The most useful leadership book you’ve never read

Published more than 20 years ago, under a title that would not likely make it past today’s editorial gatekeepers, ‘Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders’ continues to offer valuable insights.

Some years ago, after a long career in magazines, I realized I needed to reinvent myself professionally and entered an unfamiliar work world in Big Retail. Like any new arrival, I had to learn to fit in. My biggest challenge was understanding how C Suite leadership works: why some decision makers are more inherently relevant, with a better handle on where retail is headed and not just where it has been. So I studied quarterly earnings transcripts, a free crash course in how leaders think, as well as many classic business books, which more often than not contained highfalutin ideas better in theory than practice. And then I found Geeks and Geezers: How Era, Values, and Defining Moments Shape Leaders.