Can you believe it? January is gone, the Super Bowl is over and the Giants won (hooray)!!!!!!!!!!!! Also, it’s the first Monday of the month, which means it’s time for the Leadership Development Carnival. Last month a reader wrote me and asked if I really thought anyone had time to read all the Carnival posts. I agreed that it was unlikely, but suggested they are the perfect length when waiting for commute transportation, a meeting to start and, of course, bathroom reading.

With that in mind, let’s get right to the main event.

Wally Bock presents Fundamental Advice for a Young Leader posted at Three Star Leadership, saying “Noah Lomax asked me for ‘fundamental advice’ for a young leader. Here’s my best shot.”

Anne Perschel presents Manager or Leader – Which One is More Important? posted at Germane Insights, providing a case study and a story of two men, one is seen as a leader, the other as a manager. Which one is more important?

Tanmay Vora presents Fostering Autonomy in a Team: 7 Lessons posted at QAspire. People do their best work when they are “intrinsically motivated” and one of the most important intrinsic motivator for people is autonomy in work. This post outlines 7 lessons learned in building a self organized team.

Jesse Lyn Stoner presents No More Boring Meetings, Please! posted at Jesse Lyn Stoner Blog. The purpose of a team meeting is to create and tap into the collective wisdom. Holding a meeting to share information is not a good reason to meet. This post lists 7 good reasons a team should meet and 3 tips to determine whether a meeting is necessary.

Mary C Schaefer presents 3 Things Great Leaders Know About Managing Change posted at Lead Change Group Blog. Mary reminds us to appreciate resistance to change and to give people adequate time, tools and resources to prepare for change in order to give our organization the best chances for success.

Sharlyn Lauby presents The Inevitable Shift from Jobs to Skills posted at HR Bartender. Superb post about what is perhaps the most important issue of our time across the globe.

David Zinger presents 8 Powerful Approaches to Create Meaningful Employee Engagement posted at David Zinger Employee Engagement, providing an outline of how to weave meaning into work.

Lynn Dessert presents Have Performance Reviews run their course? posted at Elephants at Work, asking do Performance Reviews deliver their intent or has process gobbled them up?

Miki Saxon presents Ducks in a Row: Titles—Silly or Serious? posted at MAPping Company Success. It’s the report structure that moves new CXO titles from silly to serious.

Chris Edmonds presents Plot Your Path to Ethical Behavior posted at Driving Results Through Culture. His post was prompted by the World Economic Forum session in Davos, Switzerland last week. The founder, Klaus Schwab, was quoted as saying that the global economic crisis was prompted by excesses – and that the Davos session would focus on ethics and moral behaviors by economic and political leaders to serve society more fairly. His focus in the post is that ethical behavior starts with each of us, and by following a simple ethics check we can “hold our heads high” at the end of each interaction, each day.

Robyn McLeod presents 7 questions you must answer to strengthen your great idea posted at Thoughtful Leaders Blog. A client shares a set of powerful questions from the R&D world that will resonate with anyone who wants to get their great idea the attention it deserves.

Steve Roesler presents Where You Decide To Perform Matters posted at All Things Workplace. Everyone is talented in some way. Whether or not you are a star depends on where you choose to perform.

David Burkus presents The Least Important Question in Leadership posted at The Leader Lab. Won’t spoil it here – but the post is really about the question behind that question. Curious now?

Dan McCarthy presents A Performance Management Model posted at Great Leadership. Dan has developed A Performance Management Model as a follow-up to his recent “Are You Managing or Just Nagging?” post. Check it out and see which quadrant you’re spending time in: Managing, Avoiding, Nagging, or taking a well deserved Vacation.

Jane Perdue presents 5 reasons it’s OK to say “no” posted at LeadBIG. Telling people “no” doesn’t make you unlikable. Failing to say “no” when it’s appropriate to do so makes you a doormat. And the really ugly kicker here is that saying “yes” doesn’t necessarily make you likeable.

