's fishing kelp, harvesting kelp from the water. He's harvesting shells that now, oysters, mussels, not relying on a single target species, but different types through the year, you know, making sure that that he's taking different types out.

And when you think about, if we would be able to scale it, we at the moment globally are eating about 2,500 species coming from the ocean. Not everybody's doing that, of course, but it's enormous potential there. From land we're probably deriving our protein from four sources, you know, huge carbon-intensive sources.The water that's involved. Things from the sea are there.

So the good news is if you look at this book and the messages that are coming out of this Eat Like a Fish book, with very little effort and energy we could transform the food that's coming from the ocean, 'blue food', and that we could probably get about six times more food from the ocean than we do today, sustainably, feeding a lot of people going forward. So read that book and perhaps rethink about how we farm from the ocean.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Andrea Fuder is the chief purchasing officer at Volvo Group, a position that gives her a unique perspective into all parts of the business, allowing Andrea to be, as she calls it, a spider in the web.

Andrea talked to us at the Annual Meeting in May about her role, but also how she looks to create opportunity for. In that vein, here's the book that spoke to her, a unique book that will make you see leaders differently, and one I think will charm you as much as it did me.

Andrea Fuder, Chief Purchasing Officer, Volvo Group: Linda, now this is the moment where you want me to be super smart and come with a fantastic recommendation?

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: You’ve already been super smart.

Andrea Fuder: Now I should bring up fantastic titles of super top-notch books, right?

I would actually take a completely different approach. You know, one book I would still recommend, because I love it since years, is Pippi Longstocking.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: I love it.

Andrea Fuder: And you know why?

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Why?

Andrea Fuder: Because Pippi is still today a role model for many things. Because she is strong, she does not take care about gender-specific roles, and she demands, even from the grownups, that she's treated on eye level. And also, her leadership skills, you know, she was a great leader. She motivated people to follow her by convincing them. So, for me, she is still today a role model of a true leader.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Two leaders flagged A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins. We'll start with why Chano Fernandez thinks you should read it. He's the former co-CEO of Workday, a company that creates cloud applications for finance and human resources.

He spoke to me at the Annual Meeting about tech and how it will shape us. Here's what he had to say:

Chano Fernandez, Former Co-CEO, Workday: I'm reading A Thousand Brains by Jeff Hawkins, which is around artificial intelligence and neurons. And you realize how much early stages we are, to really understand how we really work and we operate. But I really love that one. It's a very nice one.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: How would somebody be changed once they read it?

Chano Fernandez, Co-CEO, Workday: I think they would become much more aware of what artificial intelligence may mean for the world, but also at the same time, it's a huge opportunity ahead of us, but there are a lot of things we don't understand yet on the human brain and how it operates, amd then how can that translate into the artificial intelligence itself, which I find it fascinating.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Justin Hotard of Hewlett Packet Enterprise also liked A Thousand Brains. He's the executive vice president and general manager there, steering the high-performance artificial intelligence business group and driving their work on supercomputers, some of the most powerful computers in the world. When he's not thinking about leading-edge tech, he's reading. And here's why A Thousand Brains impressed him

Justin Hotard, EVP & GM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise: It's a fascinating, fascinating book around how the future may evolve as we think about better understanding our own mind and think about what could happen in the future for machine learning and other advancements in science.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: If somebody was reading that book what would change for them? How would they look at the world differently?

Justin Hotard, EVP & GM, Hewlett Packard Enterprise: I think they might understand a little bit more about how we operate as humans, how we learn, how we process information, maybe cause them to reflect on some of the decisions they make daily. Habits. I think it's a very interesting book. And if you're in technology, I think it's a great way of refreshing how we think about programming and developing versus what could happen in the future with technological advancements.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Leif Johansson is the non-executive chair of the board at AstraZeneca. His pick is a book co-written by Google's former CEO Eric Schmidt as well as former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and author Daniel P. Huttenlocher. The book? The Age of AI: And Our Human Future. Here's Leif to explain more.

