• How your kids shape your leadership style
  Having children changes the leadership style of male CEOs, including the way they compensate employees, researchers say. Male employees are most likely to be compensated less than their female colleagues, who can expect average salary increases of up to 1.1% after their boss becomes a father. That might be because bosses gain respect for women after seeing their wives give birth, or because they hope to create a more level playing field for their daughters, the researchers say. The Wall Street Journal (1/6)      

• Disney's bracelets attempt to balance customer service, privacy
  Walt Disney World in Florida will enable customers to bypass entry turnstiles and use rubber bracelets encoded with credit card data to enter the park and buy items. Customers could also be alerted by smartphone when rides are available without having to stand in line. "If we can enhance the experience, more people will spend more of their leisure time with us," said Disney Parks and Resorts Chairman Thomas O. Staggs. The technology will also allow Disney to track guest behavior, but it also allows guests to control how much information they share. The New York Times (tiered subscription model) (1/7)      

• America leads the world in corporate investigations
  Corporate investigators are the private eyes of the business world, tasked with rooting out internal malfeasance and doing due diligence on potential business partners. Demand is up, in part because American firms are expanding into emerging markets. "It's a business we win in America but serve in Asia, driven by the export of Western ethics," says Tom Hartley, who leads Kroll Advisory Solutions. The Economist (free content) (1/5)      

• The decline of American tinkering
  Many of America's greatest inventions came from curious people messing around with the mechanical devices they used in everyday life, says author Alec Foege. That's been less and less the case for decades, however. "The United States risks losing its hallowed tinkerer tradition -- as well as the engine of innovation that fueled an unprecedented era of growth," Foege writes. "Economic success has given us the time and resources to tinker, but it has also blunted our impetus to do so." CNNMoney/Fortune (1/4)      

• Packaging innovators are tortoises, not hares
  When it comes to packaging design, nimbleness isn't a big part of the innovation process, write Christine Horan and Jason Robertson. Overhauling machines and distribution networks is an arduous task, so every upgrade or change has to be carefully considered and exhaustively tested before implementation. "[F]or every small advancement you make in package design, there is an iceberg of innovation underneath," Horan and Robertson write. FastCoDesign (1/4)      

Top five news stories selected by SmartBrief on Leadership readers in the past week.

• You can't force people to improve themselves (The New York Times (tiered subscription model))

• How to prevent "Death by PowerPoint" (Management-Issues (U.K.))

• What should your New Year's resolutions be? (The Wall Street Journal)

• Study suggests that CEOs with MBAs perform better (Bloomberg Businessweek)

• The 57 sins of Isaac Newton (MentalFloss.com)

• Results based on number of times each story was clicked by readers.

• Indian CEOs are forced to surrender chairmanships
  About half of India's top CEOs also serve as chairmen, but that will change under a new law forcing firms to split the two roles. The move, modeled on British corporate rules, is intended to improve governance at big companies. Reuters/Breakingviews blog (1/7)      

• Kansas group braces for the zombie apocalypse
  A group calling itself the Kansas Anti Zombie Militia is preparing for a zombie apocalypse by stocking up on metal baseball bats and sharing strategies for tackling undead hordes. Spokesman Alfredo Carbajal says the "zompoc" is a real threat, but adds that preparedness is worthwhile even if the dead don't rise up. "My thought is, if you are ready for zombies, you are ready for anything. ... The point is to keep yourself and your loved ones safe," he says. The Kansas City Star (Mo.) (1/3)      

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We tell clients to invest globally but investigate locally." --Jim Mintz, chief of the Mintz Group, as quoted in The Economist