Reading lists have become the business card of modern leadership: Here's why

Bill Gates claims to read over 50 books a year. Mark Zuckerberg once set up a book club to motivate himself to read. And Warren Buffett allegedly spends 80 per cent of his day reading.

Today’s business leaders like to position themselves as brands, and books are an essential part of this image.

Worldwide, many other leaders also like to be seen as well read. Several podcast episodes of the World Economic Forum feature book recommendations by those in positions of power, and magazines like Fortune publish pieces on what CEOs are looking forward to reading (and watching, and listening to).

McKinsey, too, publishes annual recommendations from executives, editors and its own leaders. In 2025, their list featured books that belong to “genres from AI and business to memoir and fiction, reflecting a shared hunger for meaning, progress and human connection”. Impressive, if safe.

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Similarly, for decades now, J.P. Morgan has been publishing an annual Summer Reading List, with titles picked by advisers from all over the globe. Their 2026 picks spanned 14 titles across leadership, AI, geopolitics, performance and longevity. That should tell you what titans of industry have on their minds.

Why companies advertise what they read

The question is: why does this happen? When the habit of reading is reportedly in decline, why do business leaders and enterprises feel the need to advertise their preferred books?

The first, obvious reason is that for all the dominance of digital activities, a book still carries an aura of intellectual respectability. Reading lists, then, function as business cards. They signal to clients, partners and customers that the company and the individuals who lead it have worth, solidity and acumen.

Beneath the surface, to broadcast that you read deeply is also a claim to have control over your time.

Meetings and deadlines come and go, quarterly goals are set and reset, economic indicators move up and down, but the individual who spends time to read, think and recommend is unaffected by such transient things and can be relied upon to be a valuable guide to the future. Or so they hope.

Borrowing the prestige of books

Even after all this time, the book has a gravity that digital media cannot replicate. It is a physical anchor rooted in a weighty human tradition. By tying their personal brands to reading lists, business leaders are trying to borrow some of this permanence.

However, permanence does not always equal substance.

Take a closer look at the titles across almost all such lists and patterns emerge with almost comic regularity.

There will be a title on AI, one on ancient wisdom (Greek, Roman or Sanskrit: take your pick), one on the functioning of athletes or other star performers, and sometimes a biography of an admired leader, in business or otherwise.

Oh, and there is occasionally a novel thrown in for good measure, to show that life is not just about business but also has depth and soul. Haruki Murakami expresses our desires, Kazuo Ishiguro our concerns.

A carefully curated image

Those who take such lists seriously, who want to read what the powerful read, are not really getting a window into how these people actually think. They are getting a curated projection of how they want to be seen.

What is missing from most of these lists is the idea of reading a book for the sheer pleasure of it.

Reading as an activity that is not meant to optimise your efforts, increase productivity or otherwise earn you a coveted employee-of-the-month award. Imagine that.

What the lists leave out

The absence of unconventional books is not accidental, because such lists are not meant to provoke or expand the mind.

Their real value lies in telling us exactly what the established order deems acceptable, and precisely how many new ideas it can actually tolerate.

So go ahead and scan those lists; just do not expect to find much between the lines.