Good newsletters do some of our filtering for us. Here are ten we open first when they land, picked for people who develop others: leaders, learning teams, coaches and HR.
All ten come from independent writers: researchers, practitioners and coaches who write because they have something to say. The list runs in alphabetical order. Every newsletter on it earned its place on its own.
This is the first Talent10 list by category. Each one covers a single theme and a set period. We start with newsletters, for the fourth quarter of 2026.
Lessons from the coaching room
Scott Osman shares the leadership wisdom of the 100 Coaches community, a network of executive coaches built around Marshall Goldsmith. Useful for leaders who coach and for coaches who lead.
Leadership with a sense of humor
Jeff Matlow writes weekly for managers and founders who want leadership advice that holds their attention. Each issue pairs a story with a practical lesson, and more than 14,000 leaders read along.
Both, and
Wendy K. SmithWendy K. Smith, a management professor at the University of Delaware and co-author of Both/And Thinking, writes once a month about leading through tensions that have no clean answer. Research, cases and practical tools for leaders who are tired of false choices.
Learning that serves the business
Jess AlmlieJess Almlie makes the case for L&D teams that act as partners to the business and measure themselves by impact. Her LinkedIn newsletter gives learning leaders the arguments for that shift.
The science of learning, monthly
Carl HendrickCarl Hendrick rounds up new research on how people learn, from spacing and retrieval to what AI tutoring can and cannot do. He is careful about the limits of each finding, which makes his dispatch a reliable guard against the next learning fad.
Talent decisions are business decisions
Lars Schmidt, author of Redefining HR, writes weekly about hiring, people strategy and how AI is changing the work of HR teams. A strategic lens for anyone who has to connect development to business results.
Read five minutes, save five hours
Laura LewandowskiLaura Lewandowski was an award-winning journalist at the German Press Agency before she set out in 2017 to build her own media business. Her reporter's instinct runs through every issue of Smart Chiefs: fast, clear and full of ideas leaders can put to work immediately. She writes about AI and what comes next for CEOs, founders and anyone shaping how their people work, and she did her homework, with a semester of AI studies in 2024. More than 80,000 people follow her community by email and on social media. Smart Chiefs is written in German, and any translation tool opens it to every reader in seconds. A clear recommendation from us.
Drop, update, learn
Ross StevensonRoss Stevenson writes every Tuesday for learning professionals keeping pace with AI, with tool reviews, short videos and playbooks. His "expiring, evolving and emerging" lens is a quick way to review a team's skills every quarter.
Stay curious a little longer
Michael Bungay StanierMichael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit, writes every Tuesday for more than 60,000 readers. Each issue starts with a small scene from his own week and turns it into something useful for working with people: a question to ask, a habit to try, a way to give less advice and draw out more from others. Warm, funny and easy to use the same day. We also have The Coaching Habit on our Bookshelf.
Management as a job
Johnathan and Melissa NightingaleJohnathan and Melissa Nightingale ran teams at Mozilla before founding Raw Signal Group, where they train managers. Their biweekly letter is short, blunt and occasionally profane, and it treats management as a skill people can learn.
Which newsletter belongs on our next list? Tell us on LinkedIn. Coming next in Talent10: ten books for anyone who develops others.
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