TLP487: Three Ways to Motivate Teams and Align Strategy
The Leadership Podcast
Hans Lagerweij is the author of The Why Whisperer: How to Motivate and Align Teams That Get Your Strategy Done. In this episode, Hans shares that he wrote the book after watching great strategies fail during execution. He saw a gap between understanding the importance of purpose and actually implementing it. Hans explains that you can't shout your way to purpose. Whispering requires getting close to your team and having two-way conversations. He emphasizes that leaders need to listen to personal motivations and ideas from team members. Hans presents three options when there's...
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TLP486: Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success
The Leadership Podcast
Lauren Wittenberg Weiner is a speaker, business therapist, and bestselling author of Unruly: Deconstruct the Rules, Defy the Norms, and Define Your Success. In this episode, Lauren shares the pivotal moment that crystallized her unruly philosophy. When told she couldn't do something, she learned to transform that doubt into motivation rather than letting it paralyze her. She explains how reframing negative feedback as challenge fuel drives her leadership. Lauren explains the difference between gatekeepers who clone themselves and gateways who open doors. She tackles the transactional...
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TLP485: Transform Your Life (Before 8AM)
The Leadership Podcast
Hal Elrod is the bestselling author of “The Miracle Morning: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM).” The book offers a practical morning routine that has transformed the lives of over 3 million people. In this episode, Hal describes discovering the six practices that became the SAVERS method (Silence, Affirmations, Visualization, Exercise, Reading, Scribing) during the 2008 financial crisis when he needed to rebuild his life and income. He shares how implementing these practices every morning doubled his income within two months and became the...
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TLP484: Balancing Innovation with Human Connection
The Leadership Podcast
Brandon Sawalich is the President and CEO of Starkey, leading 6,000 employees across 29 countries in the hearing healthcare industry. In this episode, Brandon addresses how healthcare leaders balance innovation with human connection. He explains that hearing health requires both cutting-edge AI technology and personalized care from healthcare professionals. He shares leadership lessons from guiding Starkey's transformation into a global brand while preserving its family culture. Brandon discusses how to maintain core values while under pressure to prioritize patient outcomes...
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TLP483: People Must Feel Valued Before They Can Add Value
The Leadership Podcast
Zach Mercurio is a researcher, and optimist instructor who specializes in purposeful leadership and meaningful work. He is the author of "The Power of Mattering: How Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance," that reveals the psychological foundation that drives human energy and performance in organizations. Zach addresses why 60% of employees don't feel cared for at work and how this creates a mattering deficit leading to quiet quitting or toxic behaviors. He discusses the Optimism course he created with Simon Sinek, which focuses on developing human skills that show people their...
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TLP482: The 100 Best Books for Work and Life
The Leadership Podcast
Todd Sattersten brings over 20 years of experience in nonfiction book publishing, and is the author of "The 100 Best Books for Work and Life." He's also the publisher at Bard Press and has dedicated his career to helping leaders navigate the overwhelming world of business literature. In this episode, Todd reveals how he curated 100 essential books into 25 problem-focused chapters, moving beyond traditional business categories to address both professional and personal challenges leaders face. He explains why growth comes from believing change is possible and how daily effort accumulates into...
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TLP481: The New Language of Leadership with Michael Ventura
The Leadership Podcast
Michael Ventura is an entrepreneur, author of “Applied Empathy: The New Language of Leadership”, and advisor to leaders at organizations including the ACLU, Google, Nike, and the UN. He has taught emotionally intelligent leadership at Princeton, West Point, and Esalen. In this episode, Michael explores why our natural childhood empathy fades as adults due to life complexity, cultural conditioning, and survival mechanisms that suppress this innate behavior. He explains how organizational design can create systems where empathy thrives through measurement, rewards, and leadership modeling...
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TLP480: Number One Factor for Changing Team Behaviors with Tamara Myles
The Leadership Podcast
Tamara Myles is a speaker, professor, and co-author of "Meaningful Work: How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee." She specializes in the science of human flourishing at work and serves as faculty at Boston College and the University of Pennsylvania. In this episode, Tamara challenges the biggest misconception leaders hold about purpose and productivity. She explains how leaders often view these as opposing forces, when research shows they actually create a virtuous cycle that drives engagement, performance, and innovation. Tamara emphasizes that self-awareness...
