Leaders doing good, getting creative, and managing monkeys were just a few of the leadership posts that snagged the attention of the team at BIG this past week. Enjoy…because it isn’t every day one sees the words “duct tape” in a piece about leadership!

10 Creativity Tips From The World’s Greatest Scientists (The Bacharach Blog)

Creativity was cited as the single most important leadership quality for success in an IBM study of 1500 CEOs. You’ll find some thoughtful quotes in this Slideshare presentation…a quick and easy read, yet long on spurring some reflective thinking.

Silence Is Golden, But Duct Tape Is Silver (William Powell, The Leadership Advisor)

The team at BIG is big on the value that contrarians can bring to the table. However, if the contrarians at your organization have gotten out of line and aren’t serving the useful purpose they should serve, William offers up four ways to deal with the situation.

13 Leadership Temptations to Conquer in 2013 (Linda Fisher Thornton, Leading in Context)

A great little post inspired by a speech given by British ethicist Mary Warnock. “We all have the capacity to do good and to do harm. Let’s resolve to do good and to resist these…temptations.”

How to Lose Your Control Issues (Dan Oestreich, Unfolding Leadership)

Having a hard time differentiating between “losing your issues with control” and “losing control?” If so, Dan offers up several thought-provoking questions, answering them will steer you in the right direction to resolve your conflict.

Who’s Got the Monkey? (William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass, HBR Article)

Struggling with a ‘to do’ list that gets longer every time one of your direct reports pops into your office? If your employees are delegating their issues upward to you, this is a great read (or re-read!). Originally published in 1974 and then re-released in 1999, this article resonated with the leadership team where I (Jane) was working at the time. To help us manage what the authors call “subordinate-managed time,” we purchased the barrel of monkeys toy and used it as a visual reminder to track who was giving the monkey to whom…most effective!

The need for opposing values to keep us on track. “It is the stretched soul that makes music, and souls are stretched by the pull of opposites. Opposite bents, tastes, yearnings, loyalties. Where there is no polarity, where energies flow smoothly in one direction, there will be much doing but no music.” ~Eric Hoffer