Nick McCormick presents Hiring People that Fit Your Culture posted at Joe and Wanda on Management. The key to hiring good people is to hire those that embody the unique attitudinal characteristics of your organization.

Anna Farmery presents Why Predictions Are Not Just For Christmas! posted at The Engaging Brand. Leadership is not about predicting what will happen; it’s about being prepared for what might happen, which means being open to diverse opinions on that very topic.

Jennifer V. Miller presents 7 Questions That Help Conversations Move Forward posted at The People Equation. If you are having the same conversations over and over with your employees, you’re probably having the wrong conversation. Here are seven ways to get unstuck from the “conversational mud”.

Guy Farmer presents If You Don’t Have Something Nice to Say… posted at Unconventional Training. Many leaders miss a golden opportunity to lead more effectively when they don’t communicate in a nice way.

Chase Dumont presents What is Leadership? The Definitive Answer posted at Chase Dumont, Rainmaker. Rulers, philosophers, and corporate middle managers have been defining and redefining leadership for millennia. In this post, Chase outlines 8 keys to leadership, with concrete examples to arm you with an unbeatable – and practical – understanding of how to lead.

Mary Jo Asmus presents 20 Things To Stop Waiting For posted at Mary Jo Asmus. A checklist of actions leaders do to create positive change.

Scott Eblin presents Is Being the Go-To Person Holding You Back? posted at Next Level Blog. Being the go to person is a great thing for leaders to be until it’s not. In this post, Scott Eblin offers tips and a video coaching segment for leaders who want to shift from being the go to person to someone who build teams of go to people.

Erin Schreyer presents A Loss for the Broncos, A Win for Tebow’s Leadership posted at Leadership. Life. Legacy. Whatever your opinion on his beliefs and the way he shows them, Tebow demonstrates 4 solid characteristics of leadership that are worth reflecting on.

Image credit: Great Leadership

I’ve read a lot about Sam Palmisano and previously written about him.

That said, I still found Wharton management professor Michael Useem’s interview with Palmisano covering his 40 years at IBM, including the last decade as CEO, interesting and informative.

It’s a long interview and, if you prefer, you can use the link to read it or download an audio version.

Most importantly, be sure to read the comments, most by IBMers, which, by and large, are anything but flattering.

Do you agree that his focus on the company screwed the employees or did he get it right?

How does a CEO balance the legacy needs of employees against the needs of the company to survive in a different world?

What would you have done differently to achieve the same success?

YouTube image credit: KnowledgeAtWharton

A few days ago an article about titles in Forbes caught my eye—and got my goat.

It caught me because I’m not a lover of sweeping generalizations, since very few hold up against reality and this was one of them.

In this case, the author, with a typical consultant-pundit in support, denigrates as silly the raft of new CXO functions in business.

While I agree that they can be empty window dressing, the majority I’ve seen are powerful positions. You can tell the difference by the report structure—if the position doesn’t report directly to the top boss—CEO, COO, President or owner—it’s likely fluff.

Another statement, that titles were “likely dreamed up by the marketing team,” was really hilarious considering the corporate examples cited.

Kodak and Dell appointed Chief Listeners. Facebook recently added two Chief Privacy Officers. Coca-Cola is really gung-ho on the trend, employing a Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Scientific and Regulatory Officer, and Chief Quality and Product Integrity Officer, among others. Microsoft has a Chief People Officer; IBM a Chief Information Officer; Xerox a Chief Strategy Officer; and New York City has its very own Chief Digital Officer.

I find it hard to believe that the likes of Sam Palmisano, Michael Dell or Steve Balmer, let alone Michael Bloomberg, have marketing designing their organization.

The list also displays a high level of ignorance, since several of those “silly” titles, e.g., Chief Information Officer (CIO) and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) have been around for decades, while others reflect important new priorities.

