Author Archives: Douglas R. Satterfield
[November 14, 2025] Occasionally someone comes along at the highest political level that knows what he’s doing and uses those accumulated skills quite effectively. Scott Bessent is the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury and probably one of the smartest economic advisors to a U.S. President that America has ever had. For that reason alone, I see him as… Read More »
[November 13, 2025] Occasionally it’s good to take a break from the challenge of the study of leadership. Today I’m providing my personal list of favorite war movies … those that made an impression on me when I saw them. Yes, they’re English movies so the list doesn’t include some great, non-English movies. For some reason these movies… Read More »
[November 12, 2025] Being a leader means many things but one thing that is required for those who desire to be successful is to have a good set of social skills. It doesn’t mean that a successful leader is required to have table manners, a pretty smile, or fashionable clothes; although it certainly helps. That is why I… Read More »
[November 10, 2025] In a brutally honest email sent to the “Penn community” declared that the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education is a “dogshit and elitist institution” and that they “hire and admit morons.” As to be expected in damage control, Penn administrators immediately labeled the email as fraudulent. I got a laugh out of it.… Read More »
[November 9, 2025] Leadership is certainly not easy, but no one who has taken such a position does so with the intent to do a bad job of it. Poor leadership – that can be described as being ineffective – is also not something that comes about due to a single error or bad decision but from a… Read More »
[November 8, 2025] Look for generosity and kindness in your friends, especially those who show it across all levels of society. This is a sign of a sincere friend and potential partner. People who are helpful and friendly to those at the lower end of the social hierarchy, such as janitors and servers, and not just kind to… Read More »
[November 7, 2025] Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen wrote the lyrics to his song “The Captain,” published in 1984. The poem is unsettling and dark. Ultimately, it’s about war, moral ambiguity, and the most difficult choices we must make. In the fourth verse, he begins with, ‘There’s no decent place to stand in a massacre.’ A few weeks ago,… Read More »
[November 6, 2025] Like many boys my age, I wanted to run and hide from the certain butt-whooping I was going to get. I broke a window in my neighbor’s house while throwing a baseball to my good friend Wilson. It was an innocent throw, sailing over Wilson’s head and into the living room window, shattering it. I… Read More »
[November 5, 2025] I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was headed to the local grocery store after finding a good parking spot. And it was cloudy with a mild Winter breeze. My daughter was with me, looking forward to getting a peach cobbler pie and vanilla ice cream for our dinner. A middle-aged woman asked… Read More »
[November 4, 2025] In Germany during the post World War I era, a number of Nazi propaganda films were produced to blame Jews for the poor condition of the German peoples. The film is roughly an hour long and worth watching (with translation to English) with a link here. The 1940 Nazi film, Der Ewige Jude [The Eternal… Read More »