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TLP479: Make Work Fair with Siri Chilazi
The Leadership Podcast
Siri Chilazi is a senior researcher at the Women in Public Policy Program at Harvard Kennedy School, and co-author of "Make Work Fair: Data-Driven Design for Real Results." She helps organizations bridge the gap between research and practice using evidence-based approaches to workplace fairness. In this episode, Siri explains why workplace fairness requires redesigning systems rather than changing people, demonstrating how structured processes like predetermined interview questions produce less biased results than open-ended conversations. She argues that organizations must analyze workforce...
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TLP478: The Consequences of Inaction with Nick Cooney
The Leadership Podcast
Nick Cooney is the founder and managing partner of Lever VC, an early stage fund focused on food and ag tech innovation. He also founded the Lever Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to advancing a humane and sustainable food system, and authored "What We Don't Do: Inaction in the Face of Suffering and the Drive to Do More." In this episode, Nick tackles the Malthusian Trap debate and explains why more people face starvation today in raw numbers than ever before, despite technological advances in food production. He argues that capitalism alone cannot solve global food insecurity because it...
info_outlineTodd Sattersten brings over 20 years of experience in nonfiction book publishing, and is the author of "The 100 Best Books for Work and Life." He's also the publisher at Bard Press and has dedicated his career to helping leaders navigate the overwhelming world of business literature.
In this episode, Todd reveals how he curated 100 essential books into 25 problem-focused chapters, moving beyond traditional business categories to address both professional and personal challenges leaders face. He explains why growth comes from believing change is possible and how daily effort accumulates into meaningful progress.
Todd discusses the shift from data-heavy business books toward more introspective, permission-giving literature that acknowledges the chaotic nature of modern leadership. Todd discusses the difficulty of finding quality fiction with positive leadership examples and his preference for books that help readers ask different questions rather than provide step-by-step formulas.
Todd concludes by stressing the importance of reading with intention, distinguishing between reading for entertainment versus insight, and building sustainable reading habits that focus on addressing real challenges rather than collecting impressive quotes.
Listen to discover how to navigate information overload, identify truly transformative books, and develop the reading habits that separate effective leaders from those who simply accumulate knowledge.
You can find episode 482 on YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts!
Watch this Episode on YouTube | Todd Sattersten on The 100 Best Books for Work and Life
Key Takeaways
[03:42] Todd explains his selection process started with 60-70 known books, then Todd describes how the 25 topics emerged naturally from the books themselves - goal setting, habits, leadership, relationships, motivation.
[06:48] Todd identifies two key patterns to accumulate people's consistent actions: "growth comes from the belief that change is possible" and "daily effort matters."
[13:28] Todd explains that great books redefine problems to create different solutions, citing examples like focusing on better customers rather than better products.
[16:02] Todd reveals he's nervous about trendy books, especially about companies or leaders that don't hold up over time.
[20:51] Todd believes people recognize tremendous value in listening to work others have already done, whether from Stoics, Buddhists, or other traditions.
[23:50] Todd emphasizes reading requires choosing between entertainment versus insight, asking "how will I act differently after reading this."
[27:03] Todd explains the data-heavy book trend came from 30 years of neuroscience research but now sees a shift toward permission-giving books.
[31:50] Todd identifies "Your Brain at Work" by David Rock as his top pick for explaining brain function limitations.
[35:40] Todd describes "Reboot" by Jerry Colonna as transformative for connecting personal stories to leadership effectiveness.
[39:17] Todd concludes by encouraging leaders to "build a habit of reading" since most successful leaders are readers.
[40:09] And remember…”The things I want to know are in books. My best friend is the man who will get me a book I ain't read.” - Abraham Lincoln.
Quotable Quotes
“Growth comes from the belief that change is possible.”
“Daily effort matters.”
“A different way to define the problem creates a different way to solve the problem.”
“If you don’t understand the stories that you have about yourself, then you can’t possibly be the best possible leader.”
“Fiction can provide a really great perspective.”
“The work is internal most of the time. It’s not, hey, I need to go fix some business thing.”
“Leadership is a journey of growth.”
“A book still does something that almost every other art form doesn’t do.”
“The people who understand the value of books understand there’s a tremendous value in listening to the work others have already done.”
“Identifying a set of effective solutions… that’s what leaders need.”
“Please build a habit of reading. I can’t think of a better habit for a leader.”
These are the books mentioned in this episode
Resources Mentioned
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The Leadership Podcast | theleadershippodcast.com
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Sponsored by | www.darley.com
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Rafti Advisors. LLC | www.raftiadvisors.com
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Self-Reliant Leadership. LLC | selfreliantleadership.com
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Todd Sattersten Website | http://toddsattersten.com
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Todd Sattersten LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/in/toddsattersten
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Todd Sattersten Instagram | @toddsattersten