Leif Johansson, Chair, AstraZeneca: Dr. Kissinger and Eric Schmidt wrote a book on the future of AI, it's a very good book in terms of Dr. Kissinger providing his historic views of the world. And you remember Dr. Kissinger was the one who said let’s makes sure that we come out of conflict the way we did after the Second World War by embracing the Japanese and putting them into the world economy rather than what we did in the First World War when we took revenge on the Germans and created just a recipe for the Second World War. And he points out to the rest of us what he feels is the younger generation (which I'm really not any longer) and he says, you make sure that you get these times conflict treated in the same way with that generosity of inclusiveness that we had after the Second World War,

I think that's a brilliant historical perspective that he talks about and comes in there. Eric Schmidt provides a fantastic knowledge of artificial intelligence and how it can impact us both negatively and positively. I do a lot of work in science as you know, and I have done in my life. If I look at artificial intelligence, we can probably do more with artificial intelligence that we even can imagine right now, but only good things.

You can also do very ugly things with artificial intelligence, and we need to make that choice.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: What would people take from that? How would it change them.

Leif Johansson: It's so easy to think that we are doing the right thing every time because this guy did that and then I'm going to do that. This guy did that again, and I want to do that. And it's a very logical sequence of events.

There, it's good to hear Dr. Kissinger talking about 120 years' history and what should we have learned from that.

It all boils down to not 'how do we start wars' - I think we know how to do that - I think that all boils down to how do we end wars. How do we make sure that we come out of a conflict wiser, and richer than we were coming in? I don't see many of us right now speaking about that, when it comes to Russia and Ukraine.

Then I think on the artificial intelligence side, I think be aware of the dangers, but make sure that we embrace all of the opportunities.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Ezgi Barcenas is the Chief Sustainability Officer at AB-InBev, a company you know best for brands like Budweiser. She talked to me this spring about navigating change and her book pick focuses on a trait that can help anyone do just that.

Ezgi Barcenas, CSO, AB-InBev: I am, currently reading this book called Humankind: A Hopeful History, by Rutger Bregman.

I really think it's a really interesting big book because it argues that humans are wired to be kind. And I'd like to think that, you know, I've got two little kids, a three and a seven-year-old, and I'd like to believe that the natural state of humanity is not selfishness.

It may seem a radical idea, but I think it's quite refreshing to be thinking of humankind as kind. I think there is a lot of power in positive thinking, especially, again, in the state of the world that we live in today. So, I encourage everyone to read and I find it very refreshing so far.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Tolullah Oni is a public health physician and an urban epidemiologist. I talked to her at the Annual Meeting in Davos in May about her favourite book, one that drives home the surprising impact of public spaces. Here's Tolullah with Palaces for the People by Eric Klinenberg.

Tollullah Oni, Epidemiologist: So it is centered on public space. And seeing if you're building public space and public buildings and public institutions - libraries are a public space, right? A lot of schools are public space. And the quote is from - I'm going to massacre it -I'm not going to quote it, but it's somebody who described, public space and public institutions as palaces for other people. I loved it because I thought a mark of development for any city should be are you building palaces for your people.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Barbara Humpton is the President and CEO of Siemens Corporation, a company creating infrastructure projects like autonomous trains and smart buildings that make the most of data to ensure efficiency and sustainability. I caught up with her in my hometown of Detroit at the Urban Transformation Summit. The book she recommends is a classic and one that can help leaders fuel innovation. Here's Barbara.

Barbara Humpton, President and CEO of Siemens Corporation: I love to read and I've got a big stack sitting next to my chair at home right now. And oddly one of the books that I would recommend to everyone is a business book Platform Revolution.

You know how our business lives have changed. We are now getting used to the idea of going to the computer and ordering anything. And it created a whole different business model where you're not focused on supply-side economies of scale, but demand-side economies of scale. Think the business world is changing, and we in infrastructure, I think, are going to be able to use these concepts, the new economic theory of platforms, to drive the flywheel of changen for the better.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Cristina Gamboa is the CEO of the World Green Building Council, a network in more than 70 countries decarbonizing the built environment and working to make quality, sustainable space available to anyone. I spoke with her at the Annual Meeting in May and she shared a book that helps her connect with what's most important. Here's Christina.

Cristina Gamboa, CEO, World Green Building Council: I'm a committed yoga practicer, linked with a tradition in India. And one practical book that I love is, Letting Go by David Hawkins. And it's about how those practical tools that have helped me to be the best leader I can be, but without losing that connection, that deep connection to that happy place, to that loving place, to that - let's say - non-competitive place.

