Leaders Lead, Leaders Read with Dr. Shaunta Scroggins

In this episode, Dr. Shaunta Scroggins interviews retired Navy Captain L. David Marquet to learn more about his book Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers Into Leaders . To take in the interaction, click here to watch the interview on the Center for Legacy Driven Leadership's YouTube channel. Listen as Captain Marquet explains parts of the journey that inspired him to implement a...

Elie Wiesel is the author and was a journalist, professor, Congressional Gold Medalist in 1985 and recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986. Night, Dawn, and Day (formerly titled The Accident ) are a trilogy with the first being a memoir and the remaining two as fiction books. Listen as Dr. Scroggins shares her appreciation for and insights from these books. Consider adding them to your library...

Take a wild ride through the world of Hugo Chávez's Venezuela , subtitle for the book Comandante by Rory Carroll (2013).  Not quite a dictator, but definitely a toxic leader, learn the lessons Dr. Shaunta extracts from the final chapter of the book and scholarly research.  The Leaders Lead Leaders Read Podcast with Dr. Shaunta Scroggins is sponsored by the Center for Legacy Driven Leader...

In this episode, Dr. Shaunta reviews When  the Gift of Giving Leaves You Empty by indie author Aaron Hinkston. Episode one is the interview with Aaron to discuss the leadership themes in his faith-based book. Make sure you listen to episode one! The Leaders Lead Leaders Read Podcast with Dr. Shaunta Scroggins is sponsored by the Center for Legacy Driven Leadership, LLC. ~Sharing  the lan...

Kicking off Season 4 is an interview with indie author Aaron Hinkston. Listen as he and Dr. Shaunta discuss the leadership themes in his faith-based book When  the Gift of Giving Leaves You Empty . Come back for the review of this book in episode two.  The Leaders Lead Leaders Read Podcast with Dr. Shaunta Scroggins is sponsored by the Center for Legacy Driven Leadership, LLC. ~Sharing t...

Season 4 is coming October 1st! New reads, new insights, and better leaders -- these are the goals! Listen to seasons 1-3 now and mark your calendars for the upcoming season.  LEADERS LEAD, LEADERS READ with Dr. Shaunta Scroggins!

This book is a challenging read primarily because the reader must confront his/her/their feelings on faith, oppressed peoples, and several closely related topics. It is a heady and helpful read, like a guided tour through history and faith, on the theme of a connection between the cross of Jesus Christ and the lynching tree of Black Americans. In this review, we consider every chapter.  The C...

Hello Leaders! This is an episode with commentary . I feel like this may be a running theme where on occasion, I will share my evolving ideas about building one's own table. In this episode, I share three thoughts that came to me during another phase of assessment.  If the table is crowded, it's because the table is known.  The inclusion discussion still exists when one builds his/her/th...

Power Mentoring: How Successful Mentors and Protégés Get the Most Out of Their Relationships by Ellen Ensher and Susan Murphy (2005) This is the book we are discussing, and the ins and outs of power mentoring. The two biggest things that distinguish power mentoring from traditional mentoring is 1) reciprocity and 2) the networking approach. In the power mentoring construct, we can have as many men...

The full title of the book is Leadership Vertigo: Why Even the Best Leaders Go Off Course and How They Can Get Back on Track . Published in 2014, there are six chapters and recommended resources. Leadership vertigo "refers to the false signals being sent by our brain asserting that everything is moving along as it should when it's not" (p. 12). As a solution, Brown and Naseer offer a model of four...

Dr. Frank Dikötter is the author of How to Be a Dictator: The Cult of Personality in the Twentieth Century (2019). Students and scholars of toxic leadership and despots need this book. The cult of personality is one of the tactics in the dictator's playbook. Dictators gain the adoration of the masses to ensure no resistance to their policies.  Travel around the world and learn detailed insigh...

The book is called SCARRED: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM The Cult That Bound My Life . It's written by Sarah Edmondson with Kristine Gasbarre. It's a memoir of Sarah Edmondson's entry into, experiences in, and exit from the NXIVM cult.  References you'll hear about in the review: The Vow documentary on HBO Bounded Choice by Dr. Janja Lalich Recommended Reading page on Dr. Lalich's we...

