Business bestsellers survive but where did management gurus go?
Summary
Recall Tom Peters and the days of management fame conferred by book success? Today, the genre faces a glut even as online platforms have cost books their monopoly over idea dissemination. How then can thought leadership be achieved?
Once upon a time, a best-selling book would grant its author guru status. Having your name embossed on the hardback cover was an unofficial badge of expertise, whether you were an aspiring management thinker, a boardroom sage or a speaker-circuit regular. Unlike keynote invitations, books delivered credibility and had intellectual cachet. Not anymore. In an era where everyone seems to have published something, has the gold standard of thought leadership lost its lustre?
To understand how this happened, flashback to 1982, when In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters and Robert Waterman hit retail shelves with evangelical zeal. American businesses, battered by stagflation, oil crises and the rise of Japan Inc, were in search of reassurance. The book offered exactly that: proof that US companies could still thrive, and more importantly, a codified playbook for success: eight easy-to-recall traits, apparently data-driven and actionable enough for managers to feel empowered.
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Critics later pounced on its methodological flaws and Peters allegedly even confessed to having “faked the data" in retrospect. But the damage was done. A new genre was born: the business bestseller. And with it, a new mantle: of the business thought leader.
From that point on, books were no longer just idea containers. They became platforms for corporate wisdom. Successful authors got lucrative speaking engagements, management consultancy gigs, corporate board seats and media publicity. Business books became business. High stakes meant new tactics. Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema, authors of The Discipline of Market Leaders, reportedly spent over $250,000 buying their own books across the US to get into the New York Times bestseller list. It could let them hike their speaking fees and get bigger consultancy and book deals.
In India, many business authors, especially those who were already well known for their professional success, have become public figures. Gurcharan Das’s India Unbound transformed him from a former CEO into a public intellectual. Nandan Nilekani’s Imagining India served not just as commentary, but as a policy guide. Raghuram Rajan’s Fault Lines earned him stardom beyond the field of economics.
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Today, the business book has become something of a glorified business card. Many are padded essays stretched to 200 pages, bloated with anecdotes, loaded with buzzwords and dressed in covers screaming for attention. With an estimated 12,000 business books published every year, the genre is suffering a global glut.
Few books offer a breakthrough idea. Many are simply checklists. And in a world of digital content overload, thought leadership is shifting to more dynamic platforms. Podcasts, newsletters, X threads, LinkedIn posts and short videos are shaping professional discourse faster than traditional publishing cycles can churn out books. A book can take two years to write and publish. A podcast can go live right away and viral soon after. Publishers are adapting: Simon & Schuster recently announced it will reduce reliance on expert reviews on back covers.
This isn’t merely administrative; it’s an acknowledgment that curated praise doesn’t drive sales. Another brutal reality for authors is that a book that takes four years to write can vanish in four months, even before it gets a chance to appear in a cheaper paperback edition.
This doesn’t mean books are obsolete. They allow for depth, with slowly built and layered arguments. Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, which explores the profound impact of digital life on young people, is a case in point. The book format allowed him to explore a cultural phenomenon in a way no blog post or tweetstorm ever could. Books are also timeless. They endure in libraries, sit on shelves and signal intellectual gravitas. But their monopoly over idea dissemination is over.
Today, thought leadership is an ecosystem. Books are part of it, but so are newsletters with subscriptions, viral LinkedIn posts, Substack essays, X threads and, yes, 30-second videos on Instagram or YouTube Shorts. Political influence has gone the same way.
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So, what should a would-be thought leader do? Write that book with a big idea, yes. But don’t stop there. Treat it as one gear in a larger machine. Build an audience through diverse platforms that use voice, video and short-form text. Share ideas in real-time. Experiment. Engage. Books are for depth. Podcasts are for reach. Newsletters are for loyalty. Tweets are for traction. Master the digital mix.
Books will still matter especially in policy, academia and legacy media, but they no longer offer an automatic key to the kingdom of influence. In a world oversaturated with information, clarity is currency, velocity is value and reach is power.
So, have we reached ‘peak book’ point à la ‘peak oil’? Quite possibly. The hardcover may no longer be the sovereign badge of authority it once was. But in the age of agile content and restless attention, thought leadership is no longer about a singular polished manuscript. It’s about being present, persistent and plural.
Anyone who writes a book now to get an important idea across must also embrace digital channels. Because in the new world of ideas, it’s not just about being read. It’s about being ubiquitous—heard, shared, seen and of course remembered.
The authors are, respectively, professor at Columbia Business School and founder of Valize; and Fortune-500 advisor, startup investor and co-founder of the non-profit Medici Institute for Innovation. X: @MuneerMuh
