Enhancing one’s leadership skills through personal and professional development is important to one’s Naval career, especially while advancing through the ranks. It is vital to understand leadership skills can be developed at any point in your career; but a sailor must be committed to growing beyond his or her primary job in the Navy. How we decide to grow can vary from person to person, but the most important part is committing to taking the first step. Many leaders, such as the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) Admiral Mike Gilday, have emphasized on the important of reading books to extend one’s personal and professional development by exposing sailors to a wide variety of reading topics, ideas, and knowledge.
An avid reader myself, I find the Chief of Naval Operations Professional Reading Program has provide a good variety of books that have enhanced my professional and personal growth. Four years ago, I started reading books from the CNO reading list about four years ago and I truly can say that it has helped me develop and maintain various skills (communication, decision-making, critical-thinking, comprehension, etc.) that were important to my development as a leader.
Honestly, before I started reading more, the internet was my “book” to read. I found myself Googling how to be an effective leader, building a cohesive team, or looking up various events in naval history. All the sources I found were great and helpful, but I later discovered that picking up a book was far more beneficial than surfing the internet. Numerous leaders in the Navy recognize the value of reading books to enhance professional or personal growth; therefore, it is important to ensure sailors recognize the value as well to improve their growth throughout their Naval careers.
The value that the CNO reading list provides for sailors stretches beyond reading books. It is a way for sailors to maintain cognitive skills that are important to personal and professional growth. Cognitive skills like the processing of information, listening, critical thinking, and reasoning are beneficial to any rate in the Navy. Just like you exercise your body to maintain physical health, you must exercise your mind to maintain cognitive skills. A couple years ago, I came across an article by author and former professor Nicholas Carr, who believed “the kind of deep reading that a sequence of printed pages promotes is [not only for beneficial knowledge] we acquire from the author’s words but for the intellectual [word stimulation in our minds].” That made me think about ways sailors are stimulating their minds to maintain their cognitive skills. Are sailors willing let go of technology and open a book if they were told how reading was vital to maintaining their cognitive skills? Many may think that there is no point in reading a book the “old fashion way” when you can look up a summary of a book on the internet or listen to an audiobook. Well, think about when we were children or when we become parents how the doctor would emphasize on the importance of reading and how it helped children reach milestones by maintaining their cognitive skills. Why would it be different for adults? Sailors still must maintain cognitive skills, even it means doing it the old fashion way.
Continuously exercising cognitive skills through reading helps sailors stay sharp while perform daily tasks in life and at work. When I think about the daily taskers I must complete as a personnel specialist (PS) or as a leader, many sailors rely on me to utilize my cognitive skills. Critical thinking or processing of information are cognitive skills I use when effectively and accurately dealing with pay issue or concerns. No one likes a PS that cannot seem to solve a pay issue or cannot process pertinent information to accurately complete transactions. Also, no sailor likes a leader that cannot listen or understand the concerns that are being conveyed; listening and comprehension are cognitive skills. Without the CNO reading list, I would only open a book or read extensively for advancement purposes, to complete a school or training, or to prove a point in an instruction. Reading may not be the number one choice of enhancing cognitive skills, but it the best choice that many leaders recognize and embrace throughout their career.
Lastly, exploring and reading various books can help sailors enhance their learning and leadership skills. Do you every wonder why publishers still print books when the technology exists to make them available on the internet? The easy answer: because there are millions of people that are still opening books and find them more effective. Also, Nicholas Carr states that, “Historical and scientific evidence indicate the use of such tools [books] can literally reroute our neural pathways. In the case of the printed book, those pathways promote focused attention.”1 Focused attention achieved through a printed book helps sailors learn and eventually develop leadership skills. If you have not looked at the CNO reading list lately, let me be the first to say that I have learned a lot so far and developed various tools I can utilize as a leader. For example, Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek had my attention from the beginning when he said that “his vision was to create men and women who understand that an organization’s success or failure is based on leadership excellence and not managerial acumen.”2 That encouraged me to digest the information that was being shared in his book because I want to be a leader that can help everyone achieve excellence. I even explored the reading list shared by the Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy Russell Smith. Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell was a good read as well because it helped me understand a different aspect of decision making as a leader.3 Overall, I challenge everyone to open a book at least once a quarter and even initiate discussions about the text with others. The value of reading the CNO reading list, or any reading list, is immense when it comes your professional and personal growth.
- Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains (New York: W.W. Norton, 2011), 207.
- Simon Sinek, Leaders Eat Last (London, England: Portfolio Penguin, 2017).
- Malcolm Gladwell, Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking (New York: Back Bay Books, 2005).
