“Great leaders are few and far between. This has nothing to do with genetics. Rather, most people just don’t know how to be leaders. The good news is that it’s relatively easy to learn to be a leader. You can start with these 8 beginner’s errors that can sabotage your efforts as a leader.”

“The best and sometimes the worst around the globe.”

“There are many things I’ve been delighted and impressed by during the nearly five months I’ve now spent at Microsoft. However, there have also been a few things that i’ve found extraordinarily disheartening. One of the latter has been the organizatational dependence on ‘the deck’ (that is, Powerpoint files) as the standard mechanism for conveying nearly all information.”

“A question for the Radar readers: Does anyone know of a case where a company, let’s say a software or Internet company, took no institutional investment (VC or other significant investment) up until the point of a successful IPO? Let’s say that mezzanine rounds don’t count against a candidate.”

“The following is a letter I submitted this morning to USA Today in response to [an article] they ran a few days ago.” (Thanks kotttke,org!)

For some twentysomethings, getting ahead is not about sitting still for a better job or the next raise. It’s about unrestrained ambition. In a corporate workplace, or any institutional meritocracy, people rise largely based on their experience. But experience isn’t something that someone under 30 can really claim, without raised eyebrows and evidence of some prodigal childhood enterprise. For twentysomething entrepreneurs with energy, drive and an impetuous attitude, impatience is their virtue.”

“The surest way to reduce your taxes is to convert personal expenditures into allowable deductions. Turn even a hobby into a business and you’ll cut your tax bill.”

“The Ad Age Small Agency Diary is a blog devoted to the daily realities of life within America’s small advertising agencies. It’s a frank discussion of the highlights, lowlights, challenges and controversies faced by agency executives in the trenches.”

“One of the signs of boom–or at least a boomlet–is that companies start wanting to drive their competition crazy. This occurs when ’survival’ is no longer an issue and optimization or maximization can become a corporate goal. However, the desire to do things to the competition can lead a company astray–or drive it to even greater heights.”

“Following last week’s report on green companies, here’s a list of five that have either present or past complaints against them.”

“We email. We wiki. We blog. We IM. We convince ourselves that as long as we can write well, these are all good forms of communication. Perhaps in some ways even better, since we’re not distracted (blinded, biased, seduced) by the person’s physical presence. And we are wrong. According to the neuroscientists, anyway. I’ve just come back from a couple of days at the Conference on World Affairs, and attended a couple of different presentations where Dr. Thomas Lewis spoke. He has a particular interest in neurobiology (including the neurobiology of love), and what the brain does and does not want and need. One of the key points he made was that we are fooling ourselves into thinking that text is even half as effective as face-to-face at communicating a message.”

“Having been a non-employee for about 14 years now, I’ve made my share of stupid business mistakes. I’ve also coached a number of people to start their own businesses, and I’ve seen many of them make similar mistakes. This advice is geared towards small business owners, particularly people who are just starting (or about to start) their own business.”

“…CEOs live in a Lake Wobegon world where every dinner or lunch partner is above average in their deference. How others treat the CEO says nothing, they say. But how others treat the waiter is like a magical window into the soul.”

“When you’re in ‘the zone’ you get your best work done. But how do you get in that ‘zone’ when colleagues, e-mails and IM are vying for your attention?”

“I’ve been working at Microsoft since October, 1999 as a full-time Software Design Engineer. In that time, I’ve worked for three teams in two divisions, and had six or seven different managers. Four products I’ve worked on have shipped, two more are in beta, and I’ve also ‘consulted’ for many other teams across the company, thereby influencing directly and indirectly a large number of Microsoft’s products. Between my experience and my wife’s, I think I’ve gotten a pretty solid feel for what it’s like to work in a product group at Microsoft.”