No Joke: The April 1st, 2013 Leadership Development Carnival

Welcome to the April 1st, 2013 Leadership Development Carnival!

I’ve never been a fan of practical jokes, so April fool’s Day is one of my least favorite days of the year. However, this year is different, because I get to host the April Carnival and bring you an outstanding collection of the “best of the best” in leadership development.

All are recent posts are fresh picked within the last two weeks – and guaranteed to help you grow as a leader. There’s not a weed in the entire bunch!

Before we get started, I wanted to share a little Carnival trivia with you. I started hosting this Carnival in July, 2008, my second year of blogging. The inaugural edition included over 30 submissions. Only one of them, Wally Bock from Three Star Leadership, and one of my early blogging mentors, is still a regular contributor and included in this month's edition (Mike Myatt and Mark Stelzner still show up now and then). I clicked on a few of the others, and most are no longer blogging, and a few are still around but I've not heard from in a while.

Most of the bloggers included in today's Carnival are regular contributors and share the hosting duties every other month. I've gotten to know many of them, and I have to say, they are an outstanding community of professionals. Managing this Carnival gives me a reason to connect with each of them, keep up with their blogs, and discover some new ones each month. I've hope it's helped do the same for you, and you enjoy reading it every month as much as we enjoy hosting it for you.

Wally Bock from Three Star Leadership presents The Key to Engagement. “Supervisors are the key to engagement. What are you doing to select and prepare better supervisors?”

Jim Taggart from Changing Winds blog presents Big-Bang in Practice: Antifragility, Innovation and Leadership.

Sharlyn Lauby from HR Bartender presents Is Leading While Learning Really Effective. “In a “do the job then get the job” world of work, is leading while learning really effective?”

Joel Garfinkle from Career Advancement Blog presents How to stop employee turnover in the first 90 days. “We seem to have a particular problem keeping our new hires from jumping ship. Turnover in the first 90 days is the main area of concern. Here are three steps you can start taking right away to turn your situation around.”

Bernd Geropp from More Leadership presents Five Questions you should ask before holding a meeting! “Lots of managers spend 50 % of their time at work in meetings.
Many meetings are just a waste of time. They are boring, they don’t serve a purpose.
If you want an effective meeting you need to answer 5 crucial questions before you hold the meeting… “

Linda Fisher Thornton from Leading in Context Blog presents Which of These is Ethical Leadership? “The graphic in this post illustrates the point that leaders are interpreting “ethical leadership” at very different levels. Which one of the 3 represents ethical leadership”

Mary Jo Asmus from Mary Jo Asmus presents Embracing Feedback. “For those who want feedback but haven’t yet learned to fully appreciate it.”

Jesse Lyn Stoner from Jesse Lyn Stoner Blog presents Let's Stop Confusing Cooperation and Teamwork with Collaboration. “Using collaboration, cooperation and teamwork interchangeably dilutes their meaning and diminishes the potential to create powerful, collaborative environments. This post defines the difference, discusses Marissa Mayer's memo that she was recalling remote Yahoo employees back to offices in order to promote collaboration and explains what is required to create a truly collaborative environment.”

Julie Winkle Giulioni from juliewinklegiulioni.com presents Building the Bench. “Recent research suggests that just as many organizations are beginning to feel that they’re stabilizing after a long period of economic uncertainty, they may in fact find themselves facing a new and unexpected challenge: deficient management bench strength. This post spotlights an under-leveraged approach to addressing this issue... while at the same time driving business results.”

S. Chris Edmonds from Driving Results Through Culture presents WOW Your Customers, Grow Your Business. “How employees treat customers has a huge impact on your business' buzz . . . and your business' revenues.”

Randy Conley from Leading with Trust presents Trust is…. “Trust is…” – How would you complete that phrase? Trust means something different to each person, and in this reflective post, Randy shares thoughts on what trust is to him and he invites you to add to the list by completing the phrase, “Trust is…”

Steve Roesler from All Things Workplace presents Self-Leadership & 3 Key Variables.  “When it comes to making career and leadership changes, there are three variables that come into play. If you are wrestling with where you are right now, this may help you clarify where you need to focus your energy and your effort.”

Tim Milburn from www.timmilburn.com presents Five Ways To Turn Your Crisis Into A Comeback. “Leadership is difficult (even in your own home). This heartfelt post was written from my own personal experience of moving forward in the face of failure.”

Bill Matthies from Business Wisdom What I Will, What I Won't. “While the philosophic take on this is what we will resist versus what we will attempt to maintain, the business version is about spending or saving resources. In Vegas, knowing when to hold 'em, when to fold 'em. It's not easy is it?”

Dana Theus from InPower Consulting Blog presents The 3% Leadership Revolution: A (Missed) Opportunity for Women. “There is a quiet leadership revolution going on, a shift in the definition of success from “what” to “how.” In times of major change, the underdog has a strategic opportunity to end up on top. In this revolution, the women-in-leadership underdogs have a unique opportunity to capitalize on it and use it to define our leadership careers – to play a leadership role in the revolution, so to speak – or miss our chance at squeezing out from under the dominant culture that keeps women and men (both!) from valuing what women bring to leadership table.”

