Welcome to the September 2014 Leadership Development Carnival! I am excited to host this great gathering of leadership insights and am grateful to Dan McCarthy for inviting me to host this edition.

Leadership Development CarnivalThe topic for this month’s Leadership Development Carnival is future leaders. As the next generation of leaders are making their presence known in our workplaces, there are many challenges and opportunities ahead. Insights from various leaders on this topic are highlighted below, and their perspectives are well worth your time to explore!

As I read through the various posts, the 25 different perspectives are classified into four categories:  Team Leadership, Leadership Approach, Leadership Skill Development, and Career Navigation. Thank you to all the contributors and, most importantly, thank you for reading, learning, and enhancing your leadership craft.

Team Leadership

Why You Shouldn’t Lead Your Real Team Like You Manage Your Fantasy Football Team by Dan McCarthy with About.com Management. Key point for future leaders:  New leaders might be tempted to try to lead their real team like they manage their fantasy football team. Fantasy Football addict Dan McCarthy explains why that’s a bad idea.

How to Identify Team Values that Unify and Guide Your Team by Jesse Lyn Stoner at Seapoint Center blog. Key point for future leaders: When you agree on your team values, you increase trust and create a language for more effectively working together. Too often values are framed and forgotten. These guidelines will help your team identify values that will be used in decision-making and will guide behavior.

Identity Crisis by S. Chris Edmonds with Driving Results Through Culture. Key point for future leaders: Leaders must be intentional about their team’s identity. Every team has one – it just may not be the identity you want it to have. This post defines team identity (a combination of team purpose and how team members see themselves contributing to that purpose), then explains how leaders can craft one then implement one.

7 Roles of an Exceptional Team Leader by Karin Hurt at Let’s Grow Leaders. Key point for future leaders: Team leaders wear many hats, not always all at the same time. Concentrating on these 7 roles in your leadership development efforts will go a long way to exceptional frontline execution

3 Magical Questions to Open Possibilities posted by Jill Malleck at Epiphany at Work. Key point for future leaders: Three ways leaders can provoke teams to think fresh about an issue.

Want to Lead a Passionate Team? Start with These Five Steps by Beth Miller with Executive Velocity: Team Development. Key point for future leaders: New managers and leaders often fail early on in building an effective team. And in order to be effective, a leader needs to ignite their passion. These five steps are just the beginning.

Leadership Approach

Leadership and Co-Design by Dan Oestreich at Unfolding Leadership. Key point for future leaders: Co-design can be thought of as a simple but powerful process to alter the culture of an approval-based organization. As such, it is an emerging, essential part of leading.

3 Key Areas for Leaders to Check Their Egos by Randy Conley at Leading with Trust. Key point for future leaders: Keeping your ego in check is a challenge that all leaders face, and it’s important for new or future leaders to understand how their egos can make or break trust with their followers. Randy Conley discusses three critical components of being a trustworthy and ethical leader.

Thoughtful Leaders Invite Questions by Robyn McLeod of Chatsworth Consulting Group on The Thoughtful Leaders™ Blog. Key point for future leaders: The most effective and Thoughtful leaders are willing to question and be questioned.

A Legacy of Noodles Isn’t Enough by Jane Perdue from LeadBIG. Key point for future leaders: Leaders need to occasionally hit the personal “pause button” and consider the leadership gifts they’re handing out now. Do those “gifts” reflect the impact you want to make?

Leaders Developing the Mindset of their Employees by Neal Burgis, Ph.D. at the Practical Solutions Blog. Key point for future leaders: For today’s leaders to reach higher performance, you need to have your employees shift from having an “employee mindset” to an “entrepreneurial” one. Empower your employees to work as entrepreneurs for greater performance, accountability and responsibility.

Leadership Skill Development

7 Tips on How to Avoid Being Misinterpreted by John Stoker with DialogueWORKS. Key point for future leaders: By stopping and examining our thinking for accuracy before we rush to action we will insure that we are communicating clearly and accurately so that our actions will deliver the results that we really want.

Effort Without the Right Knowledge and Strategy is Often Wasted by John Hunter for The W. Edwards Deming Institute Blog. Key point for future leaders: Treating symptoms results in the underlying causes going untreated. Often those underlying causes continue to do damage (which can remain hidden for a long time).

Giving Space and Light for Others to Grow by Mary Jo Asmus at Aspire Collaborative Services. Key point for future leaders: When you ease up on “managing” and focus on “leading” others by letting go of your need to control, you create a win-win situation that leaves space and light for you to become a better leader.

3 Coaching Practices for Taking the Lid off Your Leadership by Susan Mazza from Random Acts of Leadership. Key point for future leaders: As a leader, you can either help people remove the “lid” on their performance – or unwittingly help keep that “lid” in place. Here’s 3 practices that will help.

Will Gen Z be the Disruptive Generation? by Jim Taggart at the ChangingWinds blog. Key point for future leaders: The underlying message in this post is for leaders to learn to work across inter-generational boundaries. Three examples are provided of emerging Generation Z leaders who are doing incredible things for society.

6 Tips for Dealing with Conflict in the Workplace by Piera Palazzolo from the Lead Change Group blog. Key point for future leaders: Conflict is inevitable. Rather than feel discouraged or unequipped to handle conflict, leaders can use these simple tools Palazzolo summarizes to deal with and diffuse conflict before it becomes a real problem.

11 Tips for Dealing with Manipulators by Chery Gegelman from the Simply Understanding Blog. Key point for future leaders: There are master manipulators in real life just like in soap operas. And each one of them knows that they can gain and keep power if they keep people divided.

Managing People – Do We Do That? by Dana Theus from the InPower Blog. Key point for future leaders: One of my first lessons in management taught me that we manage others less often than we manage ourselves. Once we can manage ourselves it becomes easier to establish the relationships that will make us successful managing others.

13 Elements of a Great Strategy by Frank Sonnenberg. Key point for future leaders: Does your strategy measure up? Here are 13 elements of a great strategy.

Leadership and the Art of Confrontation by Wally Bock from Three Star Leadership. Key point for future leaders: When you become a boss you become someone responsible for the performance of a group. In that instant, you become the designated confronter. Some people will behave poorly. Some will underperform. Someone needs to confront them about it and you’re it. Others may choose to, but it’s your job. Here’s how to do it better.

Career Navigation

How to Get a Promotion at Work: 11 Tips to Help You Move Up by Joel Garfinkle on the Career Advancement Blog. Key point for future leaders: You’ve worked at your company for ten years and received only two promotions. You’re tired of being taken for granted. It’s time now to take control of your career and learn the 11 tips on how to move up to the next level.

6 Critical Questions to Get Unstuck by Jeff Harmon. Key point for future leaders: Everyone gets stuck, including leaders. Key point for future leaders: I see the questions in this blog post as the essence of clarity for every person and a great way to get “unstuck” as a leader.

Follow These 4 Steps to Measure the Affects of Executive Coaching by Anne Perschel with Germane Insights. Key point for future leaders: As more companies make executive coaching available for senior leaders and high potentials, how do they know if it’s paying off?

2 Ways to Get What You’re Worth by Mary Ila Ward from The Point. Key point for future leaders: A critical skill for future leaders is the ability to negotiate, and the best place to start to apply this skill is in negotiating salary. This post gives readers insights on how to negotiate salary by quantifying value to the organization.

What would you add as advice and guidance for future leaders? Add your insights in the comments section below. Thank you!