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I swiveled my head around the blogosphere to identify five potent business blog postings to help make your life richer and better. Here they are. This week I'm pointing you to posts about leadership development, the role of finance in who gets chosen to lead, achievement in the workplace, and really dumb ways we act sometimes.

Check out the latest edition of Carnival of the Capitalists.

HR Thoughts hosts the most recent Carnival of Human Resources.

Wally's Comment: This is the edition is the official one year anniversary of the Carnival of Human Resources. Huge thanks to Evil HR Lady for getting it started and to all the volunteer hosts over the last year.

From the TrainingZone: Trumpeting the Leadership Cause
"Do we have more or better leaders today than we did 50 years ago? We certainly seem to talk about it more and there has been a huge amount of money pumped into the leadership industry but is there any evidence that it has made any difference? The very fact that we don't know should tell us something about the way conventional leadership programmes have been run for many years. Perhaps it is time to re-visit the whole notion of leadership development - maybe some very simple lessons can be learned from understanding and addressing the inherent problems associated with leadership development."

Wally's Comment: Part of the problem with leadership development is that we want to make it programmatic. It's not. Leaders learn by leading. The best we can do is find ways to use that simple fact and help them learn more effectively.

From Steve Roesler at All Things Workplace: Lots of Management, Leadership Missing: Experienced Exec
"When engineering firms were run by engineers, leadership emerged because you could quickly evaluate the individual, the idea, and the opportunity. Manufacturing companies found leadership as operations people found new ways to make things run better. They stood up and said so, and people said 'Yeah, let's roll!' "What's changed?" seemed like a natural question. His take: The gods of Finance are setting the rules for how business will be done. Shareholder value is now the end product. Standing up and taking the lead in your area of discipline is a risk that is not only not rewarded, it may get you into trouble if the 'Finance Guy' doesn't like it--or doesn't understand it."

Wally's Comment: Steve Roesler's genius as a blogger is phrasing questions that get many insightful responses. This post is a good example. What Steve says is important and well-phrased, but the real value is in the responses he inspires.

From Ann Bares at Compensation Force: Cultivating a Sense of Accomplishment in the Information Age
"No wonder performance management is increasingly difficult to do effectively. And yet this article makes the point, I believe, that measuring and recognizing work done well is as important as ever - not only for today's organizations, but also for the people who work in them."

Wally's Comment: People and their knowledge and relationships are the very stuff of long term competitive advantage. People want to work in places where they do interesting and meaningful work with people they like and have the option to grow. Give people that kind of workplace, hang on to the people, and you will get long term competitive advantage.

We close with two posts from two blogs that are consistent favorites. Evil HR Lady and Michael Wade tackle the same phenomenon with different analogies.

From the Evil HR Lady: Does Anybody Have Any Candy?
"I think a lot of businesses run the way this woman runs her life. We know we have problems, but rather than monitor them (blood sugar monitor), work on solutions (visit your doctor), implement proposed solutions (take your medicine), make necessary sacrifices (eat regularly scheduled, healthy meals), and work for our own success (do all of the above, and carry our own emergency food supply), we work on the panic principle."

From Michael Wade at Excupundit: Denial
"You'd think there is something rather odd with a airplane pilot who, after surviving a crash, insists that there was nothing wrong with his plane, the weather, other nearby planes, or the actions he'd taken. Odd, but such behavior is not uncommon when among executives and managers."

Wally's Comment: Read these two posts together. They will remind you that despite all talk of hard-headed realism and tough decisions and such there's still an awful lot of magical thinking in management.

Wally's Working Supervisor's Support Kit is a collection of information and tools to help working supervisors do a better job. It's based on what Wally's learned in over twenty years of supervisory skills training. Click here to check it out.

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Wally Bock has helped people learn to be great bosses for more than a quarter century. His latest book, Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, makes learning key leadership principles almost effortless by teaching through a story and providing lists of resources for further growth.

Click here to find out more about Wally's coaching services.

For weekly tips and resources pointers, check our Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership Letter.

Click here to find out more about having Wally speak to your company or convention.