Leaders! Chime in -- what are the factors you consider to give an up-and-coming leader a chance for development? Is networking really such a critical component? If so, why? What causes you to say, "No, not yet" or "I don't want to invest there"?   Does any of our leadership reading provoke us to grow outside of ourselves as mentors and coaches? Let's chat about it. 

Leaders! This episode is the REVIEW of Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults by Dr. Janja Lalich. There are wonderful leadership and organizational leadership lessons for us in this book. There are new terms and concepts to learn for understanding, and written as if in conversation with the author. I hope you will give this book a chance. Don't be afraid to learn more about toxic le...

Janja Lalich, Ph. D. is an international cult and coercion expert. After hearing her contribution to documentaries and podcasts, I thought her the best first guide into the study of cults. We talked about her bounded choice framework, beautifully laid out in her book Bounded Choice: True Believers and Charismatic Cults . Dr. Lalich is a researcher, author, and educator specializing in cults and ex...

Congratulations Leaders on getting to the end of a serious growth year! There have been plenty of experiences to challenge and reward us through development, flexibility, and mindset shifting. Good for us. This final episode of season two is my thank you card to each listener. It's been a great set of books and discussions we've had in season two, and I hope there is something for everyone to appl...

Where You Are Is Not Who You Are by Ursula M. Burns is advice from the life and times of Ms. Burns on mentoring, coaching, modeling for one's team, leader and leadership development, and preparing to serve on a board of directors. This is a book for women and for everyone else. Ms. Burns, I feel, fairly presents her life to us: where at fault, where learning, where succeeding, where influenced, wh...

The Black Church by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. I am so in love with my PBS subscription and ordered this book when I saw the PBS series on The Black Church . It was wonderful! This episode is what I call my "peripheral review" of the book because this is not a leadership book. But as promised, I am sharing how I see a thread of leadership in the book, the history, and the institution of the Black Chur...

I read All About Love by Bell Hooks and started thinking about leadership. Spiritual leadership, to be exact. Then I wondered about leader evolutions because of the comprehensive way Bell Hooks talks about love. Spiritual leadership theory posits that the intrinsically motivated leader through his/her values, beliefs, and attitudes will engage followers through a sense of calling and memberships t...

***THIS IS A FAITH-BASED BOOK.*** I personally don't like disclaimers, but I want to give you a fair warning in case your leadership and your faith don't mix.  This book is based on the account of Nehemiah the cupbearer and his leadership journey to rebuild the wall. There are distracting enemies, strategic movements, wise responses, and of course navigating communication with the people. The...

This book! I was happy, sad, angry, surprised, and disappointed. Geesh, the leadership examples abound. Historians may appreciate this read, as well as students of leadership. I learned after I finished this book that some in the medical field had this book as required reading while they trained.  The important spotlight of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is the placement and application...

This book is famous as a memoir. There are also some leadership lessons from Mrs. Obama's career search, discovery, and connection with "doing something immediately meaningful, directly impacting the lives of others" (p. 180). I know many who own the book and have either not read it or not finished it yet. Please make it a point to do so! If you remain on the fence about purchasing Becoming , plea...

I am a FAN of Leslie Odom, Jr.! Oddly, I first learned about him when I heard his interview on NPR promoting his album Simply Christmas. Then I learned he wrote a book. Yay.  If you are risk-averse or afraid of failure, then you want to consider this book. You do not need to be a singer, performer, or creative to read this book. The application is human. When you read it, come back and leave...

Leaders! Can you believe we made it to season two?!  How exciting. There's a link for you to leave me messages. Please, let me know when you've read a book reviewed on this podcast. Also, make suggestions about leadership books to read -- especially from independent and unknown authors.  I want to make sure you understand that the faith-based books to be reviewed in this second season ha...

Leaders! This is a check-in. How are you all doing?  I want to remind you, with a fabulous quote from Leslie Odom, Jr.'s Failing Up , that your resilience is shining through.  You are taking your challenges to task and you are emerging intact!  Season 2 is coming in the fall; I look forward to sharing another set of great books with you.