Feeding the superintendent's mind: personal reflections on 15 books that profoundly influenced thinking and acting.

What do fish, cheese and Ferraris have in common?

They are all woven into the content of best-selling titles about effective leadership. These books, including Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results by Stephen Lundin, Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson and Leadership Wisdom from the Monk Who Sold His Ferrari by Robin Sharma, have become staples of executive leadership seminars and paths to personal development.

Effective organizational leaders are searching for the key to being more effective, to being more efficient, to being greater visionaries. Most turn at some point to a good book for motivation, inspiration, insight and even a touch of humor. They seek out books by leadership gurus like Ken Blanchard, politicians like Rudy Giuliani, spiritualists like the Dalai Lama and backdoor philosophers like Dr. Seuss.

Reading, whether it's a professional journal, an online newsletter or the latest trade best seller, helps effective leaders stay on top of current research and trends, understand multiple perspectives on important issues and develop a foundation for making effective decisions today, tomorrow and further down the line. It also inspires leaders to grow emotionally and spiritually, opening their eyes, expanding their minds and providing rich food for thought.

Carmine Gallo, author of 10 Simple Secrets of the World's Greatest Business Communicators, interviewed dozens of prominent CEOs, executives and entrepreneurs. "One of the qualities of a great business leader," he says, "is the ability to stay fresh, current and topical." Much of that freshness, he says, comes from keeping their minds sharp, staying on top of current events and finding ways to renew themselves.

Gallo quotes Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz as saying: "Companies that embrace the status quo and do not push for reinvention or self-renewal will find themselves in deep trouble. I think great leaders continue to run, take in new information, are willing to make mistakes and reline their style."

Time is precious, and many leaders may not be able to read books as often and as thoroughly as they would like, but as Mortimer Adler so aptly put it: "In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you."

With the plethora of books on leadership from which to choose, what books do today's superintendents turn to for knowledge, advice, inspiration, comfort and guidance? Interestingly enough, their mental nourishment comes from books that have made The New York Times bestsellers list and from books that many of us have not heard of--books that range in topics from economics, ethics and values to risk taking, nurturing and faith.

What follows are personal reflections by 15 current and former superintendents on a single book that has carried substantive impact on their professional thinking and behavior. The diversity of their selections is a testament to the diversity of our nation's school leaders.

We hope you will be inspired by their reflections and motivated to carve out time for your own reading.