--- title: How Reading Fiction Builds Better Leaders for the AI Age description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. canonical: https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-reading-fiction-builds-better-leaders-for-the-ai-age/ author: Michelle Peng article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2026-10-13T10:30:01.136Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-09T23:43:49.455Z article:section: Charter og:title: How Reading Fiction Builds Better Leaders for the AI Age og:description: Breaking news and analysis from time.com. 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Politics, world news, photos, video, tech reviews, health, science, and entertainment news. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e004e9564366845/6ac97b63333384df2d047090/charter-novels-ai-leadership-kilito-han-getty.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- The information presented here is created by Charter, independently from the TIME editorial staff.  Time charter * [books](/partner-content/charter/tag/books/) ## books # How Reading Fiction Builds Better Leaders for the AI Age > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. A TIME subscription provides full access to that journalism in print and digital, from $20 a year, and can be cancelled at any time. 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Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### What is included in a TIME print and digital subscription? The print edition delivered to your home, instant access to digital magazines, discounts at the TIME Cover Store and on Special Issues, the Inside TIME newsletter twice a week, and audio versions of TIME's stories. It is from $29 for one year or $49 for two years at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### What is the difference between TIME's digital and print plans? Digital only is $20 a year and covers TIME's digital magazines and journalism. Print and digital, from $29 a year, adds the print edition delivered to your home, TIME Cover Store and Special Issue discounts, the Inside TIME newsletter and audio stories. #### Is TIME a reliable news source? TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923. Its journalism is reported and edited by a professional newsroom led by Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs, with named correspondents on politics, climate, health, technology and culture. It reaches 1 million US print subscribers and 1.15 million globally, plus more than 1.1 million newsletter readers. #### How do I subscribe to TIME magazine? Subscriptions are at time.com/subscribe-agent. Choose digital only at $20 a year, or print and digital from $29 a year or $49 for two years. TIME also publishes seven free email newsletters at time.com/newsletters, which do not require a subscription. #### Can I cancel a TIME subscription? Yes. TIME states that subscriptions can be cancelled at any time. #### Does TIME have free newsletters? Yes. TIME publishes seven free email newsletters reaching more than 1.1 million readers, covering daily news, Washington politics, health, AI, climate and energy, culture, and the newsroom itself. They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-sub-2026q3/newsletters?i=c5dcd58b-ab05-4993-9c8a-caa04e8fb022&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1) * TIME Subscriptions: [time.com/subscribe-agent](/c/time-sub-2026q3/subscribe?i=c5dcd58b-ab05-4993-9c8a-caa04e8fb022&cr=time-sub-2026q3-v1)  by [Michelle Peng](https://time.com/author/michelle-peng/) Oct 13, 2026 10:30 AM UTC  Illustration by Charter · Photo by Kilito Han, Getty Illustration by Charter · Photo by Kilito Han, Getty  by [Michelle Peng](https://time.com/author/michelle-peng/) Oct 13, 2026 10:30 AM UTC For most white-collar workers, much of the workday is spent hoovering up information: skimming Slack messages, scanning emails, and generating AI summaries in a futile attempt to stay on top of it all. Meanwhile, the pressure to use AI tools is [increasing the pace of work](https://hbr.org/2026/02/ai-doesnt-reduce-work-it-intensifies-it) and the size of our workloads. At Harvard Business School, professor [Sandra Sucher](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-sucher-a8a0637/) challenges future business leaders to slow down—and read up. In her class on moral leadership, students grapple with literature without the aid of AI tools, reading and analyzing novels, poems, and plays. Initially developed four decades ago, the elective skips the case studies and research papers typically found on an MBA class syllabus and instead relies on works from Sophocles, Kazuo Ishiguro, and William Carlos Williams. “When we read literature, we make a commitment to our own development and enrich our lives in a way that we just can't do any other way,” says Sucher. Long after leaving school, reading fiction can be a honing steel for human skills, a proving ground for empathy, and refuge for busy leaders. Here’s how: **The human skills literature can build** Unlike much of the HBS first-year