It is true that leaders are readers. As Taleb says, only the autodidacts are free. But it is deeper than that. A real leader learns from experience. They notice that less than 20% of performance ratings have anything to do with actual performance. They might notice that close to 95% of performance rating systems are dismal failures. They notice, they learn and they take action. The leader refuses to keep doing the same thing and expecting to get a different result.