There are many factors that make a good leader, but one of the most important is intellectual curiosity combined with a thirst for knowledge.

Greater knowledge provides a rich well from which you can draw to help stimulate new ideas, thinking and perspectives. It can help you to devise strategy or to anticipate potential scenarios, as well as better able to handle any obstacles and setbacks. The better informed you are, the more opportunities you’ll spot, and the better your decision making is likely to be.

As part of my work as a professional speaker, I read one business book a week and the following are my latest suggested reads:

1. Misbehaving – The making of behavioural economics by Richard Thaler

Richard Thaler is considered to be the father (or at least the main cheerleader) of behavioural economics.

My eldest daughter is 17, studying for her A levels and learning to drive. She is quietly confident, with strong opinions which she isn’t afraid to express to me and my wife!  She will eventually leave home and become an independent young adult. While we’ll miss her when she does eventually leave home, we know that we have to learn to let her go. But knowing you have to do something doesn’t make it easy.

A similar challenge often arises with owner-managed businesses, particularly with founders.

In the old days companies told us, through advertising, how good their products or services were, in the expectation that we would buy from them. But that was before the internet made price comparisons and customers’ satisfaction ratings easy and social media enabled consumers to quickly share their buying experiences with friends, relatives and colleagues. People today don’t care what companies say about themselves, they care what other customers of those companies say about them. You’d think, therefore, that bad products and poor service would be as rare as a London black taxi on a rainy Friday evening.