It’s not that I condone title inflation, but making sweeping statements that disparage efforts by companies to focus knowledge, skills and resources on specific problems and increase accountability by putting one person in charge are worse.

Creating new areas of responsibility to meet the needs of a changing world is necessary and bosses who ignore the changes or the need are setting their companies up for failure sooner, rather than later.

As long as the CXO has a well-defined mission, the authority to achieve it and direct access to the top the position deserves respect and support.

Outsiders who belittle that effort should be ignored.

Flickr image credit: Bengt Nyman

There’s a lot of talk about “thought leaders,” but it seems that a lot of what is presented as new are old ideas redressed in current language.

That’s not always bad, because there is an enormous amount of classic management and leadership information that works but is ignored because it sounds old-fashioned.

Change the language and voilà—people listen.

The MIX, AKA, Management Innovation Exchange, is different.

I read through a number of them preparatory to posting my own hack on Option Sanity™ and found some truly original ideas; if leadership is your thing start by checking out the eight finalists in the leadership category.

Sure, not all were original and some was based on common worker wisdom, but presented in this forum won it more credibility than it probably had—after all, if management listened to workers they wouldn’t need nearly as many consultants.

I hope you’ll bookmark the site, share it with your network, contribute yourself and treat it as the resource it is. The search function works well, so dig in, tweak as needed and put the ideas and approaches you find to work in your organization.

Flickr image credit: pedroelcarvalho

Have you been following the News Corp phone hacking scandal?

Obviously, as a corporate culture maven I find New Corp’s endemic culture fascinating—in much the same way that a snake fascinates a bird.

The phone and email hacking, dumpster-diving and snooping are disgusting in themselves, but it is Rupert and his son James’ denial of any knowledge despite extraordinary proof and testimony to the contrary that amazes me.

Moreover, I find the idea that ignorance excuses bosses from responsibility for the actions of their organizations to be ludicrous, whether country, conglomerate, company or team.

I felt that way when Nixon denied knowing about Watergate; when Reagan denied knowing about Iran-Contra; and when Beech-Nut President Niels L. Hoyvald denied knowing about the fake apple juice; the list goes on and on.

In my mind it doesn’t matter if the top person knew or not, because as top person he (a pronoun of convenience) should have known.

Claims of ignorance mean one of two things,

• the boss isn’t doing his job; or
• the boss is lying.

Either way, that person shouldn’t be boss.

Flickr image credit: rstrawser

Talented managers are taking flack these days for not becoming entrepreneurs.

Whether hinted at or stated outright, their value is demeaned when they choose to stay in corporate positions and they are accused of wasting their talents when they could be out creating jobs by starting companies.

Kindly put, this is a crock.

As Andy Grove pointed out, after the first couple of years job creation is about the same in growth companies as large corporations.

Now Valley legend Esther Dyson, CEO of EDventure Holdings and an active investor in a variety of start-ups around the world, weighs in pointing out that without managers there would be no companies.

The real spur to job and value creation is not turning hundreds of college grads (or dropouts) into entrepreneurs, but hiring thousands – and hundreds of thousands – of people into growing companies that can organize and motivate them and make the best use of their talents.

Thank you, Esther!

This needed to be said by someone with a lot more clout than I have.

Startups are much like marriages.

In marriage, the real work starts after the bride and groom say “I do.”

In startups, the real work starts when the first “outsider” is hired.

There is a reason that very few founders build and run their companies—it’s not what they’re good at.

That’s why we should be celebrating managers with the talent and skill to build the company for the long-term.

Flickr image credit: HikingArtist

Today includes an important (to me) question. As you know, the first Monday of each month I provide you with the entire menu from the Leadership Development Carnival as I’m doing today.

My question is this:

Do you enjoy having the entire list here or would you prefer an original post along with a link to the Carnival?

I really would appreciate your taking the time to answer in comments. Thanks!

