Laughs and leadership advice at the carnival

Vice-president hopeful Sarah Palin has her work cut out for her in the next few months. With the media and opponents criticizing her lack of leadership experience, she’s lucky to have a friend out there like Dan McCarthy.

McCarthy went out of his way and put together a slew of leadership development advice for the vice-president hopeful in the latest edition of the Leadership Development Carnival.

Though the carnival may be dedicated to Sarah Palin, the featured attractions, side shows and expert leadership advice are worth the trip. With regards to leadership training, we made it easy and picked out these featured posts for you:

Like we’ve discussed before, employee recognition in small packages can have better results than other big-ticket items. “It’s more likely to be the small and personal moments that really shape our lives,” according to the Happy Manager’s leadership philosophy.

While employees understand they are accountable for “taking initiative and bringing about change,” only 40% of employees believe they have the power to make a difference. Art Petty examines the root causes and cures for disconnected organizations in “Do Your Employees Truly Believe That They Can Make a Difference.”

Understanding that “what gets measured gets done,” Chris Young at the Rainmaker Group, advises using coaching score cards to improve employee performance. Score cards can outline exactly what is expected of employees and help determine if an employee’s position is a bad fit.

Though our brains may be aging, they continue to develop and learn well into old age through a process called Neurogenesis. Laurie Bartels at The Brain Fitness Authority examines Neurogenesis and Brain Plasticity in Adult Brains and how we can use it to better understand how aging brains learn.

Why do some people seem to have all the motivation in the world and others have none? Dawn Abraham Life Coach examines new motivation ideas and shares a few secrets on how to motivate others and yourself.

Those at Invent Creativity examine the top 10 mistakes while brainstorming, including mistake number five - allowing an untrained facilitator to lead a session.