Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hikingartist/2999855565/

Do you agree with the following statement?

“The most fundamental job of a leader is to recruit, mobilize, inspire, focus, direct, and regularly refuel the energy of those they lead.”

I do with one glaring exception—the words “leader” and “lead.”

That sentence is just as valid if you substitute ‘manager’ for ‘leader’ and ‘manage’ for ‘lead’.

The quote is from a Harvard Business Review post called The CEO Is the Chief Energy Officer and although it’s a cute play on ‘CEO’ the lessons it imparts apply to every manager at every level in every company—even if that manager is the only person in the company.

If you are in a position where you manage anyone and you skip any of the actions mentioned above then you are doing a major disservice to your people and yourself.

Even more so if you are your own manager, which, in the end, we all are.

This is a great time to institute change—not with great fanfare, but through sustainable actions.

So every day get out there and “recruit, mobilize, inspire, focus, direct, and regularly refuel the energy.”

You’ll be glad you did.

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A new year mean a new month and a new Leadership Development Carnival, hosted this month by Dan McCarthy of Great Leadership fame. In it you’ll find some old friends along with some new faces. Enjoy!

To start off, are you looking for something that will stretch you as a leader in 2011? Scott Eblin has been finding some Leadership Lessons in Yoga. Don’t roll those eyes…. Scott knows what he’s talking about, and has a knack for finding leadership lessons in the world around us. See for yourself, with Leadership Lessons from Yoga posted at Next Level Blog. Join Scott for a free teleseminar on Charting Your Course for 2011 with a Life GPS®.  It’s on Jan. 13.  Register here.

Remember Tom Hanks declaring “There’s no crying in baseball”? When is it proper for leaders to show emotion? William Powell of The Leadership Advisor explores various opinions and prejudices on that very subject. Mike Henry Sr. contributes There’s No Crying in Leadership posted at Lead Change Group Blog.

Jennifer Miller offers us her most popular post of the year, and asks if people really care about leadership development, or if they just can’t resist a free offer. For me, the answer is both. (-:

Check out her list of 25 free leadership development resources, at Do People Care About Leadership Development? posted at The People Equation.

Here’s something for all managers to think about….. what’s the best way to “help” your employees? Mary Jo Asmus says it’s not by solving their problems for them. She explains why, in Help Them to Think posted at Mary Jo Asmus.

Business leaders and management writers bemoan the lack of execution but there’s no problem getting executives to conduct planning sessions and planning reviews. It’s not really hard to understand why that is. Wally Bock provides an answer to the question with Why People would Rather Plan Than Execute, at  Three Star Leadership.

Lynn Dessert offers more tips on getting things done with how to Establish accountability in your personal plan posted at Elephants at Work.

Here are some great questions for all leaders to ponder…..

From Bret Simmons: Are We Engaged Yet? posted at Bret L. Simmons – Positive Organizational Behavior.

Linda Fisher Thornton gets us thinking about ethics with Ethical Thinking: 5 Questions to Ponder for the New Year posted at Leading in Context LLC.

Benjamin McCall asks Silver Bullet? Who should you look to for Answers? posted at ReThinkHR – (ReThink Human Resources).

Kathy C asks What is Succession Planning? posted at The Thriving Small Business.

Nissim Ziv asks Why do you want to be a Leader? posted at Job Interview & Career Guide.

These bloggers offer answers to some of the most important leadership challenges we all face:

Thinking about becoming a more influential leader in 2011? I sure am. Steve Roessler gives us five ways to bump up your game with Five Ways to Boost Your Influence posted at All Things Workplace.

Not many think of learning to cope as a critical leadership competency. Miki Saxon tells us why it should be in Leadership’s Future: Coping posted at MAPping Company Success.

Michael Lee Stallard writes about the importance of Overcoming Leadership Myopia posted at Michael Lee Stallard.

Giving and getting recognition is the theme of these next three posts.

Tim Porthouse gives us 4 powerful ways to say “Thank You” at work: 4 Thank Yous On Steroids | Zealeap posted at Zealeap.

In this ten-minute “Management Tips Podcast” Chester Elton, co-author of The Orange Revolution, explains why recognition is “The Great Communicator” and how we can get better at delivering it. Nick McCormick presents Recognition: The Great Communicator posted at Joe and Wanda on Management.

Can’t take a complement? Art Petty tells us  How to Appropriately Respond to Positive Praise posted at Management Excellence. Hey Art, you’re one of my favorite leadership bloggers and an all around great person and friend. Can’t wait to read your new Leadership Caffeine book! Gee, maybe I learned something.

More great leadership advice:

David Burkus presents another Bret Simmons piece The Importance Of Working With People You Like from his LeaderLab. Yes, I sometimes allow two posts from the same blogger if it’s on a different blog. And besides, it’s from Bret Simmons, nuff said.

The award for the longest blog title goes to Michael Cardus for Reverse Peter Principle: within a hierarchy tasks tend to be delegated until they have descended to the employees level of incompetence posted at Create-Learning Team Building & Leadership Blog. Whew!

For some tips on getting creative, take a look at Bob Lieberman’s Framing Leadership Challenges posted at Cultivating Creativity – Leadership Development for the Creative Economy and Mike King’s 7 Quick Ways to Boost Your Creativity posted at Learn This.

Putting a team together sure can be puzzling. Tanveer Naseer asks Are You Fitting Employee Personality Into Your Leadership Puzzle? posted at TanveerNaseer.com, and Gregory Farley tells us how to create a real team, vs. a group on individuals, with The puzzle pieces posted at Voices of Leadership.

And this one from Kevin Eikenberry, Leadership is about Engagement, from Leadership & Learning.

Here are some posts that explore the more personal and spiritual side of leadership. Go on, take a few moments to dig deep…..

Susan Finerty writes about The beauty of iteration posted at Leadership Mutt (I love the blog name!).

Becky Robinson (in her new blog) gives us A Bright Thread of Grace posted at Becky Robinson Weaving Influence.

Erin Pavlina presents Cultivating Command and Leadership posted at Erin Pavlina – Spiritual Wisdom for Conscious People.

Anne Perschel gets at the heart of leadership with Touching The Heart of Coaching posted at Germane Insights.

Glen Madden presents New leaders legacy list posted at MissionLogs.

We can’t have a New Year’s Carnival without “best of” lists and New Year’s predictions:

Sharlyn Lauby serves up A Bartender’s Predictions for 2011 posted at HR Bartender.

Alice Snell gives us an encore with Taleo’s Top Ten for 2011 posted at Taleo Blog – Talent Management Solutions.

More HR predictions from Bruce Lewin, with Reviewing Predictions for HR posted at Four Groups’ Blog.

Erik Samdahl weighs in with The Top 10 Talent Trends of 2010 posted at Productivity Blog.

Mark Stelzner, next month’s Carnival host, not only gives us his HR predictions for 2011, he grades his list for 2010, with 2011: The Year of Reactionary HR posted at Inflexion Point.

We’ll wrap it up with a New Year’s Wish from Bill Matthies posted at Business Wisdom: Words to Manage By.

Image credit: Great Leadership

See all mY generation posts here.

One great thing about the holidays is that it makes choosing a topic easy.

What do you do New Year’s Day? Does it have significance for you beyond hangovers, bowl games, friends and food?

Is it a day of reflection or one for making resolutions?

I’m not a believer in resolutions, but people keep making them. Common wisdom says A New Year’s resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.

Mark Twain agrees with that senitment, only puts it far more strongly, New Year’s Day – Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual.

Resolutions are often made in the heat of the moment and the ability to see them through stems from MAP or, as Cavett Robert puts it, Character is the ability to carry out a good resolution long after the excitement of the moment has passed.

‘Resolution’ has another meaning that resonates much more than the New Year’s type and one into which I fully buy; in the words of Abraham Lincoln, Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

I also like the words of Edith Lovejoy Pierce to describe this day, We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.

Finally, in an effort to offer a bit of insight, dare I say wisdom, on the first day of 2011 I share with you the words of P. J. O’Rourke, If you are young and you drink a great deal it will spoil your health, slow your mind, make you fat – in other words, turn you into an adult.

Flickr image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/noe0712/3198441177/

What else would you expect from Expand Your Mind on the first day of the year other than a retrospective of the past?

Here is a potpourri look at the year and the decade; out of the dozens from which to choose I tried for the unusual along with the tried and true.

Business Week dedicated the entire year-end double issue, but rather than verbiage they divided by topic and used graphics and headlines to cover more ground, so you can just click around.

The New York Times offers not just the year, but the decade, in easy you-choose-which-to-click-on graphics. They also offered a superb look at 2010 through pictures.

What would the year be without at least a nod to pop culture, so from the Associated Press, via the Boston Herald, here are the worst celebrity moments of the year.

Not to be outdone, Vator TV offers up the five biggest (most shocking) happenings in the tech world of 2010.

If you want a laugh, check out the best financial jokes from the Financial Post. (Hat tip to Wally Bock for bringing them to my attention.)

And for pure weird there is the AP article, courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle (my previous hometown paper). Who said Floridians aren’t different?

Finally, Google gives us 2010 as defined by search.

Image credit:  MykReeve on flickr