That comes mostly from practice, and failing, and failing, and failing again, and finally succeeding.

Do you have personal recommendations for books to use for self-study for base algos knowledge?

I (self taught) went through Segewick's Algorithms. It is a serious study, but very code focused as opposed to math / proof focused, depending on your tastes. Its a masterpiece.

As an extension... whether one should read it depends on the goals. If you want to ace google style algorithm questions, you are better off spending an equivalent time churning through hackerrank (etc). This book will serve more as deep dive for curious minds that would put you (far) ahead of most devs in understanding, but you need to work through the exercises (or pair w/ leetcode / hackerrank) to demonstrate as much in an interview.

what about leetcode?

Good practice tool, not for learning though.