Walking the Leadership Talk

How many times have you heard someone opine, “Leaders must walk their talk”?  I’m pleased to report that corporate learning & development manager and award-winning leadership blogger Dan McCarthy is doing just that.  Dan, the host of the popular Leadership Carnival on his blog Great Leadership by Dan, knows first hand how time-consuming hosting a blog carnival is.  Blog carnival hosts invest a great deal of time reviewing submissions, selecting posts and organizing summaries. So instead of staggering under the weight of this monthly task all by himself, he’s invited fellow bloggers to help with the hosting.  Voila! Dan is walking his talk by delegating.

In my view, he’s going beyond the simple managerial task of spreading out the work.  He’s also demonstrating more nuanced leadership attributes in the following ways:

Abundance mentality. Given that there are many leadership blogs out there, it might be tempting for Dan to keep the Leadership Carnival to himself. By sharing his blog hosting duties Dan shows that he’s willing to share the credit, not hog it to himself.

Amplifying leadership impact. I read the idea of “amplification” in a blog post from Michael Hyatt, the CEO of Thomas Nelson publishers.  By inviting people with different networks and different talents to join in, Dan amplifies what he offers to the world.  His guest blog hosts will undoubtedly have a different world view, a different way to explore leadership. These ideas build on each other and amplify Dan’s message.

Growing talent. I’ve heard via other blog hosts like Dee Honner, who hosted a recent HR Carnival on her blog The HR Maven, that reading the blog submissions is an education in itself.  Beyond the knowledge gain, however, I see something larger at work.  Dan is offering his guest blog hosts the chance to learn the mechanics of blog hosting and the resulting marketing of the Carnival.

This month’s Leadership Carnival is hosted by Becky Robinson, of the LeaderTalk blog for Mountain State University. Be sure to stop by Great Leadership as well.  Both leadership blogs are well worth your time.

And thanks to Dan for modeling what he writes about.