If you're a leader, best-selling author Jon Gordon wants you to take this message to heart: Spreading negative energy solves nothing. In fact, it causes people to shut down. Morale suffers, employees disengage, productivity takes a hit, and profits fall. "It's easy to get upset and derailed by anger when things go wrong, but then the issue gets lost because you mismanaged … [Read more...]
[Infographic]: How to Motivate 6 Different Employee Types
The best way to motivate people is to truly understand what motivates them. Sounds painfully simple, and yet, too many leaders don't follow that advice. They stick to one-size-fits-all tactics or rely on money to motivate employees to do their very best. In this infographic, created by Headway Capital, you'll learn that money is not the answer to everything and instead … [Read more...]
How to Evaluate Workplace Training Programs
During a discussion with Bob Mason, who we interviewed for our “The Qualities of a Strong Leader: Deep Insight From a Long-Time Military Leader” post, he offered so much insight on leadership that we decided to write more than one post! Bob, along with Steve Alltop, formed The Daedalus Group, a provider of team-building, leadership and strategic planning training. He pulls … [Read more...]
5 Ways to Ensure That Employees Understand (and Follow) Your Directions
This is a guest post by Phil Gerbyshack, a trainer and speaker. If you’re a boss, one of the most important parts of your job is giving directions. Whether you’re training, coaching, or assigning work, it’s critical to do the job right. If you think about what you do when you share travel directions, you’ll do a better job with supervisory directions. Here are some tips to … [Read more...]
5 Tips to Ensure You Don’t Botch Your First Hiring
Hiring is stressful, especially when you've never done it before. Hire the wrong person and you can cost yourself and your organization time and money. However, "when you adopt proven hiring strategies, you can retain a steady flow of talent to fill open job positions and replace underperforming employees quickly. And when your hiring is fast and accurate, you get to focus … [Read more...]
Prioritization Means Choosing What Problems Not to Solve
This is a guest post by Nat Greene, author of Stop Guessing: The 9 Behaviors of Great Problem-Solvers Business leaders face a constant burden in their organizations: They have too many problems to solve and not enough resources to solve all of them. A good prioritization system is critical for any business leader, and our relationship with it often resembles a car. When … [Read more...]
The Qualities of a Strong Leader: Deep Insight From a Long-Time Military Leader
In this new interview series, we'll share insight from leaders who have been there, done that and lived to tell the tale. First up, we hear from Bob Mason, whose 30-year military career taught him the ins and outs of being a strong leader. Starting with a small team at the young age of 19, he honed his skills leading ever larger and more complex teams, eventually commanding … [Read more...]
3 Steps to Harness Your Emotions and Become a Stronger Leader
If you think being a great leader (and employee, in general) means silencing your emotions, think again. The most successful people, say Ed Hess and Katherine Ludwig, authors of Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age are those who can leverage their emotions in a way that allows them to think better and become more creative, innovative … [Read more...]
Improving Workplace Relationships: 4 Responses to Dealing with Drama
By Marlene Chism, consultant, speaker and author. There are many ways that drama can affect workplace relationships. One way that I often discuss in my workshops is how to stop taking the bait. You know what I mean. It’s those times when you put your foot in your mouth, or you get drawn into an argument or communication exchange that you later regret, yet it happens again … [Read more...]
Why All Leaders Should Think Like a Four-Year-Old
This is a guest post by Shay Howe, co-founder of Lead Honestly. During a recent family visit, my four-year-old cousin beat me in a game of "Guess Who?" ... well, beat doesn’t begin to describe what happened. He destroyed me with ease. I could say it was because we were playing a new version of the traditional game where you guess animals, food, clothing, or other objects … [Read more...]