We’ll kick off the Carnival with posts from last month’s host, Lynn Dessert, presenting Leading with your Strengths posted at Elephants at Work;

and next month’s host, Kevin Eikenberry, presenting Four Steps to Making a Complex Decision posted at Leadership and Learning with Kevin Eikenberry, saying, “As leaders, we need to be decisive and forward-moving. This post offers four steps you can try when making a complex decision.”

Anne Perschel presents Bold Because You Can Lead. Humble Because You Did Not Create the Leader posted at Germane Insights, saying, “Can a leader be bold and humble at the same time? I think so. In fact, I think it’s what’s called for. Here’s why and how.”

Gwyn Teatro presents How to Make Performance Appraisals Unnecessary posted at You’re Not the Boss of Me.

Tanveer Naseer presents Are Your Employees Mad As Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore? |posted at TanveerNaseer.com.

Wally Bock presents The Joy of Helping posted at Three Star Leadership, saying “The best bosses revel in helping others succeed”.

Mark Stelzner presents Two Easy (And Legal) Ways to Gather Competitive Intel posted at Inflexion Point.

Michael Lee Stallard presents Develop the Heart of a Champion posted at Michael Lee Stallard.

William Matthies presents Instead, How About . . . posted at Business Wisdom: Words to Manage By, saying, “Part of executive development is recognizing the development that has already occurred.”

Guy Farmer presents Soft Skills Training and Foundation Building posted at Unconventional Training.

Jennifer Miller presents Tag-Team Workplace Coaching posted at The People Equation saying “This is a story that shows that sometimes the best workplace coaching comes from someone other than a person’s boss”.

Janna Rust presents Procrastination and Productivity posted at Purposeful Leadership, saying, “What are you procrastinating with right now? Have you ever thought about how it affects you? Read on to learn how procrastination might be killing your productivity.”

John R. Turner presents Lewin and Historical Traces to Change Management posted at JohnRTurner_HPT_resource.

Linda Fisher Thornton presents Leaders & Social Media: 5 Reasons to Engage posted at Leading in Context LLC.

Bob Lieberman presents The Can-Do Attitude posted at Cultivating Creativity – Developing Leaders for the Creative Economy.

Jesse Lyn Stoner presents Be the Boss You?d Like to Have posted at Jesse lyn Stoner Blog.

Jim Taggart presents The Rise of Tiger Business Women posted at ChangingWinds, saying, “At present rates, it will take about 150 years before women and men are equally likely to reach middle management. And a century and a half is an eyeblink compared with the eternity it would take to achieve this benchmark in senior management”

S. Chris Edmonds presents Three Steps to a Bully-Free Workplace posted at Driving Results Through Culture

Mike Henry Sr. submitted Leaders: Your emotions are contagious – Lead Change Group posted at Lead Change Group Blog, saying, “Author Christina Haxton makes a great case for how a leader’s emotions affect the entire team. She also provides a practical 4-step process to make a change in your attitude.”

Bret L. Simmons presents Inner Work Life posted at Bret L. Simmons.

Mary Jo Asmus presents Letting Go of Your Need to be Right posted at Mary Jo Asmus.

David Burkus presents Freedom to Fail posted at LeaderLab, saying, “this post explores how good leaders give their team freedom to fail.”

Sharlyn Lauby presents Abdicating Your Leadership Role posted at hr bartender, saying, “There’s a big difference between delegating and abdicating.”

Jane Perdue presents Go ahead – try something new! posted at Get Your Leadership BIG On!

Ben Brabyn presents Leadership as storytelling – how narratives bond teams posted at Ben Brabyn, saying, “How leaders can use storytelling to bond high performing teams.”

Art Petty presents Art’s Weekly Leadership Message: Step Up to Cure Effective Dialogue Deficit Disorder posted at Management Excellence

Guy Harris presents Three Power Phrases to Disarm a Verbal Aggressor posted at Guy Harris: The Recovering Engineer, saying, “How do you respond to coworkers or colleagues when they are verbally aggressive? Here are three phrases that might help.”

