Note from Art: Every Friday, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. Fair warning: I take a broad view of management, so my selections will range from leadership to innovation to finance and personal development and beyond.

This week,  I’m including content on assessing your status and progress as a boss, simplifying complex problems to spur innovation and gain feedback, and overcoming that ever-present “resistance” as we pursue personal and professional development. Enjoy!

-From HBR Blogs, Are You the Boss You Need to Be? by Linda Hill and Kent Lineback

From the Post: “As a leader and manager, someone responsible for the results obtained by others, are you the boss you need to be? Are you getting the best from your people, and from those you need but don’t control? Are you fully satisfying the ever-rising expectations of your firm and its customers? Equally important, are you meeting your own expectations?”

Art’s Comment(s): The authors are posting here in support of their book, Being the Boss-The Three Imperatives of Becoming a Great Leader (I plan on reviewing it in the future). I like the questions they raise, and I agree with their perspective that many managers reach a point and quit growing: “Most managers grow and develop to a certain point, and then they stop. They reach the “Plateau of Good Enough.”

This post doesn’t offer the answers…but it does help us frame some important questions. It left me anxious to get my hands on the book, so stay tuned.

From Fast Company: Innovation Agents, How Jack Dorsey Succeeds Through Simplification

From the Post: “We have everyone you can imagine against us,” says Jack Dorsey, the CEO of mobile credit card pay startup Square and cofounder of Twitter. But he is not cowed by fact that his startup is competing against banks with far more money to spend on pushing their products to market. Because by allowing design and engineering to lead his strategic decisions, Dorsey knows that he can out-innovate everyone else.”

Art’s Comment: click over and view the 4-minute video for a look at a possible revolution in mobile credit card payments, and stay for the lessons that Jack offers on simplification in pursuit of innovation.

-From Steven Pressfield On-Line: Resistance Tomorrow

Art’s Comment(s): Consider this my mid-January dose of encouragement to keep moving forward on those resolutions and improvement programs! Steven Pressfield is one of my favorite authors of historical fiction, and the author of my favorite book of all on driving yourself to achieve-The War of Art. In this particular post, Pressfield offers up some additional ideas for all of us to increase our propensity to do the hard things that we tend to put off until some mythical tomorrow.

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OK, that’s it for this week! Have a great weekend and I will see you Monday with another fresh cup of Leadership Caffeine!

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About Art Petty: Art mentors high potential professionals and develops and delivers powerful and pragmatic workshops and programs on leadership, professional development and building high performance teams. Contact Art to discuss your needs for a program or keynote. And whether you are an experienced leader seeking to revitalize and develop as a professional, or, a new leader looking for guidance on starting up successfully, check out Art’s book with Rich Petro, Practical Lessons in Leadership at Amazon.com.