Because in sustainability, there needs to be, I believe, how this will truly progress, is through open solidarity knowledge-sharing. There's a space for everyone to be successful. There's so many things and great things to be done. And so that book, that book always brings it home and gives me the sight to be, let's say, positive, clear, simple, humble, acknowledging everyone has a role. I really enjoyed it, and I always go back to its principles.

Linda: Two leaders this year recommended Braiding Sweetgrass, both Jane Gilbert, the Chief Heat Officer of Florida's Miami-Dade County, and Kahea Pacheco, the co-executive director of the Women's Earth Alliance,

Braiding Sweetgrass is a nonfiction book about the role of Indigenous knowledge as alternative to Western methodologies. Here's both women on why it's worth your read. We'll start with Kahea.

Kahea Pacheco, co-executive director of the Women's Earth Alliance: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer is my all-time favourite book. I think it is a tool and an expression of healing, the relationship between people and the Earth. And, at the end of the day, we protect what we love. And that is a love letter to communities on the Earth.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Jane also weighed in on why this book was so special to her and what anyone could take from it. Here's Jane Gilbert.

Jane Gilbert, Chief Heat Officer, Miami-Dade County: I just adored that book for reminding us how we are a part of nature and we need to think of ourselves as a part of nature when we're designing anything.

It's not going to explain how to design a new storm water and road system. It's definitely not. But it might help bring enough sensitivity about the importance of being one with nature and come up with solutions that are truly sustainable.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Peter Stavros is the co-head of US Private Equity at KKR. He's also the founder of Ownership Works, a nonprofit launched this year making it easier for companies to share ownership with employees and help those employees build real wealth. He talked to me about the books he reads with his team, ones that connect to the changing idea of success. Here's what he had to say,

Peter Stavros, founder of Ownership Works: One book is called The Great Risk Shift and it really chronicles what happened to more junior colleagues in an organization over the past 50 years. You went from a situation where companies really took care of you, cradle to grave. It was like practically lifetime employment, gold-plated healthcare, defined benefits-style pension plans.

We went from that, over the course of the last 50 years, to the far other extreme. At-will employment, no worker protections, lots of temp labour, bare bones healthcare plans with very high deductibles, a 401(k) programme – a system where it's really all on you to plan for your retirement. That's the concept of ‘the great risk shift’, it's kind of ‘put the risk on the employee’.

And I think our feeling is somewhere back towards the middle, in between the two extremes. You know, it could be good for the country and I think ownership could be a part of that.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Regarding The Great Risk Shift, if somebody read that book what do you think is the thing that they'll come away with it? How will they be changed?

Pete: I mean, the way I was impacted was just the extent to which things have changed. It's just such a dramatic pendulum swing from… they used to call it the corporate welfare state or the nanny state, all driven by the corporation, and it's just gone so far. And that's what struck me is just like, holy cow, what a dramatic shift, we've gone too far.

Linda: Philanthropist James Chen chatted with me in February and we talked about the work he'd done to solve a deceptively simple problem: how to help the 2.2 billion people around the world with poor vision. He founded the international campaign Clearly to bridge affordable vision care gaps, and knows something about the power of philanthropy and what it can and can't make possible.

He shared a book that stresses the need for passion and strategy. Here's James.

James Chen, Founder, Clearly; It's called In Defence of Philanthropy by Professor Beth Breeze. It is a book where she characterizes the modern critiques of philanthropy. There's been several quite influential books written in the last few years critiquing philanthropy and in this book she really tries to address these misunderstandings of how philanthropy actually works, as well as what it has achieved.

One of the big points is very much that the critique is that ‘oh, donors do this to gain more power’. And while that may be the case, what matters is what is that power used for? Is it used for the greater good or is it used for self-aggrandizement? And it could be one or the other, but I think that for most people, if they're serious about doing philanthropy and particularly if we're going to put in all that effort, there are easier ways to do that.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: And if someone was reading that book, what would they take from it?

James Chen: I think in that book what comes through is this idea that passion matters as much as strategy. It's very much not just about writing cheques. It's about you're utilizing your own skills and this risk-taking mindset. But also, if there's no passion there, you won't be able to stay the course.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Tjada McKenna is the CEO of Mercy Corps, a global team of nearly 6,000 humanitarians working in more than 40 countries, helping people affected by poverty and climate change survive things like natural disasters. Her book choice is a classic she's revisiting one she finds a resource two years into her top role at Mercy Corps.

Here's Tjada.