Bruce Lewin from Four Groups' Blog presents Why is Understanding People So Hard.
“The lack of well recognised tools and techniques that help us better understand people through reliable predictions undoubtedly contributes to the fact that understanding people is hard. Taking this conclusion at face value, it’s then easy to see how some managers don’t want to get involved in ‘people’ issues and instead they prefer to pass the problem to HR. Time will tell how long this situation endures but given the 50 year time frames above, it’s difficult to see this cliché being consigned to history any time soon.”

Miki Saxon from MAPping Company Success presents You are NOT Your Company. “Ego-merge has an out-sized negative effect on people and companies, yet it is rarely, if ever, recognized, let alone discussed.”

Karen Kanakanui from Lead Change Group! presents a post by Karin Hurt called Why Doesn’t My Team Feel Recognized? “You’ve served up regular recognition cocktails of programs, plaques, bonuses, and fun. You’ve spent lots of money… you’ve put in heartfelt effort. And then… the employee survey results come in. It’s not enough. They want more. What if your recognition cocktails don’t work?”

Anne Perschel from Germane Insights presents Dear Leader: Verbal Feedback Not Working? Try Action Feedback Instead.

Lolly Daskal from www.lollydaskal.com presents Leadership: Disappointed To The Core. “If you meet a leader who’s a loner, who doesn’t communicate, who’s not engaged, who seems removed and not trusting, it’s probably not because they enjoy solitude or disengagement. It’s far more likely that they have been disappointed. There will always be people and events that will let us down, and when that happens it can shake us to the core.”

Kevin Eikenberry from Blog: Leadership & Learning presents Leading in Living Color. “Too many leaders think they can leave their real selves at home, leading from a place of policy, procedure and a pursuit of perceived perfection. If you want to be a more effective leader, be real and relatable. Lead in living color.”

Anna Farmery from The Engaging Brand presents What is the definition of empowerment. “People often mistake delegation for empowerment, yet in a networked world empowerment becomes even more vital.”

Susan Mazza from Random Acts of Leadership presents The Key to Being Adaptable. “If you want to be adaptable you must be willing to let go of one particular need.”

Wendy Appel from The Enneagram Source presents I Choose Now.

included in next week's Leadership Dev'p carnival. It was originally published on my blog

Jon Mertz from Thin Difference presents Follow / Unfollow – Making Relationships Work. “In business and life, there are people we associate with and build relationships with. The key questions are: Who do we follow, and who do we unfollow?”

Karin Hurt from Let's Grow Leaders presents Humility and Leadership: Can We Teach Leaders to Be Humble? “Is it possible to teach humility?”

David Burkus from LDRLB presents Do You Have Executive Presence? “David Burkus examines the research on "executive presence" and its role in developing leaders.”

Robyn McLeod from The Thoughtful LeadersÔ Blog presents Your strengths can hurt you, “where she shares four tips to avoid having your strengths turn into derailers.”

What does the Millennial generation seek in leadership development opportunities and do generational stereotypes get in the way? As part of her article research for the Huffington Post on “filling the leadership pipeline” Jennifer V. Miller of The People Equation interviewed what Gen Y professionals had to say in Gen Y and Leadership: Young Professionals Speak Up.

Neal Burgis, Ph.D. from Practical Solutions Blog presents Coloring Outside the Lines of Your Leadership. “Many leaders are known as unconventional, non-traditional, and even trailblazers. These individuals step over the boundary lines to be creative and implement their creative side in business, and sometimes in everything else they do. Coloring outside the lines is primarily about stepping outside your comfort zone & take a risk to be creative with your thinking skills. This is where you get to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.”

Mary Ila Ward from The Point Blog: Sound Advice for Career and Leadership Development presents Questions for Striving Servant Leaders. “This post examines if you are truly acting like a servant leader by questioning where is your car parked and where is your nursery located.”

Joan Kofodimos from Anyone Can Lead presents Why are you so swamped? “Most causes of managers' work overload aren't in the nature of the work - they're from within the manager. Understanding your own patterns and what you do to keep yourself swamped is key to getting un-swamped, and key to making the transition from managing to leading.”

Tanveer Naseer from Tanveer Naseer's blog presents "What Organizations Really Need To Succeed And Thrive".

Anadi Upadhyaya from TalentedApps presents Getting it Right: 100KM, Team of 4 and 48 Hours. “A great story about the four C’s of Shared Goals: Criteria, Communication, Change and Collaboration.”

Bret Simmons from Positive Organizational Behavior presents How we enhance our organizational citizenship. “The evidence on what makes us more likely to be good citizens at work”.

Nick McCormick from Joe and Wanda on Management presents Listen Up Managers. Don’t Forget to Change Your Oil. “Advice on listening from Greg Blencoe's book, The Supermanager”. 

Next month's edition will be hosted by Karin Hurt on May 6th at her Let's Grow Leaders Blog.