I am honored to host the December installment of the Leadership Development Carnival, a collection of helpful leadership advice from top bloggers. This month’s carnival doesn’t adhere to any particular theme, but rather features content on a variety of leadership topics and issues.
Take a moment to click through each of the great submissions, and be sure to share this collection of posts with someone you believe would benefit from the advice.
Leadership Skills
Many of this month’s featured posts focus on specific leadership skills we all need to develop.
For example, in “Seven Ways to Sell Your Ideas to Management,” Joel Garfinkle of the Career Advancement Blog shares how to present your ideas in order to get them implemented – a skill you need to master if you want to be an influential leader in your company.
Need a little tongue-in-cheek advice? In “7 Habits of Highly Inept Leaders,” Karin Hurt of the Lead Change Group provides basic yet insightful tips about things NOT to do as a leader, thus encouraging leaders to behave differently in order to most effectively lead their teams.
Dana Theus shared this helpful reminder on the InPower Blog: the job you want may not need what you do best right now. The higher you go in leadership, the more this is true. To learn more about how to develop the skills you will need in your next leadership role, check out “Sidestepping the Peter Principle for Career Success.”
Do you understand the two faces of leadership? Jesse Lyn Stone of the Jesse Lyn Stoner Blog explains that one face of leadership looks forward to the future, while the other face looks back at your followers. Learn more about this important leadership approach in “The Two Faces of Leadership.”
Neal Burgis, Ph.D. wrote about another leadership approach on the Practical Solutions blog. Neal writes, “Creativity is often described as the catalyst to innovation, and creativity does not need to be left up to chance.” Learn more about cultivating this mindset in “Creative Innovation as a Leadership Mindset.”
Are You Living Your Leadership Life to the Fullest? Mark Deterding of Triune Leadership Services explains where servant leaders focus their energy to lead a life of significant impact.
Character of a Leader
Our featured bloggers also submitted great advice on developing essential character strengths and qualities.
Mary Jo Asmus reminds us that a willingness to open up and be vulnerable can create deeper work relationships in her post “The V Word” on the Mary Jo Asmus blog.
As leaders, we can be hard on people, but when we’re quick to judge, we need to take a step back and think about the second chances we were given. Read more on this topic in “Be Grateful for Second Chances,” submitted by Jon Mertz of the Thin Difference blog.
Inspirational leadership is the catalyst that gets people to go the extra mile, and Dr. Anne Perschel of the Germane Insights blog has been writing a series of five posts to help you be a more inspirational leader. Don’t miss 5 Attributes of Inspirational Leadership: #3 Determination.
In “The Power of a Kind Leader,” Jeff Harmon shares that giving attention creates an engaged state in the brains of team members and employees that can result in an increase in creativity, more collaboration and greater accuracy. Check out Jeff’s blog on the Brilliance Within website.
Miki Saxon of MAPping Company Success shares “Traits of a Good Boss,” which highlights four important leadership traits as exemplified by Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s new CEO.
With competing priorities, where should a leader’s focus truly be? As John Hunter shares on his Curious Cat Management Comments blog, Alibaba founder Jack Ma takes this approach: “We believe customer number one, employee number two, shareholder number three…” Learn more in “Managing the Organization as a System with Many Stakeholders.”
There are no shortcuts to developing high-trust relationships. In “4 Timeless Principles About Building Trustful Relationships,” published on the Leading with Trust blog, Randy Conley shares four principles you should keep in mind about the role time plays in building trust.
Lisa Kohn of Chatsworth Consulting Group shares “Four Ways We Sabotage Our Own Leadership” on The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog. In this post, Lisa discusses why making sure you’re credible, trustworthy, consistent, and real will help you be the leader you want to be and make people want to follow you.
Management Issues
Need advice on a management issue? These experts may just offer the answers you need.
Well-orchestrated talent management practices can make the difference for your organization and position it to thrive, grow and weather change on the strength of its current and future leaders to face the challenges of doing business in 2015 head-on. Evan Sinar, Ph.D., DDI Chief Scientist and Director, Center for Analytics and Behavioral Research (CABER), shares Strong Bench Readiness May be Rare, but It’s Not an Accident on DDI’s Talent Management intelligence blog.
Beth Armknecht Miller of Executive Velocity Inc. tackles the question “How Valuable Are Employee Self-Assessments When it Comes to Tracking Employee Performance?” Integrating an employee’s self-assessment into the performance feedback process can uncover gaps between your perception and an employee’s perception of his or her performance before the actual review, providing you with a direction for feedback and enhancing your conversation.
Employee engagement is always an important management issue. Engagement begets more engagement…so how do you get the cycle started? Julie Winkle Giulioni shares advice in “The Engagement Ring.” Read more of her advice at www.juliewinklegiulioni.com.
Adam Harkness of The Productivity Blog shares this post on implementing analytics for HR, “Talking Predictive Analytics with a VP of Talent Management.” Similar to predicting the weather, attempting to predict performance is as much a science as it is an art; the field has evolved over the years and companies are now leveraging predictive analytics in the HR space to better understand their workforces.
Company Culture
From explaining the company vision to making culture “sticky,” company culture is something all leaders should be intentional about.
Do your employees “get” the company vision? Jennifer V. Miller of The People Equation offers up five ways to know in Don’t Wait Around for the Company CEO to Explain the Vision.
Chris Edmonds of Driving Results Through Culture shares “Is Your Culture ‘Sticky’?” – a post/cast that provides steps to follow to ensure that a high performing, values-aligned culture remains and thrives after the culture champion moves on.
Other Practical Insights
Not sure how to navigate your upcoming office holiday celebration? Or struggling with the balance between empathy and enforcing performance expectations? Look no further than these helpful posts.
Managers need to figure out how to navigate the tricky waters of office holiday celebrations. Read Dan McCarthy’s post over at About.com Management and Leadership: A Manager’s Guide for the Holiday Season for some common sense tips.
Leaders who are overwhelmed may not admit it, but their staff bear the brunt. Jill Malleck shares “Herculean Efforts Not Always Heroic” on the Epiphanies at Work blog.
When should you lower your expectations bar for the sake of empathy? This post from Mary Ila Ward at The Point helps leaders think through balancing empathy and expectations with three simple questions. Read “3 Questions for Balancing Empathy and Expectations as a Leader.”
Wally Bock of Three Star Leadership writes that planning can help you succeed, but only if you review and modify your plan. Read more on approaching planning with the right mindset in “Plan, Review, Adjust, Repeat.”
Our world is rapidly changing as a result of globalization, technology and the steady emergence of economically hungry developing countries, further amplifying the need for strong leadership at both the political and corporate levels. Learn more about “Leading in a Time of Rapidly Shifting Tectonic Plates” with this post from Jim Taggart on his blog, ChangingWinds.
And finally, I recently wrote about a helpful tool for addressing leadership gaps in your organization. Learn more about “Closing the Leadership Gap” here on my blog.
In closing, I’d like to thank Katie Russell, our head of communications and social media at E Pluribus Partners, for the outstanding work she did organizing this leadership carnival on behalf of our team.
