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Here are five choice articles from the business schools, the business press and major consulting firms to start off your work week. I'm pointing you to articles about top small company workplaces, executive pay and incentives, digital natives, harsh critiques, and whether leadership matters.

From Winning Workplaces: Top Small Company Workplaces 2010
"I don't know if you've noticed lately in the press coverage of small business leadership and employee development strategies, but there's been an increasing focus on women in business.  I think this is due to a variety of factors, including research showing that women are getting more college degrees compared with men, which in many cases gives them a more equal footing when it comes to the skills required to compete for jobs. So it makes sense that Winning Workplaces assess the percentage of women employed by small companies applying for this year's Top Small Company Workplaces award."

Wally's Comment: This week, Bloomberg Business Week released its list of top public companies in terms of returns to shareholders. That fits right in with Bloomberg's makeover of Business Week into an investment magazine.

Most bosses will find the the list of the Top Small Company Workplaces much more helpful. Inc Magazine has done a fine job of presenting the results in ways that help you reap ideas you can use.

From the NY Times: Help Prevent a Sequel. Delay Some Pay
"CONGRESS’S approach to financial reform has been a bit like my own household’s response to a moth infestation in our kitchen a couple of years ago. After we got over the initial shock, my wife and I responded rapidly, disposing of food in which moths were breeding. Then we broadened our focus, throwing away items that had passed their expiration date or were no longer needed. Then we made a list of things to buy and went shopping.  But, in retrospect, we neglected something important. We didn’t take control of the crisis by finding where the moths came from, or figuring out how to prevent their return."

Wally's Comment: There's plenty here to get you thinking, even though I'm not so sure that what Dr. Shiller means by incentives matches up with what people who deal in compensation or who come from a more behavioral perspective might think.

That's why I recommend reading "In some cases nothing succeeds like failure" (from the Boston Globe) and Ann Bares' post on "The Perils of Allowing Popular Opinion & Conventional Wisdom to Drive Executive Pay."

From Forbes: The Digital Natives and You
"As new generations of employees arrive--generations born and raised with technology in their hands--do managers really understand the huge sea change in how the young work force is wired? Jim Fister, a longtime strategy futurist at Intel, doesn't think so."

Wally's Comment: If you want to know more about Digital Natives, go to the source. That's Marc Prensky who coined the term. Click over to the "Writing" section of Marc's site. There you'll find two articles from about nine years ago, "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants," and "Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants - Do they Really Think Differently?" There's also a much newer piece, "From Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives to Digital Wisdom" and many other helpful articles.

From Emory: Harsh Critiques: Good TV, Not Good to Inspire Employee Performance
"Despite his success in the entertainment world, Simon Cowell, American Idol's caustic judge, probably isn’t the best manager to emulate when it comes to criticizing worker performance. But as painful as the critical review process might be—especially for the employee in the hot seat—mistakes are inevitable during a career. All too often, managers fail in their attempts to correct detrimental behavior by not being specific enough in their comments, says Molly Epstein, associate professor in the practice of management communication at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School."

Wally's Comment: There's good advice here, but it seems focused on the annual performance review and not the day-to-day work of being a boss. So supplement it with two of my posts, "Talking to team members about performance" and "Coaching in Business: What you need to know."

From the Washington Post: Does leadership matter? New research says no (and yes)
"There's an awful lot of research about leadership out there. Many of these studies have information that can really assist current leaders and up-and-comers focus on the things that really matter. Unfortunately, unless you're a professor or have extra time on your hands, the research will most likely go unread. So that you don't have to read it, we did. And to follow are brief summaries of some of the key findings of five leadership studies."

Wally's Comment: One reason that academics are compelled to try to determine if "leadership matters" is that we have such a romantic view of it. We portray leaders as heroes. There's more than a bit of the fundamental attribution error going on.

But that doesn't mean that leadership doesn't make a difference in some cases. Read Michael Useem's Wall Street Journal article, "A Year Out, Leadership Lessons of the Crisis." Consider the following, too.

On the positive side, compare Kmart, Target, and Wal-Mart. They were all founded in 1962. They've had very different histories. Either Wal-Mart had fifty years of better luck than the other two or managed to hire better people, or the actions of the people in charge have had some impact.

On the negative side, I give you Ron Allen and Delta Airlines. He became CEO in 1987, when Delta was the business travelers' choice. It had a strong balance sheet and great labor relations. Within a decade, Delta was just another troubled airline with labor problems.

If you enjoy this post, you may want to check back on Wednesday when I select five excellent posts from the week's independent business blogs. Last week I highlighted posts on 15 things you can do to improve results, making better decisions, distributed leadership, intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and coaching.

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.