The modern, highly connected, instant information, 24 hour news cycle world we live in is a blessing and a curse. A blessing because we get an opportunity to learn from the actions of other leaders and a curse because mistakes, which we all make from time to time, are much more likely to become grist for the commentator's mill. For now, let's take it as a benefit and learn from four events that occurred this year.

The first is the exciting and less than stellar introduction of the Affordable Care Act, AKA ObamaCare. This is the U.S. governments attempt to radically reshape the business of health care in the United States.

Relax, this isn't about the law itself, but its stunningly inept roll-out. It appears that hundreds of millions of dollars has been spent to create a website that would allow citizens to sign up for new insurance plans. Though ecommerce websites are a ubiquitous part of our world today, somehow the government couldn't do it. There are whispers that maybe government leaders knew it wasn't going to work. Of course there will always be such rumors but the real leadership lesson is in how those leaders handled the obvious failure of their grand plan. I'm sure that as time passes we will learn more and be treated to the inevitable who-done-it and recriminations. The lesson for leaders? When failure happens, be honest about it and don't make excuses.

Sometimes we don't have to look very far to find a lesson worth remembering. Right here in my home town of Albuquerque, New Mexico our public school superintendent tweeted us to a great lesson in leadership and the internet, proving that Twitter may not be your friend. It's been no secret that the superintendent and the state's Secretary of Education don't get along. During a board meeting the superintendant, saying his mind was wondering, made a few comments on Twitter about the Secretary.

He compared her to certain barnyard animals…and addressed his comments to a local TV reporter. For good measure, the school system's "social media expert" added a few emoticons for added affect.

Social media expert?

The lesson? Some leaders are turning to social media as a means of getting a message to the public. If you must do that, you might want to be a little circumspect about what you write. Remember that the internet is the one place where immortality is reality.

It's not all bad news though. Recently, Microsoft decided to move away from what are commonly called stacked rankings. The stacked ranking system puts all employees into categories that are controlled as a percentage of the whole. So, in this system only a certain number of employees can receive the highest rating. That's bad, but what's worse is that a specific percentage of employees must also receive the lowest rating. In the pure form of stacked ranking, these lowest rated employees are terminated.

While this system can have the appearance of success in a large company, it doesn't take a math wizard to see what will happen over time in a smaller company. The bigger problem though is that this sort of rating system tends to incentivize and reward self promotion and even back stabbing instead of concentration on the company's mission. Good decision Microsoft!

Since there seems to be an internet theme to this year's leadership lessons, let's end with Yahoo!. There was a great buzz in the business world as Marissa Mayer was hired as Yahoo's next CEO last year. After a string of predecessors whose tenures were too short to hang pictures in the office, the world wanted to know what this young tech woman could do. Oh yea, she was 6 months pregnant!

Well in the subsequent 17 months, she's made quite a splash. Her most famous decision was to corral all the work-at-home employees and bringing them back to the office. There was great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but now months after that decision, the tremors seem to have subsided and the company is moving forward. Mayer has also,br made some bold decisions on acquisitions and its web presence. Yahoo's stock has soared. Some say that's just a short-term reaction by a fickle market, and that may be true, but the lesson here is that sometimes bold action is required and a smart leader isn't afraid to take that action.

Unfortunately I just read that Mayer has introduced a stacked ranking system…

What leadership lessons have you observed this year?

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Leading for Dollar$!

Excerpts from the introductory leadership course that will develop energized leaders, engaged employees, and more profits.

DELEGATING

Can you really do everything? Some leaders think they can, but they usually end up failing to get it all done, or providing a less than stellar performance. These leaders don't take advantage of their best asset, their people. If you look around your team or group, you'll find a wide range of skills, and talents. This is a huge, but often untapped reservoir of capability that will help you get more done.

Face it. You are not an expert on everything. Your group has much more knowledge and experience than you alone. Therefore, delegation is one of your keys to success. Quite simply, it's the process of passing responsibility for something to someone else. Let's talk about that word "responsibility." When you delegate, you give someone else responsibility for the project. That doesn't mean you give up your responsibility. You still retain the ultimate responsibility and that is why some consider delegating a dangerous practice. If the person you delegated to doesn't come through, it's your neck on the block. How do you protect your neck?

As you've already learned, you need to get to know your people so you know who is a good fit for what you want to delegate. Start small. Pick someone who you trust and who has the right expertise and give them a small project. Make sure you give them a firm completion date that gives you sufficient time to review their work. Observe how they approach it. You must not interfere, unless complete failure appears imminent, but it is appropriate to require regular updates. Use these updates to satisfy yourself that all is well, and to make minor adjustments. A word of caution: don't delegate a make work project just to see how someone does. That's just a waste of everyone's time. Use a real and meaningful task.

This first project should help you understand how effective delegation can be to increasing the amount you can accomplish. There are a couple of things to watch out for though.

1. In your updates, make sure the project is still on track. It is not uncommon for an ambitious subordinate to run with a project and make it bigger than it was ever meant to be.

2. Provide course corrections, but try to keep them minor. You have delegated this project and the person you delegated it to may have a different way of reaching the goal. That doesn't mean they're wrong. Who knows, their way may turn out to be better than yours!

You have delegated some responsibility but you need to remember that you always retain ultimate responsibility. That means if the project isn't done correctly or on-time, you take the blame. That's why so many leaders are hesitant to delegate, or they delegate, then continue to run the project. Delegation comes with risk, there's no denying that. By starting slowly though, you build your own confidence and thereby success. Occasionally, someone will not come through and the project won't get done correctly or on-time. That's going to happen. Perhaps the individual involved needs some counseling or training, but don't take it as a sign that you should no longer delegate.

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