Congratulations, you just accepted a new job as supervisor! After celebrating the victory, reality sinks in and you wonder whether you even know what to do. Your primary role is now staff management, so how do you begin? The best way to start a new chapter is to lay a good foundation. Establish important building blocks that will help you manage and communicate more … [Read more...]
Do You Give Your Employees a Voice? If Not, It’s Time to Start
Increasingly employees want to be heard in the workplace, and it goes deeper than simply having someone listen, note their ideas and opinions, and move on. Employees want their leaders to act on what they're hearing from employees. It seems many companies are starting to pay attention. Last year, the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology listed “capturing the … [Read more...]
Do You Even Know How to Lead by Example?
Your employees are watching you, and they're being influenced by your behavior, for better or worse. Are you leading by example? Are you behaving in a way that you want your people to emulate? Are your actions always in the best interest of the team and organization? If you are leading by example, you aren't relying on your words alone to guide your employees. Certainly it … [Read more...]
Change Course After a Terrible Start to Your Leadership Journey
If you feel like you've gotten off on the wrong foot as a new leader, don't throw in the towel, says Paul G. Krasnow, author of The Success Code: A Guide for Achieving Your Personal Best in Business and Life, "When you face a setback in your life, you have two choices: remain stuck or move forward. It's that simple." So how do you recover from a bad beginning to your … [Read more...]
Boosting Self-Esteem is the Key to High Performance
Self-esteem is relatively scarce in the world and in your workplace. If you don't believe that, it's probably because: You have a healthy self-esteem and so you assume others do, or it never crosses your mind. You don’t have it, and are in denial, (or think you are the only one with weak or low self-esteem). Your people seem to have good self-esteem Self-esteem … [Read more...]
Stop Letting Procrastination Hold You Back
We all procrastinate sometimes. Some people make it a way of life. Either they put off tasks they dread or they simply thrive when producing work at the last minute. Many people, however, wish they procrastinated less. They scold themselves for creating unnecessary stress or regret their time management when they produce less-than-stellar work. Of all the comments I’ve … [Read more...]
Be Friendly Without Being Friends
I expect that you want your employees to like you—not just because you have a natural desire to be liked (which, let’s face it, most of us do), but also because being a likable boss has plenty of workplace benefits. Employees who like their bosses are more loyal to their organizations; they’re more devoted to their assignments; they’re more positive and optimistic in the … [Read more...]
You Are Responsible for Making Work Fun. Here’s why.
Work and fun. Maybe you've never thought about those two words in the same sentence. There are certainly people who don’t equate those two ideas together, or while they wish it could be true to have fun at work, they’ve never really experienced it. My premise is that work can be fun, at least some of the time and it should be that way. This isn’t some new-age, fluffy, … [Read more...]
Don’t Let Negativity Sink Your Ship
Have you ever looked carefully at a ship afloat? What do you notice about the water? As a submarine officer, I had plenty of opportunities to see ships tied to the dock, ships in transit in the harbor and ships in the open sea. All of them have this in common: They are held afloat by the water that is outside the ship. All ships also share this: They all have water inside … [Read more...]
If You Want to Succeed, Adopt These 6 Habits
It's a dog eat dog world out there, and if you want to survive (and thrive) you need to perform at a higher level, produce quicker, better results, instantly recover from missteps, and garner the confidence to thrive in times of uncertainty, says successful businessman and author Paul G. Krasnow. In his new book, The Success Code: A Guide for Achieving Your Personal Best in … [Read more...]