top of page



45 Years in America!
This month and year — April 2025 — mark the 45th year anniversary for me and my siblings living in America ! It feels so surreal that I...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Apr 6
Â
Â


Don't Miss Out On A Chance To Work For A (Not Well-Known) Small or Medium-Sized Company
In late December 2017, I flew half way across the United States to interview for a position at a very famous tech company in northern...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Mar 2
Â
Â


Book Review: Community of Leaders by Vince Molinaro
Vince Molinaro's Community of Leaders (2024a) book is a follow-up to his previous book, Accountable Leaders (2020). In the last chapter...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Jan 1
Â
Â


Burnout Is Not What Most People Think
I see many people on social media posting about burnout & how to manage burnout — BUT almost always only as an individual way to...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Nov 23, 2024
Â
Â


Book Overview & Summary: Smart, Not Loud by Jessica Chen
Jessica Chen's book, "Smart, Not Loud: How to Get Noticed at Work for All the Right Reasons" is fantastic! "The Quiet Culture bias is the...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Sep 20, 2024
Â
Â


Being Negative and Complaining
"Two men look out the same prison bars: One sees mud and the other stars." -Frederick Langbridge It's very easy and so tempting to be...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Jun 2, 2024
Â
Â


Light A Fire Within Instead of Under Someone
The Cambridge Dictionary defines the saying, "light a fire under someone" in this manner: to make someone act quickly or forcefully,...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Apr 6, 2024
Â
Â


Personal Integrity Is Being Congruent; Not Hedging, Not Sidestepping, Not Misleading
"A liar will not be believed, even when he speaks the truth." -Aesop In a 2015 Hallmark Christmas holiday movie called, "I'm Not Ready...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Feb 5, 2024
Â
Â


A Top Regret of the Dying - Wishing They Hadn't Worked So Hard
Bronnie Ware is an Australian woman who spent many years working in palliative care. Her patients were those who had returned home to...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Jan 3, 2024
Â
Â


The Value of Feedback
According to the book The Leadership Challenge, one of the things leaders can start doing to become better leaders is to ask people to...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Nov 9, 2023
Â
Â


Book Review - Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well
RIGHT KIND OF WRONG - PART ONE In Part One of her book (Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well), Dr. Edmondson introduces a...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Oct 16, 2023
Â
Â


Lack of Composure
Many years ago I had a chance to meet and interact with a middle manager who, while appearing on the outside to be very self-assured, was...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Aug 7, 2023
Â
Â


Don't Be Petty and Don't Delight in Other's Misery
Petty is an interesting word. The Collins Online Dictionary defines it as: mean or ungenerous in small or trifling things a petty person...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Jul 4, 2023
Â
Â


What it Means for a Leader to Take on "Extreme Ownership"
Photo: Jocko Willink (left) and Leif Babin (right) I've written before about "extreme ownership" and how passing the buck (i.e., blaming...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Jun 4, 2023
Â
Â


Good to Great to Gone
I was once part of a leadership development initiative (in 2019) that required partnering and collaborating with a third-party vendor,...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
May 2, 2023
Â
Â


Book Review: The Leadership Challenge, 7th Edition
In this book review of The Leadership Challenge (7th ed.) by James (Jim) Kouzes and Barry Posner, I'll compare the 7th edition (2023) to...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Apr 9, 2023
Â
Â


Don't Get Hooked on "Fake Work"
“Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Mar 7, 2023
Â
Â


Don't Outsource Your Thinking
If there's one thing I've learned from attaining my Ph.D. it is this — don't outsource your thinking. As a society, we've become lazy,...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Dec 19, 2022
Â
Â


Book Summary & Review: How to Be an Inclusive Leader (2nd ed.) by Jennifer Brown
SUMMARY Based on her many years of watching all types of individuals react to the issues surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Nov 18, 2022
Â
Â


Book Review: Show the Value of What You Do by Patricia P. Phillips and Jack J. Phillips
IMPORTANT: For this book summary, I'll be using and referencing other books by the author(s) to better provide context, examples, and...
Steve Nguyen, PhD
Sep 22, 2022
Â
Â
bottom of page