One Simple Trick To Help Improve Your Leadership Skills

According to certified B corp Human Capital Innovations (among others), one of the most important traits for leaders in 2026 and beyond is empathy. 

If you’re a business owner, you’re a leader. Yes, even if you’re a solo like me – we lead ourselves (and clients as well, especially those of us in the coaching/consulting space.)

We’re in the 21st century, and the idea of top-down, command-and-control leadership is so 1900s. As a modern leader, you need to inspire people to want to follow you instead of demanding that they do so just because you’re the boss. Empathetic leadership helps you retain your valuable talent because they feel seen and heard.

Not only is empathy important for leadership, so is the ability to focus. Even Gallup says so!

Companies compete for your attention, particularly on so-called “social” media, with click-bait headlines and short-form video. That makes it much harder than it was in the 1900s to maintain focus for even a moderate period of time.

But it’s not impossible to increase your ability to focus. In fact, even if you know your attention span has decreased, you can retrain your brain for more focus. And the best part is you can do it in an entertaining way, and it doesn’t have to be just another item on your to-do list that you don’t get around to.

What IS this magic potion?

Reading fiction is fundamental for business owners

There are a lot of reasons why reading is important for your mental health, as well as it may help protect you from conditions like dementia. Fiction, as in made-up stuff, specifically is the kind of reading you need for empathy. 

I know a lot of business owners who only read non-fiction (self-help, books on business, etc.) I think there’s a belief many people have that non-fiction is more serious or something that serious readers (or serious people) read. I like some non-fiction myself, especially books about the brain or productivity or science in general.

These books (including my own, ha ha) are great for explaining things in detail and/or giving templates and instructions on the topic. And I would never say not to read or listen to non-fiction. 

However, as a leader, it’s important for you to read fiction too. As noted above, only fiction helps you develop empathy. Fiction means you’re stepping into other people’s shoes and seeing things from their perspective. Sometimes you might be in the head of someone who’s nasty or (in the case of mystery fiction) the actual killer, which lets you see life from a decidedly different perspective.

The other thing is that non-fiction, depending on the writer and topic, can be a bit, well, dry. (Except for mine, of course.) I think that when you’re trying to train your attention by reading, it absolutely MUST be something you’re genuinely interested in sitting down with.

Which generally means an interesting story. As long as we’ve been homo sapiens, we’ve told each other stories. Sometimes stories are meant to spread culture and morals among the tribe, but sometimes they’re really just meant to be fun. 

It’s up to you as to what type of story most interests you. I, like my mom and dad, am a huge mystery buff. I also enjoy spy novels and horror. But that’s just me. You might enjoy sci-fi (science fiction) and/or its related genre of speculative fiction. You might like historical fiction. Or maybe you prefer romance or fantasy tales. Don’t be embarrassed if romance is your thing, either. 

There are a lot of “mashup” categories as well; the main trend driving sales at the moment is romantasy (romance + fantasy). I will read historical fiction depending on the era and author if it’s also a mystery or thriller. I occasionally dip a toe into some of the romance writers who occasionally write mysteries as well (I’m thinking of Nora Roberts here.)

In other words, the possibilities are endless. Speaking of endless, you should see my TBR pile(s)! (TBR is shorthand for “to be read”.)

How to ease into reading while staying productive

Look, if you haven’t been reading books at all, or if you’ve mostly been listening to them, you need to start off with something a bit shorter. For training the ability to focus, audiobooks will not help you and may even harm you, since most people listen to them while doing something else. 

That means you’re going to need an actual book that you hold in your hands, whether it’s hardcover, paperback (National Paperback Book Day is July 30), or e-reader, like Kindle. Any of these options will work, though my strong preference is paperback first. They’re often not as heavy as hardbacks, and there’s something about the tactile paper and smell that I like better than e-readers. (Also Psychology Today says you get more out of a physical book than a digital edition, but if you prefer your e-reader that’s OK.)

If you try to jump into a long book like War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy or a famously difficult-to-read book like Ulysses by James Joyce, you’re probably not going to be able to sustain the attention you need, at least at first.

There are a couple of ways to read interesting stories that don’t require so much time. It is key to set your phone or other screen aside where you can’t see it and be tempted by the siren song of scrolling.

One method is to look at more modern books, which are (sadly) designed for shorter attention spans. They typically have shorter chapters, so you can read an entire chapter pretty quickly. Plus there’s a defined place to start and stop, so it’s easier to pick up where you left off. It isn’t as short as a short-form video or 2-minute content snippet, so you can practice focusing for a longer time on something that’s interesting.

The second is to read short stories or novellas. The general word counts (there is a lot of variation) are 1500 to 7500 for short stories and 17,000 to 40,000 words for novellas. These are very rough estimates. A typical adult novel comes in around 90,000 words. You can see that a novella will be about half the length of a novel, and a short story is much shorter than that.

If you like a specific genre of fiction (genre being something like mystery, horror, romantasy, etc.) you can often find a collection of short stories. Some publisher usually has a “Best [genre] Short Stories for 2026” type of list. If you’re into mysteries specifically, Ellery Queen magazine publishes short mystery fiction frequently throughout the year. There may be similar magazines for other genres.

I think a lot of novellas now are in e-book form only, but you can also find collections of them. If you’re into horror, Stephen King has two excellent (in my humble opinion!) collections of novellas. 

His more recent one is Full Dark, No Stars and the earlier one is Different Seasons. That one has four novellas, three of which were made into movies: The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me (based on the story The Body), and Apt Pupil. The one novella I found genuinely the most horrifying, The Breathing Method, wasn’t made into a movie.

In other words, start short and interesting, and then go from there.

Where do you find the time to read? Carve it off your streaming or scrolling time. For example, if you watch TV for a couple hours before bed, watch for an hour and a half and take thirty minutes to read instead. Reading before bed gets you off a blue-light screen which will help you sleep better too. Unless you’re reading a thriller or something similar, where you can’t put down the book!

Maybe a book club?

If you’ve read my stuff before, you know I’m always talking about how everyone including introverts needs to socialize. A book club could be really good for an introvert, because it’s socializing around a common interest. 

Some book clubs are more about drinking wine and gossiping, but you can definitely find ones that are about books. Although most clubs are perfectly happy with your attendance if you don’t finish or even read the book, they do provide some accountability for your reading. Which might help you to build your reading habit instead of taking time to scroll or stream.

Based on my own personal experience, you might have to try a few book clubs before you find one that you like. Two books that I genuinely loathed with every fiber of my being were book club reads. (In case you’re wondering, they were A Man Called Ove and The Art of Racing in the Rain, and yes, I’m aware I might be the only person in the USA who hated Ove. I refused to see the movie.)

Right now I’m in a horror book club here in Long Beach. I haven’t necessarily loved every book, but I haven’t hated any, and some I really really liked. There are a few dozen members and I don’t think any are older than me, though there are some around my age. Everyone else is younger, which is fun. All of them are women, so the club has opened me up to some new female horror writers.

Recap (tl;dr):

If you want to be a better leader and have a better attention span than the proverbial goldfish, read fiction that you enjoy. Start reading short fiction and build from there; book clubs can be an excellent source of accountability to make sure you’re getting off your phone or TV. 

Want more help extending your attention span? I‘m here for you. Schedule your free consultation by clicking here.

Absolutely no AI was used in any way for this article. I changed my search browser to Duck Duck Go, which requires you to actively turn on AI for browsing if you want it. Highly recommend if you don’t want to destroy the planet for a simple internet search. I don’t have a financial reason for the recommendation, just a moral/practical one.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash.