Just a quote.

Ran across this quote by General P.X. Kelly and thought it worth sharing all by itself: "Listen carefully to the principles of leadership we will teach you here at Quantico, but always apply them within the framework of your own personality. A successful leader never languishes in the comfort of a swivel chair. The most important of all troop-leading steps, yet the one most often neglected, is the last – to supervise. And you supervise by being out with and devoting the bulk of your time to our most important product – people. You can always catch up on what you thought was essential paperwork during the evenings or on weekends, but once neglected, you will find it extremely difficult, if not impossible, to catch up on people."

The Long Tail

Reviewing Chris Anderson's blog, The Long Tail was a marketing treat!It was great to see innovation in marketing ideas! Many of them were way outside the box of "normal marketing 101" kind of stuff. He does a great job of explaining how to make money giving away things for free, or using an open source marketing plan. The best part about Chris' blog is that you don't need an MBA to understand it. The average small business person looking for some awesomely creative marketing ideas can have a field day looking through the archives of his page. That is doubly true if the small business guy is a one product software or hardware developer. My only criticism is that the blog jumps around a bit. The posts are great, but topics jump wildly from one to the next, so consistency is rough. That said, I really enjoyed his blog and would recommend it to anyone trying to think up some new marketing ideas for your company or product line!

Next Generation Leader

Andy Stanley's book, Next Generation Leader is written from a pastor's point of view, but much of what he says is quite applicable to any leader in the corporate or government world as well. Some of my favorite quotes from the book are:
"In leadership, success is succession."
" 1. The less you do, the more you accomplish
2. The less you do, the more you enable others to accomplish"
"The very activities that drained me fueled my team members."
"Only do what only you can do."
"We must never forget that the people who follow us are exactly where we have led them."
It isn't a hard read, but like Seth Godin, there is a ton of truth packed into a few pages!

How to Change the World

Guy Kawasaki writes a great blog especially for young up and comers who are trying to figure out how to break into a career. How to Change the World is a great collection of posts that vary significantly in length, however none of them are so long that you wish he would have spent the time to have it bound and put in the library. I enjoyed the practicality of his blog except for the one about the Audi R8 which just screamed "I GOT TO PLAY WITH A COOL CAR!".

If you are a college graduate or between jobs, I highly recommend Guy's blog.

The Leadership Revolution

If you need a quick pick me up, this is the blog for you! Nothing long to read, it is truly created for the ADD generation. The Leadership Revolution is a pleathora of great quotes to get your day going! Here are just a few examples.
Leaders don’t force people to follow –
they invite them on a journey.
– Charles S. Lauer
and
Earn the right to expect others to
keep their word by keeping yours.
– Steve Ventura

George Ambler's The Practice of Leadership

"We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions, however we tend to judge others by their behavior." is a great quote from George Ambler's blog The Practice of Leadership. His blog is an inspiring collection of quotes and ideas. It is a great read for a pick you up thought for the morning to get you in the mood to go conquer the world. I think his blog will make a great book! A point I usually don't focus on is his choice of pictures on his blog make you really ponder what they are saying. Just an example from his latest blog, Character Matters.The following picture had the quote, "'Leaders live in fish bowl and are always being watched. They should always be conscious of that fact and take advantage of it.' - Gene Klann" below it.

Jim Stroup

Jim Stroups blog, Managing Leadership is well written, however if you are looking for a blog to scan quickly in a few seconds, his is not the blog for you. Great info, but long posts. If you have the time to read through all his posts, there are some nuggets of information there. I can't say that I give him a solid ten rating though.