curriculum, where AI is allowed for summarizing course materials, Sucher’s class on moral leadership prohibits students from doing their reading (and writing) with AI assistance. “The reason you read literature is to experience it,” Sucher explains. “Reading a summary deprives you of the learning.” Instead, she guides students through a four-part process for engaging with each work: Describe, analyze, judge, and reflect. “Each one of those things is hugely important for a leader as well,” she says. That’s especially true in today’s AI era, where overreliance on AI tools threatens to erode critical thinking and discernment differentiates high performers. While AI connects us with more information than ever before, relying too heavily on AI tools to interpret that information can lead to “[cognitive surrender](https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/thought-leadership/wharton-at-work/2026/05/thinking-fast-slow-and-artificially/),” compromising our ability to make accurate, thoughtful decisions. Reading literature prepares leaders to objectively describe what’s going on in their organization, analyze different points of view, and spot unseen patterns. Practicing judgment with fictional characters’ decisions helps us sharpen our own—and reinforces our ability to live with the consequences of our choices, says Sucher. “We know from academic literature that reflecting actually [helps develop people's capabilities](https://hbr.org/2022/03/dont-underestimate-the-power-of-self-reflection) to make good decisions,” she adds. Sign up for Charter's newsletter to get the handbook for the future of work delivered to your inbox. Email Address You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our [Terms of Service](https://www.charterworks.com/terms-of-service/) and [Privacy Policy](https://www.charterworks.com/privacy-policy/). **The benefits of ‘deep reading’** In asking students to think and reflect as they read, Sucher nudges them toward “deep reading,” a term popularized by [Maryanne Wolf](https://www.linkedin.com/in/maryanne-wolf-97a508b/), the author of _Reader Come Home_ and a UCLA professor who has studied the neuroscience of reading_._ Cognitively, Wolf argues, deep reading is a separate process from skimming, allowing us to make connections between the words on the page and our own background knowledge and emotional reactions. As we read more—and more deeply—we reinforce the cognitive skills that let us separate fact from fiction and signal from noise. In a world where scrolling and skimming have become the default, whether reading work emails or doomscrolling at home, many readers have [lost the ability](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/08/reading-crisis-postliterate-age/687618/) to sit with more complex texts. “Society's rapacious appetite for efficiency is not a singularly good thing,” says Wolf. When skimming, you are “not giving those processes enough time, attention, and effort, therefore making you less understanding of whatever you're doing.” **Fiction and the ‘human repertoire of feeling’** Perhaps more important than the cognitive benefits of deep reading are the emotional ones, says Wolf. When readers inhabit experiences different from their own, they “pass over from \[their\] perspective into an imagined but very real perspective of the other,” says Wolf. Empathizing with a beloved fictional character follows us even after we put the book down. “Fiction enlarges the human repertoire of feeling,” argues Wolf. “And that translates into how we deal with each other on an everyday basis and how we deal with each other.” For [Jennie Rogerson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennierogerson/), Canva’s chief people officer, it’s one of the primary reasons she makes time for reading, finishing up to 100 books each year. “The deeper you think about the human experience and the more you try and put yourself in others’ shoes, the better your work will naturally be,” she says. Sucher counts on that empathy to activate when she teaches her class. Business leaders, she explains, are responsible to diverse and distinct groups of people: employees, customers, shareholders, regulators, community members, and more. To manage all these stakeholders’ expectations “requires a kind of a moral imagination and the ability to empathetically enter into someone else’s life,” she says. “Literature does that better than anything else.” When students consider the conflicts in Antigone, for example, they test their framework for moral decision making, pitting not right versus wrong, but “the challenge of right versus right. How can I make a decision when there’s moral good on both sides?” says Sucher. When they read _Remains of the Day,_ they consider the challenges that arise when our identity is intertwined too much with our role, leading us to compromise on our own morals. **The restorative power of reading** After students leave Sucher’s classroom, they often return to the corporate world, where time for reading can feel scarce. But a return to books can be