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The December 18th SmartBrief on Leadership recommends one must take time for oneself each day, and get over the guilt of saying no.

Joel Garfinkle writes, "Saying no means you are committing to the best quality for the tasks you already have, and maintaining your own balance, so you can stay on top of your game for the long haul."

"Decision makers in your organization can’t help you unless you state clearly what you need to be successful, and explain why it’s so important."

A Fast Company article titled "How to be More Assertive at Work When That's Just Not Your Personality" encourages those who find advocating for themselves difficult to be more assertive.

The article suggests that more agreeable leaders may not be as good at getting their teams the resources they need, and more agreeable individual contributors tend to make less money. The reason: more agreeable people generally won't want to impose upon others.

To help combat this, Fast Company suggests stating requests directly. If your tendency is to use phrasing to "soften the blow," don't — be direct. Using language like "I was hoping you would..." tends to make your request seem unimportant. "Decision makers in your organization can't help you unless you state clearly what you need to be successful, and explain why it's so important."

Explaining why it's so important is... so important. And here's why: "[A] clear statement of the underlying need or purpose is key to sounding assertive. The reason helps because it shifts people from making an up-or-down decision to having to argue with the reason. Sometimes, just the effort of having to grapple with the reason is enough to get people to agree." I think this is great advice. The Fast Company article also suggests you keep this explanation short: "When you can give a crisp statement of why your request matters, people assume you have really thought it through."

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I just read an article that I liked so much I wanted to write about it — that's not unusual — but I liked it to the point that I thought it made sense to create a new topic in my interests section.

The Leadership Topic will be dedicated to thoughts on effective leadership and practices of management in various dimensions (time, people, et cetera).

I just read a short article on a blog called The UPwards Leader titled, "Keep a 'To Be' List."

The post, written by Paul LaRue, introduces the notion of keeping a list of attributes you want to emulate. Then, much like a "to do" list, you select one of those attributes to make sure to emulate over a specific period — say, a list of seven to exemplify, one per day each week.