Seven books. One summer. A few of them might change how you think about leadership.

David Wheatley, co-founder of Humanergy and host of the Humanergy Leadership Podcast, wraps up the season with his annual summer reading list for leaders. This year's picks span decentralized leadership, AI, gender dynamics in the workplace, coaching philosophy, team performance, and how people build a life worth living.

The books on the list:

Turn the Ship Around by David Marquet — a classic on leader-leader culture that keeps coming back into the conversation for good reason.

The AI-Driven Leader by Jeff Woods — the book Humanergy has been recommending all year for leaders trying to get a practical handle on AI.

The Only Woman in the Room by Lisa Davis — not just for women. David interviewed Lisa earlier this season; this is a good companion listen.

The Score Takes Care of Itself by Bill Walsh — a look at what actually goes into building a winning culture, from the coach who rebuilt the 49ers.

And It Was Beautiful by Phil Hay — the story of Marcelo Bielsa at Leeds, and a counterpoint to Walsh worth reading alongside it.

What Great Teams Do Great by Humanergy — if you haven't read it yet, it's 98 pages and worth every one of them.

What to Make of a Life by Jim Collins — his newest book. If you know Collins from Good to Great or Great by Choice, you know what to expect: rigorous, research-driven, and worth your time.

Drop your own summer reading recommendations in the comments.

Humanergy is a leadership development company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Learn more at humanergy.com.

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AI tools create a specific kind of trust problem on teams, and most leaders aren't sure what to name it or where it's coming from. In this Practical Field Notes episode, Mimi and David react to a Harvard Business Review piece by Jayshree Seth and Amy Edmondson on psychological safety and AI integration. They connect the article's ideas to what leaders are actually navigating in their organizations, including how to build learning loops that keep AI use transparent and how leaders can model the kind of openness that makes it safe for teams to question, challenge, and learn. Humanergy is a leadership development company that helps leaders and teams work better under real conditions. Learn more at humanergy.com.

(Note: The HBR article is behind a paywall. HBR offers free monthly access, if you're out of free reads, you can still follow this conversation without it.)
Link to article here:
https://hbr.org/2026/02/how-to-foster-psychological-safety-when-ai-erodes-trust-on-your-team

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

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Managers know when a performance conversation is overdue. What stops them is not knowing what to say, or worrying the conversation will go sideways. In this free workshop, Humanergy coach Jim Marshall shares two practical tools: the WXYZ framework for giving specific, grounded feedback without triggering defensiveness, and Feed Need Seed Weed, a four-part structure for organizing accountability conversations from recognition through correction. If you're sitting on a conversation you've been delaying, this one's for you.

Humanergy is a leadership development company that helps leaders work better and make better decisions in real organizations. Learn more at humanergy.com.

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

Join the Humanergy community on LinkedIn.

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Three high-performing individual contributors got promoted to lead roles. All three are now miserable. The manager who promoted them is asking what to do. In this episode, Humanergy coaches John Barrett and Quay Eady work through exactly that scenario — why it happens, what the manager can do now, and what organizations consistently get wrong about developing people before they're promoted. The conversation covers a practical tool called FROM/TO for mapping where someone's strengths came from and what success looks like in their new role. Humanergy helps leaders and organizations work through real challenges like this one. Learn more at humanergy.com.

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When leaders ask "why," they often get defensiveness instead of dialogue, even when that's not what they intended. In this episode, David Wheatley explores why the word "why" tends to put people on the front foot and shares a simple language shift that changes the whole tone: replacing "why" with "what's causing that?" It's a small swap, but it opens conversations that might otherwise close down.

 Humanergy is a leadership development firm dedicated to practical, human-centered leadership. Learn more at humanergy.com.

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Most organizations prepare for system changes with FAQs and talking points. When Honor Credit Union switched its core banking platform overnight, 110,000 members woke up to something unfamiliar, and some of them were not happy about it.

Jen Wagner and her social media team responded to nearly a thousand comments over two weeks. Not with scripted replies or copy-paste answers. With real people, talking to members like humans. The result was so striking that Honor's social team became the first-ever recipient of Humanergy's Green Path Award.

In this episode of the Humanergy Leadership Podcast, David Wheatley talks with Jen about what actually made it work, months of preparation, a clear response framework, the mindset shift that kept the team energized, and why empathy is a practice, not a personality trait. If your team is heading into any kind of major change, this one's worth your time.

Topics covered:

• How Honor's team prepared for and responded to a major core banking conversion
• The three-step response structure that kept communication caring, honest, and direct
• What it looks like to hire for empathy and then build systems around it
• Why the most frustrating comments were actually the most valuable

Humanergy is a leadership development company that helps teams do the hard work of leading well. Visit humanergy.com to learn more.

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

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Delegation is one of the most talked-about leadership skills, and one of the most poorly executed. In this free workshop session, Humanergy coach Lance Satterthwaite gets into the real reasons leaders avoid delegating or do it badly, and offers concrete ways to change that.

He covers four common barriers, it takes time, you love the work, you don't trust it'll get done right, and fear of losing control, along with honest questions to help leaders examine their own patterns. He also walks through Humanergy's authority matrix, a practical tool for defining decision-making levels and tracking how much ownership is actually being transferred over time.

The core argument: if you're only using delegation to manage your workload, you're leaving the most important part on the table, the development of your people. This session is for leaders who want both.

Find resources and upcoming free workshops at humanergy.com.
Find the Authority Matrix here:
https://humanergy.com/freebies/

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

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C-suite leaders often know their teams should be thinking strategically, and yet under pressure, those same teams keep dropping back to the tactical level. In this episode, David Wheatley, Dr. Rick Eigenbrod, and Dr. Judy Brown unpack why that keeps happening and what to do about it.

The conversation starts with a reframe: the question "how do I get them to be strategic?" is itself the problem. It creates a dependency that almost guarantees teams won't take ownership. From there, they explore what actually drives the regression: unclear shared meaning of "strategic," metrics and bonuses that reward tactical behavior, the boss's own anxiety signaling what really matters, and whether team members are developmentally ready for the altitude being asked of them.

Listeners will come away with a sharper diagnostic lens and a set of better questions to ask before trying to change anyone else's behavior.

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

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In this episode of The Coaching Table on the Humanergy Leadership Podcast, coaches David Wheatley and Lance Satterthwaite work through a real scenario from a leader caught between a reactive C-suite and a frustrated team. Our scenarios are either submitted directly or found in the wild on public forums. The coaches explore what conversations this leader may need to have, how to calibrate expectations using CIMA, and when it's worth asking the harder question about organizational fit. Tools and frameworks mentioned are available at humanergy.com.

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

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Lisa Davis spent four decades as a technology executive, often the only woman in the room. In this conversation with David Wheatley, she shares three of the nine core leadership principles from her new book, The Only Woman in the Room: grit (reframed as conviction), power (as advocacy and influence, not control), and strength (the emotional resilience executive leadership demands). They also discuss why results alone won't advance your career, the importance of male allies, and how to build a support network that sustains you through the hardest moments of leadership. Lisa's book is available now at https://www.daviscoreadvisory.com/.

Learn more about Humanergy's work: https://www.humanergy.com

Join the Humanergy community on LinkedIn.

Sign up for our FREE leadership workshops.