a balm against the overwhelm leaders feel when they are on the verge of burning out. “The power of reading some of these books is the ability to take a break from your life and to really give yourself some space and time to be in a different place,” says Sucher. Studies show that [cognitively difficult tasks](https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12286852/)—like tackling _Moby Dick,_ for example_—_can feel more meaningful and restorative than easy ones. Each December, Canva’s Rogerson logs off for an annual week-long reading holiday, a time she has come to think of as a “prize” for getting through the year. “It’s nice to have just a bit of time to unpack and think…to immerse yourself completely in someone else's experience that you can just enjoy,” she says. As restorative as her solitary retreats are, Rogerson says reading has also built and strengthened community within Canva. She sends voice notes to London-based colleagues about recent reads, meets regularly for the people team’s book club, and regularly browses the “People Group Library,” a space in Canva’s headquarters where employees leave copies of their favorite recent reads. Employees can join “Club Light Lit” or “Club Serious Classic Literature,” which, like all of Canva’s internal clubs, receive official company support and funding. “Sometimes reading is seen as an introvert's hobby, and actually I don't think it has to be,” says Rogerson. “I think that's the magic of it.” **Finding your ‘reading sanctuary’** Even as a researcher studying the neuroscience of deep reading, Wolf found that she had lost the ability to do it when she reread Hermann Hesse’s dense novel [_The Glass Bead Game_](https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-glass-bead-game-magister-ludi-a-novel-hermann-hesse/808b127c4578c534?ean=9780312278496), once a favorite of hers. “So I put myself through what I call a book bootcamp, and every night I forced myself to only read 20 minutes, but at the pace demanded to understand those pages” rather than skimming them. After two weeks, she realized she could appreciate the beauty of Hesse’s writing again. Now, she continues her daily “workouts” with a practice she calls “bookending.” Wolf starts and ends each day with 20 minutes of reading, returning to her “reading sanctuary,” a mental space where she can pause, linger, and activate deep reading processes rather than skating across the page. The time, says Wolf, “settles me. It reminds me of what is capable when we think deeply.” **For ideas of what to read next, read our** [**roundup of what top CHROs are reading**](https://www.charterworks.com/what-top-chros-are-reading-this-summer/) **and our recent** [**book briefings**](https://www.charterworks.com/tag/book-briefing/)**.** --- ## Read more from Charter [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/) [Open article: What we learned from books in 2024](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7203876/what-we-learned-from-books-in-2024/)  ### What we learned from books in 2024 [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/7203876/what-we-learned-from-books-in-2024/) [Open article: What We Learned From Books in 2023](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/6551391/what-we-learned-from-books-in-2023/)  ### What We Learned From Books in 2023 [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/6551391/what-we-learned-from-books-in-2023/) [Open article: The Reasons Behind the Gender Wage Gap Might Surprise You](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/6333713/charter-the-reasons-behind-the-gender-wage-gap-might-surprise-you/)  ### The Reasons Behind the Gender Wage Gap Might Surprise You [READ MORE](https://time.com/partner-content/charter/6333713/charter-the-reasons-behind-the-gender-wage-gap-might-surprise-you/) --- ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-reading-fiction-builds-better-leaders-for-the-ai-age/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-reading-fiction-builds-better-leaders-for-the-ai-age/"},"headline":"How Reading Fiction Builds Better Leaders for the AI Age","datePublished":"2026-10-13T10:30:01.136Z","dateModified":"2026-10-09T23:43:49.455Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-reading-fiction-builds-better-leaders-for-the-ai-age/","keywords":[],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e004e9564366845/6ac97b63333384df2d047090/charter-novels-ai-leadership-kilito-han-getty.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Michelle Peng","jobTitle":"","url":"https://time.com/author/michelle-peng/"}],"articleSection":"Charter","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e004e9564366845/6ac97b63333384df2d047090/charter-novels-ai-leadership-kilito-han-getty.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"charter-novels-ai-leadership-kilito-han-getty.jpg","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/partner-content/charter/how-reading-fiction-builds-better-leaders-for-the-ai-age/","name":"How Reading Fiction Builds Better Leaders for the AI Age"}}]}] ```