Authentic Leadership

Leadership involves understanding others and moving them toward a common goal. But, more importantly, leadership involves understanding how you motivate others and how they respond to you moving them toward a common goal. Having an accurate understanding of your strengths, weaknesses, and quirks will have a profound impact on your leadership effectiveness. It boils down to three points: Have a clue, be you, and be true.

10 Mistakes New Managers Make And How to Avoid Them

First impressions are everything. Nowhere is that more true than for the new manager. Not only are you in a new position with new responsibilities, you are learning on the fly while on stage with your employees watching and analyzing your every move. This talk delves into the most common mistakes made by new managers, examining why they happen and how to avoid them. It is critical that new managers understand the common pitfalls and avoid setting precedents that can come back to haunt them down the road. Too many mistakes too soon and your ship is sunk before you've had a chance to set sail.

Making Meetings Work

The average employee will spend 3.2 years of their life in meetings. Some of you have attended that meeting. Meetings can be a great opportunity for ideas to come to life, updates given, progress measured, and work tasks divided. They are necessary and useful, but they should only take place when they can be done efficiently, effectively and have some benefit to all of the participants involved.

Change, Change Go Away, Come Again Another Day

Organizations like organisms grow through change, however, change (new skills, new surroundings, new processes, etc.) can bring about a feeling of taking a step backward, and many times an organization will lose efficiencies for a season, but once the new skills, new surroundings, new processes are mastered, efficiencies are not only regained, but they surpass the old way of doing things. Organizations experience change in various stages. Administration, management and employees are all at different stages when the changes start rolling out. Employees need answers to five questions to survive and thrive in an ever-changing culture.

The Manager's New Clothes

Don't think you and the Emperor have much in common? Think again. Hans Christian Anderson's tale has some great management application. Does your new management title immediately enlighten you? Are your new reports allowed to address the obvious or do they need to tow the party line? Helpful insights as you begin your new venture!

Emotionally Intelligent Leader

Congratulations! You're in management...you are a leader! You got here thanks to your intelligence, hard work, and expertise. But now how are things going? It's a whole different world now that you are in leadership and that skill set that made you a great individual contributor isn't enough. Your work has changed. It's not about what you can individually accomplish, but what you can accomplish through others. And that's where the complexity begins. Success as a leader is directed related to your emotional intelligence - your self-awareness, your ability to regulate your emotions, your ability to empathize and connect with your employees. Intelligence doesn't guarantee your success as a leader, but emotional intelligence will.

4 Secrets to Becoming a S.T.A.R. - How to Attain Success in Your Professional Life

It's amazing to me how uncomfortable individuals get when asked about their greatest strengths, their passions, their dreams. They are unsure how to answer the question. They may stammer, offer up some modest goals, or begin to list off their less-than-desirable qualities. How would you answer that question? Have you considered it before? One of the secrets to professional success hinges on your ability to identify your weaknesses and strengths. Another secret involves tapping into your dreams and discovering your potential to make it a reality. Take a look at the successful people around you and you'll find these four characteristics in all of them.