Heather Stagl presents Six Roles of a Leader During Change posted at Enclaria LLC.

Michael Cardus presents Planning; Nothing Magical Just Your Work posted at Create-Learning Team Building & Leadership Blog, saying, “Within all parts of your work YOUR knowledge and thinking must be part of the plan. No technology or rote process can give you the “correct” plan – BUT a solid process for planning can guide you to the best plan for your team and you. A plan is a judgment about the best way to go about achieving an intended goal.”

John Hunter presents Rethinking or Moving Beyond Deming Often Just Means Applying More of What Dr. Deming Actually Said posted at Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog, saying, “This post takes a look at how Dr. Deming’s ideas apply to management issues today.”

Eric Pennington presents The Role of the Corporate Rebel posted at Epic Living – Leadership Development Career Management Training Executive Life Coaching Author, saying, “In this post, Eric Pennington, articulates the importance of the corporate rebel and how they should be imbraced. The post also points to the brilliant work of Lois Kelly.”

Miki Saxon presents Entrepreneurs: Responses to “What Do You Say?” posted at MAPping Company Success, saying, “Longer term focus or more expedient approach? Although participants were all startup founders the discussion and conclusions are applicable to any manager who hires.”

David Zinger presents The 10 Things Managers Must Do to Increase Employee Engagement posted at Employee Engagement Zingers, saying, “Very popular post on 10 actions based on evidence that managers can take to increase employee engagement”

Nick McCormick presents Managers, Brainsteer Your Way to Breakthrough Ideas posted at Joe and Wanda – on Management, saying, “Managers are always on the look out for new ideas. Shawn Cyne, Author of Brainsteering, tells us to forget the brainstorming. It’s much more effective to direct our creative energy by Brainsteering. Listen in to the Management Tips podcast find out more.”

Adi Gaskell presents Keeping in touch with ex companies posted at Adi Gaskell says…, saying, “An article on the importance for both ex-employees and their previous employer of keeping in touch through corporate alumni networks.”

Erin Pavlina presents How To Handle Public Criticism posted at Erin Pavlina – Spiritual Wisdom for Conscious People.

Utpal Vaishnav presents Know how to walk first, running comes later. posted at Utpal Vaishnav, saying, “If the piece of music isn’t right, it doesn’t matter what else you do, you cannot perform in the live show. Practice matters. More important is: right kind of practice.”

Dana Theus presents Business Leaders – What Don?t Your Employees Tell You? posted at Reclaiming Leadership, saying, “If you’re not hearing the truth from your employees, who are you hearing it from? To get them to speak the truth, be willing to hear it.”

Lahesha Williams presents 8 Tips on Improving Your Chances for a Promotion posted at Career Help For Christians, saying, “It’s never too early to think about promotion. In today’s job market you need to be ambitious and driven if you don’t want to get pushed out by others who spot gaps that could have been filled by you.”

Lakshman Rajagopalan presents What can you do about a culture of Mistrust… posted at Learning Curves.

Lyn Boyer presents Healing the Wounds of Change posted at LynBoyer.net, saying, “this blog deals with what leaders can do to recognize and deal with fear of and resistance to change.”

Henry Mukuti presents 5 Qualities of leaders and motivators part 1 posted at standout tall and be counted.

Sean Glaze presents What Emergency Brake Does Your Team Need To Let Go Of? posted at Lead Your Team, saying, “Team leadership Involves helping your team to identify the baggage that they need to let go of in order to become more productive together…”

Lisa Kohn presents There is no try, only do. There is no do, only be. posted at The Thoughtful Leaders Blog, saying, “How many of us have heard, “There is no try, only do”? Lisa Kohn of Chatsworth Consulting Group adds one more element to that famous phrase and talks about the importance of “BE” instead of “DO”.”

