When we think about leadership development, we probably think about workshops, podcasts, white papers, and business books. We understand the importance of learning to benefit ourselves and our organizations. Unfortunately, after putting in a full day (or more) of work, we find we don’t have the energy to read novels. Melanie Bell joins Kevin to talk about how reading fiction can also help with our leadership development. Studies have indicated that different parts of our brains are activated when we read fiction vs. nonfiction. Further, business books break down the problem to the principle. In fiction, the characters are complicated so, we don’t just jump to conclusions. The stakes are lower, so we can take a breath and think about the situation.

Key Points

• Melanie discusses why fiction can be powerful for leaders.
• She shares how to translate fiction to leadership. 
• She provides advice on choosing a fictional book to read for leadership lessons.

Meet Melanie

• Name: Melanie Bell 
• Her Story: Melanie founded Leaders Who Fiction while operating her marketing strategy and technology consulting firm. At Leaders Who Fiction, Bell is helping people acquire and develop leadership qualities through fiction reading and intellectual, business-oriented conversations centered around a selected novel. She is also the Co-Founder of Strategic Piece, a company that helps B2B businesses generate outstanding revenue growth by bringing together their marketing, sales, and service teams around an information-driven customer experience built on the HubSpot platform.
• Worth Mentioning: Melanie is an active angel investor and mentors the student accelerator programs at Rice University's OwlSpark and the University of Houston's RED Labs. She was also the President of Marketing Interface, a company created in 2014 before Strategic Piece.

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Book Recommendations

• The Story of My Teeth by Valeria Luiselli 
• The Overstory: A Novel by Richard Powers 

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