Tjada McKenna, CEO, Mercy Corps: I'm re-reading things like The Wisdom of Teams. I find that as, as you go through life, things that you've read already begin to have different meanings. So sometimes it's good to check back in every now and then.

I've basically built a whole new leadership team and almost a whole new board, and some of the things I've been looking for really resonate with that book, like looking for people who are hungry and who have the heart and who have values aligned, but also just really taking the time out to make sure that we are on the same page, that we build this relationship with ourselves as leadership as a first team.

Because leadership can be a lonely journey. And it's something that staff can really tell right away where there are divisions or where there's not alignment. So really insulating ourselves from that and focusing on that in this early time range of us being together as a team is quite important.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Stephanie Linnartz is the President of Marriott International. She shared a book that reminded her what's key for big solutions to move forward, one that is especially helpful as we look to tackle future disruption. Here's Stephanie.

Stephanie Linnartz, President, Marriott International: My favourite book, speaking of my lessons learned during these tough two yearsm is a book called Grit by Angela Duckworth. I love that book. I actually love her Ted Talk too. I try to read that book once a year. The essence of that book really is what makes you successful - whatever you decide to - if you go into academics or medicine or business, whatever, that perseverance and grit is actually the most important thing. And this idea that EQ is just as important as IQ. And so I love that book.

I think some people think what makes you successful is just like pure IQ and intelligence, and I know many people I've recommended that book to then are really hopeful that say, ‘Wait a second. I can do that. I have grit, determination.’ I think it gives people hope that they can achieve their goals, their dreams. And that's what I like about that book. So I think when you read it, you have a new way of thinking about the world.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Justin Bibb is the mayor of Cleveland. Elected at 34. he is the second-youngest mayor in that city's history, and I talked to him in October about the ways that he's looking to transform that city. I also talked to him about the book he recommends. Here's Mayor Bibb.

Justin Bibb, Mayor, Cleveland: I just lost my grandmother a couple months ago. She was 93 years old when she passed away. She died on her birthday. So she truly had 93 trips around the sun. She migrated to. the Midwest from the segregated South, from Jasper, Alabama. Her first stop was in Gary, Indiana. Then she found love and moved to Cleveland, Ohio.

The book I'm reading really is about that great urban migration. it's called The Warmth of Other Suns by Elizabeth Wilkerson. And it chronicles the journey of Black Americans coming up north for freedom, for the American dream, to raise their family. And it's a reminder that I'm responsible for making Cleveland a part of that dream that my grandmother struggled to fight for.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: And how would somebody change after they read that book?

Justin Bibb, Mayor of Cleveland: I think they would have a greater appreciation for what the great urban migration did for black people and how that changed the context of America.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: Bas Van Abel is the founder of Fairphone, the maker of the world's first ethical smartphone. His book pick is one that will make you think about the world a little differently. Here's Bas.

Bas Van Abel, Founder, Fairphone: I love The Human Condition. Hannah Arendt. It’s very heavy stuff, but I think one of the most beautiful things she does in that book is - she's a political philosopher, right? and she talks about the commons and the private, and the combination between that. And it's basically about finding that balance -what's good for me, what's good for everyone. And that's what sustainability is also about. And one of the things she says about it is that politics basically the arena where you try to find the connection between the commons and the private.

And then to do that is storytelling. And it really opened up my eyes in a way, how to look at Fairphone as well. And I think, looking at Fairphone, I really also see it as a political object in that sense. If you believe that politics is about closing the gap between what's good for me and what's good for everyone.

Meet The Leader / Linda Lacina: That was this year's top books roundup. Thanks to all the leaders who took time to talk to me this year, and thanks to thanks so much to you for listening. A transcript of this episode and my colleagues' episodes, Radio Davos and the Book Club Podcast is available at wef.ch/podcasts.

This episode of Meet the Leader was presented and produced by me with Juan Toran as studio engineer for excerpts recorded at the Annual Meeting, Jere Johansson as editor and Gareth Nolan driving studio production. This episode of Meet the Leader was presented and produced by me with Juan Toran as studio engineer for excerpts recorded at the Annual Meeting and Gareth Nolan driving studio production.

That's it for now. I'm Linda Lacina with the World Economic. Have a great day.

This transcript, generated from speech recognition technology, has been edited for web readers, condensed for clarity, and may differ slightly from the audio.