Rebecca Kearley presents This assault on workers rights will kill innovation | Professional Manager posted at Professional Manager.

Anadi Upadhyaya presents Is there a magic pill to fix behavioral issues at work? posted at TalentedApps, saying, “Just having a right prescription is not enough until you put it into action.”

Nick Thacker presents Productivity 101: Every Time You Sit Down, Make Something Happen posted at Nick Thacker, saying, “A simple concept for getting more done in the day-to-day life of a business professional.”

Don’t forget to tell me which you  prefer, the whole Carnival list or an original post.

Image Credit: Great Leadership

The thing she [behavioral psychologist] taught me—and this sounds obvious—is that behavior is a function of consequence.  We had to change the behavior in the organization so that people felt safe to bring bad news. And I looked in the mirror, and I realized I was part of the problem.  I didn’t want to hear the bad news, either. So I had to change how I behaved, and start to thank people for bringing me bad news. –Joseph Jimenez, chief executive of Novartis

The behavioral psychologist was brought in after a consulting group was paid to provide “better, more robust process, with more analytics,” which changed nothing.

When we started RampUp Solutions in 1999, we spent a good deal of effort coming up with a tag line that easily explained the services we provide.

After several iterations we finally settled on “To change what they do change how you think”

Over the years, I’ve heard and read story after story of how all kinds of changes—from turn arounds to improved productivity to retention—all started with a change in the way the boss thought.

And that applied whether the boss was CEO, team leader or somewhere in-between.

Stories and discussions about change tend to focus on the actions that bring about the changes, instead of starting at the beginning with the hardest work,

Work that requires the boss, at whatever level, changing the way she thinks and then dispersing and embedding those changes throughout her organization.

So before you hire expensive consultants or seek help from advisors look in the mirror to determine how much of the problem is you.

Flickr image credit: manymeez

Wednesday saw the loss of the entrepreneurs’ entrepreneur, Steve Jobs.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about role models and mentioned that in some areas Steve Jobs wasn’t the best person to model.

Thursday I received an email suggesting I delete that post since Jobs had died.

I refused and explained that nothing had changed with his death.

While there is no question that Jobs was an extraordinary visionary; brilliant at creating the future and championing design as a development tool; exceptional as a marketer and his presentations are legendary, none of that changes or excuses his management style, which could be devastating.

Visionary leadership doesn’t preclude the ability to create a passionate culture that enhances employees, rather than diminishing them.

There is no doubt that Apple will miss Jobs, but there are many employees who will be relieved not to find themselves alone on the elevator with him even as the reason saddens them.

Which parts of Steve Jobs will you choose to emulate?

Image credit:

A comment in response to an article entitled Steve Jobs Is a Lousy Role Model caught my eye.

I agree that good managers have to ‘manage’ their employees emotional well-being but I believe visionary leaders have to execute on their vision… Don’t get confused that good managers can build an innovation company without effective leaders to lead the charge.

Jobs ability to see around corners product-wise is unique, but that skill doesn’t make him a leader; it makes him a product visionary.

Yes, he is brilliant; yes he has charisma; yes, he screws up and the combination proves he’s human.

What needs to be understood is that Jobs successes don’t excuse his bad actions.

Do yourself a favor and recognize that your vision can also be your own personal Kool-Aid.

Richard Branson is also a visionary and successful entrepreneur, but his approach is a world away from Jobs.

The trick to finding a role model is to eliminate the singular, find multiple models and emulate their best traits after tweaking them to fit your own MAP and situation.

Last year I wrote, People love to quote the adage “there is no “I” in team” when somebody’s ego gets out of hand; perhaps a new adage is needed that states “there is no “I” in leader.” Of course, someone will argue that there is an ‘i’ in leadership, which is true, but when ‘i’ becomes ‘I’ it changes leadership to leadershit.

Even Steve Jobs phenomenal success provides no reason to change my mind.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons