Hopefully you’re not laboring today, at least not at work.
There’s no football, so other than eating what is likely the last BBQ of the season and indulging in too much beer you might be a bit short of entertainment.
Never fear, just click the link and settle in for some great viewpoints on leadership, management, employee interaction and other pertinent subjects at September incarnation of the Leadership Development Carnival.
You’ll not only find my favorites, Wally Bock, Steve Roesler and Jim Stroup, but a host of excellent writers and downright smart people.
It doesn’t matter if you agree with what they say (I …read more

I never really paid attention to leadership as an industry until I took over Leadership Turn a couple of years ago. But now I realize that it’s as pronounced and cyclical as the fashion industry.
Jim Stroup at Managing Leadership describes it well.
“Initially the gurus told us that leadership was a superlative individual characteristic reserved to the elite, then a democratically distributed attribute accessible by all… first to vision, then decisiveness, then courage, then team-building skills, then forcefulness, then empathy. It’s about looking inward to one’s core self. No, it’s about communication and connecting with others.”
The list of leadership fashions is …read more

I have a great idea to make the world a better place.
Everybody who aspires to the cult of all-knowing leader stops.
Everybody who longs for an all-knowing leader embraces the reality that no such thing exists. (Jim Stroup has an excellent discussion on this that started June 8 at Managing Leadership. I highly recommend it.)
Replacing these, everybody would

learn leadership skills;

apply them constantly to themselves; and

occasionally in the outside world as circumstances dictated;

take responsibility for their own actions and decisions; and

partner with others as equals, whether one was in front or behind at any given time.

Not that I think there’s a chance …read more

In a new series Jim Stroup is exploring what drives our need for “the cult of the superlative individual leader as the cure for our current difficulties” in spite, as Jim points out, of those same cult members having caused many of the current problems.
“We will take the position here at the outset, then, that the family of definitions of leadership that we are discussing is that which incorporates the idea of ineffably sensed forward motion – profound vision, unfathomable wisdom or judgment, courageous decisiveness, a charismatic ability to attract followers, and the like.
After all, it is this type of …read more

During a conversation about positional leadership Richard Barrett said, “Reminds me of a Seinfeld joke. He pointed to professional sports teams and asked about team loyalty. The players change, the coaches change, and sometimes even the stadium changes. So, the people are really loyal to the logos on the team uniforms, just a pile of laundry. Maybe positional leadership is just laundry leadership?”
I like that—laundry leadership. Great term.
So what’s available instead of laundry leadership, especially these days when so much of the laundry is dirty?
Why not organizational leadership? Leadership that percolates from every nook and cranny of the enterprise driving …read more

The ability to influence is not the sign of a leader; nor are visions, forceful opinions, board seats, titles or popularity. After all, if a high media profile was a sign of leadership then Britney Spears and Paris Hilton are leaders.
Millions of people are influenced and even inspired by writers and actors, but does that make them leaders? Angelina Jolie is considered a leader for her tireless charitable efforts as opposed to her screen credits; Rush Limbaugh may influence thousands, but I’ve never heard him called a leader.
It is the singular accomplishments; the unique actions that deserve the term, not …read more

Although I read a lot of article and blogs, I’m very particular about what I pass on to you. I often link to a particular post, but have a much more limited list to share when people write and ask what to read daily when they have very limited time.
I find the topics relevant, but there are a multitude of similar topics every day, so what sets the ones I choose apart? Synergistic MAP and the writing.
I admit that I’m a writing snob. Quantity doesn’t equal quality; reading through dense prose bores me, so the ones I like are clearly …read more

I’ve come to the conclusion that the road to hell isn’t paved with good intentions; it’s paved with ”leaders with intentions”—good, bad or indifferent.
I figured this out based on media coverage of leaders. After all, have you ever seen a media treatment of a follower?
Media co-opted ‘leader’ and ‘leadership’ decades ago and increasingly diluted the meaning until it disappeared.
Along with dilution, the media gave those they termed leaders the same treatment that was previously reserved for extraordinary athletes, celebrities and rock stars.
In doing so they created the monstrous, indestructible, uncontrollable ego found in every leader who bought into their …read more

Jim Stroup writes an amazing blog. He reads widely, thinks deeply and writes superbly—of course, it doesn’t hurt that we hold similar views on the subject of ‘leaders’.
Last Thursday Jim wrote Clarifying leadership and supplied me with my quotes for today.
The first is from Peter Drucker, who said,
“Leadership is all hype. We’ve had three great leaders in this century – Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.”
Jim considers this the most sensible thing Drucker ever said about leadership and I agree. Jim goes on to say,
“He was right. Those guys had it all: vision, oratorical ability, relationship building skills, charisma, relentless focus, …read more

Books on leadership, management and associated subjects abound. Jim Stroup has a great post on the dangers of buying into the books written by academics. Jim points out that many academics do do valuable work,
“But when you pick up a book by an academic, look for a sense that the author feels he or she is examining a species of being (you and me) that is not meaningfully self-aware. Such an author may interact with us while conducting research, but will not assign any validity to our own assessments of what we do or why. We are expected to cede …read more