Leadership isn’t about org charts or management systems. It’s about people. Understanding them. Inspiring them. Creating spaces where they feel safe enough to be fully human.
The leaders who built the most enduring companies—the ones who transformed entire industries—didn’t get there by studying tactics. They got there by understanding humanity itself.
When you stop looking for leadership lessons in “leadership books” and start looking in human stories, something shifts. You stop managing. You start inspiring.
According to lots of well-known leaders, the stories about butlers, rowers, and captains navigating storms can teach you what no business framework can: what it means to be human under pressure, in community, facing the unknown.
Here are five books that top leaders—from Netflix’s Ted Sarandos to Google’s Sundar Pichai to Microsoft’s Satya Nadella—swear by. None of them are written by Stephen Covey, and none of them are found in the business section. All of them are about what it means to be human.
1. Typhoon by Joseph Conrad
Ted Sarandos, Netflix Co-CEO
Ted Sarandos doesn’t read management books. He reads novels. And his favorite is a 122-year-old story about a ship captain caught in a storm.
“It doesn’t sound like a management story on the surface, but I think it’s the most powerful leadership story I’ve ever read,” Sarandos told CNBC this week. “I read it over and over again because I get something different in the book every time.”
Here’s why: Real leadership isn’t tested when everything goes according to plan. It’s tested when the storm hits. When you have incomplete information. When the pressure is crushing and the decisions are impossible.
That’s when you discover what kind of leader you really are.
Conrad’s captain makes impossible choices under unimaginable pressure. And somehow, he brings his crew through. Not because he has all the answers. Because he stays present, stays human, stays committed to his people even when everything is chaos.
When Sarandos first read Typhoon two decades ago, he thought the captain was reckless. On later readings, he discovered profound lessons about leading through uncertainty—exactly the situations leaders face when their carefully laid plans fall apart.
If that’s not a metaphor for modern leadership, we don’t know what is.
2. The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee
Sundar Pichai, Google CEO
What does genetics have to do with leadership? Everything, if you’re Sundar Pichai.
The Gene is the story of how scientists unraveled the mysteries of heredity, from Aristotle’s early theories to the Human Genome Project. It’s about discovery, ethics, and what it means to be human at the most fundamental level.
So why does the CEO of one of the world’s most powerful tech companies recommend it?
Because the best leaders understand that innovation is about understanding humanity itself. Where we come from. What makes us who we are. The ethical questions that emerge when science gives us god-like powers.
Mukherjee, a Pulitzer Prize-winning oncologist and writer, weaves together science, history, and deeply personal stories. He explores not just what genes do, but what they mean—for individuals, for families, for society.
For Pichai, who leads a company developing AI and technologies that will reshape human experience, these questions aren’t academic. They’re urgent. Understanding the biological blueprint of humanity helps him think more deeply about the technological blueprints Google is creating.
3. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO
Imagine nine working-class boys from Depression-era America, none of them wealthy, none of them privileged. They’re rowers. And in 1936, they did something impossible: they beat the world’s elite teams and won Olympic gold.
This is the book Satya Nadella turned to when he became Microsoft CEO. Not a tech book. Not a strategy guide. A story about teamwork.
“A wonderful illustration of the importance of teamwork, which was a core part of my focus out of the gate as CEO,” Nadella said.
The rowers discovered something called “swing”—that magical state where nine individuals move as one, where the boat seems to lift and glide effortlessly. It only happens when ego disappears and trust takes over.
Sound familiar? That’s leadership.
4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
Jeff Bezos, Amazon Founder
“I learn more from novels than from nonfiction,” Jeff Bezos has said.
His favorite? A heartbreaking story about a butler who gave his entire life to serving with dignity, only to realize, too late, that he’d sacrificed his humanity in the process.
The Remains of the Day is a novel about regret. About loyalty to outdated systems. About the cost of never questioning authority. And for Bezos, it became something profound: a framework for how to live.
He calls it his “regret-minimization framework.” When making decisions, he asks: What choice will I regret least when I’m 80 years old?
The butler, Stevens, couldn’t change. He couldn’t adapt. He couldn’t question. And he lost everything that mattered. Bezos learned the opposite lesson: Hold on to your vision, but never be imprisoned by the past. Know when to preserve and when to revolutionize.
5. How to Talk So Kids Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish
Simon Sinek
Here’s something Simon always says: Leadership is like good parenting.
That’s why one of his favorite leadership books is a parenting manual from the 1980s.
“It’s not a traditional leadership book, but it’s one of the best,” Simon says. “It teaches you to ask open-ended questions like ‘What do you love?’ or ‘When do you come alive?’ to draw out people’s passions and build real trust. I recommend it all the time.”
Think about what great parents do. They listen. They validate feelings. They ask questions instead of giving orders. They create safety so their kids can take risks, make mistakes, and grow.
Now imagine if every leader did that.
As Simon puts it: “It’s like a bright yellow guide to human connection.”
What book changed how you see leadership? We’d love to hear your story. Because the best insights don’t come from textbooks—they come from each other. Feel free to reach out at [email protected].
