The June Leadership Development Roundtable Challenge
Filed under: Leadership, Making Decisions, Management Education
If you like a good leadership challenge, take a few moments and click over to Dan McCarthy’s Great Leadership blog and check out the first in a new monthly program: The Leadership Development Roundtable Challenge.
This new program, conceived by Dan and wildly supported by a number of leadership writers and coaches (likely because Dan was doing all the heavy lifting to get it started!), presents a vexing leadership dilemma for a group of regulars and a guest to solve in 200-words or less.
Readers have two opportunities to participate. Dan has nefariously included a polling tool, so you get to vote for your favorite answer, leaving the rest of the contributors to sulk a bit and sharpen our skills for next month’s challenge. You also can share your own and likely much better ideas by responding with your own answer to the challenge.
Great fun, something to help sharpen our collective leadership problem-solving skills and participatory democracy all at the same time!
The Challenge will rotate every month, and I have the honor and challenge of hosting and creating the “vexing dilemma” for next month’s episode.
Check it out, cast your vote and share your informed opinion about how you might handle this Leadership Challenge!
(And for those of you wondering why I have a funny hat as a graphic, that’s the Deerslayer style worn by Sherlock Holmes as he chased down villains and solved his own vexing problems!)
January Leadership Development Carnival!
One of my favorite moments every month is strolling through the latest Leadership Development Carnival, hosted by the generous, popular and might I add, remarkably intelligent , Dan McCarthy, proprietor of the aptly named, Great Leadership blog.
Dan was kind enough to include my post on, “How to Appropriately Respond to Positive Praise,” and we’ll see how he handles my flowery (but heartfelt) words above!
Regardless of whether you’re snowed-in, tucked in your new Christmas Snuggee (or whatever that thing is that I keep seeing on television) or, just simply interesting in finding some great inspiration to kick off the new year, spend some time at the Carnival and remember to stay for Dan’s consistently great blogging content!
Your Search for Leadership Wisdom Starts and Ends at the Carnival!
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Leadership Skills, Leading Change, Life and Business, Management Education, Performance, Professional Growth
One of the best leadership public services you will find is Dan McCarthy’s hard work to produce the monthly Leadership Development Carnivals.
Dan scours the world far and wide for compelling content designed to inspire, energize and challenge you to step up your leadership game. He leaves no stone unturned looking for those nuggets of wisdom and then he carefully crafts them into a post guaranteed not to disappoint. OK, actually, he does a heck of a job inviting people to submit their favorite posts, and I’m sure he turns over at least a few stones, but the result is as advertised! Point your browser to Dan’s Great Leadership site for this month’s Carnival and remember to drop your favorite blogger a comment or two as you explore the material!
The September 5th Leadership Development Carnival at Great Leadership
Filed under: Career, Fresh Voices, Leadership, Management Education, Talent Management, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
Just in time for a long holiday weekend, Dan McCarthy is hosting the always exciting and often inspiring Leadership Development Carnival at his home blogging base at Great Leadership.
Aside from the way over the top kind words that he has for me and this blog (Thanks, Dan!), he’s put together a collection of phenomenal essays from some really great writers and authorities in the world of leadership and business.
Grab a cup of coffee…or something colder and click over to The Carnival and enjoy the rides with Wally Bock, Steve Roessler, Mary Joe Asmus and so may other great bloggers!
Thanks, Dan for hosting this great event.
New Leaders, Twitter and the Volunteer Management Conundrum
Filed under: Career, Leadership, Life and Business, Marketing, Your Professional Development "To Do" List
A collection of sound bites and developmental suggestions for busy professionals:
The Challenges of New Leaders: Feedback on Practical Lessons In Leadership:
Thanks to Dan McCarthy at Great Leadership for featuring my book with Rich Petro, Practical Lessons in Leadership, on his blog today. Dan features material from the book focusing on: The Top Ten Challenges of the New Leader. Please click over to Dan’s site to remind yourself of these challenges and importantly, check out his consistently outstanding blog content.
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Networking, Collaborating & My Twitter Experience
What started out as a bit of marketing curiosity has turned into a great and productive networking experience for me on Twitter. I continue to meet new and talented professionals on a daily basis and to share ideas and even identify opportunities to collaborate. Share a good idea or thought and watch it spread like wildfire. Have something new to offer in your business, as long as you are genuine and credible, watch the community jump on your idea and spread the news.
I know a number of marketers that I really respect that don’t have a seat at the Twitter Table yet. Fair warning, that this is a potent tool for professional networking, research and brand building. It’s time to pull up a chair and join the discussion.
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Managing Volunteers: A Non Profit Management Conundrum
One of the more rewarding activities that I am involved with, includes working with a great group of professionals to help change the shape of volunteering in our community.
Volunteerism is certainly popular in our culture thanks to the encouragement of our leaders in Washington and in response to the many societal challenges that we face. The fact that more people have time on their hands due to a sudden outbreak of unemployment is a factor as well.
A paradox that I find fascinating is the fact that so many nonprofits truly need the help of volunteers in pursuit of their mission, yet it is fairly common for volunteers to report having had a poor experience. It seems that many non profit organizations struggle to create the processes and infrastructure that allow for effective selection, on-boarding and management of volunteers.
In a Fast Company article titled: Why Volunteers Don’t Come Back, the author highlights research suggesting that as many as one-third of the volunteers from a prior year don’t return—a loss of labor worth an equivalent of $40 billion. The biggest competitor to volunteering? According to the author, studies indicate that watching television is the number one alternative use of time.
At a high level, it seems like there are two issues. As part of our local community efforts, we need to help our community nonprofits develop efficient and effective systems for managing the volunteer process and improving the overall experience and outcome for all parties. This is an eminently solvable management task!
The second issue is a fundamental reality check on how we prioritize our time. The advent of low cost DVRs makes it pretty hard to explain why people need to sit at home at night glued to the tv screen. It’s time to get out into the community and help solve some problems.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
I’ve offered three suggestions here for you to help make a difference. No charge!
1. Pay attention to the developmental needs of new leaders
2. Get started on Twitter and figure out what it can mean to you and your organization
3. Become part of the solution in your community and volunteer.
In particular on the last point, let’s put our heads together and help our non profits do a better job managing their talented and enthusiastic volunteer resources, before they lose them to the latest episode of Lost.
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e-book-Leadership and the Project Manager - Developing the Skills that Fuel High Performance
