Inspiration
How leaders can inspire accountability
Leaders can struggle with accountability when it feels like a threat. Here's how to make accountability into a positive, supportive goal.
Leadership
Leadership
Smart ways employers can help with child care, improve the economy
Our workforce needs more effective access to child care, and employers have the tools to help.
Leadership
Which competitive strategy? Get clear about how you want to play
What's your competitive strategy? The details may differ, but you're likely to fall into one of 4 categories.
Leadership
Why you need to rethink your approach to power in the workplace
Power in the workplace is less about getting people to do your bidding and more about helping them be successful. Here's how to practice "clean power."
Leadership
Best practices for effectively managing global teams
Hybrid workplaces are here to stay, especially in global teams. Learn from Tellius CEO Ajay Khanna how his company's making it work.
Leadership
12 behaviors that leaders should avoid
While advice on behaviors that leaders should avoid can be helpful, it's even better to also suggest what leaders should do instead.
Leadership
What you need to know about leading and mentoring high achievers
Here's what you need to know about leading and mentoring high achievers, starting with understand what motivates and energizes them.
Communication
The missing link in your leadership: Build meaningful feedback loops
Feedback loops can be a powerful tool for leaders, provided they are adapted to the organization’s and leader’s specific needs.
Leadership
Are you leading a team or a group?
Leading a team and leading a group can look similar, but the differences have vast implications for your leadership and organization.
Leadership
What leaders can learn from P&O Ferries and the Great Resignation
The layoffs at P&O Ferries are just the latest example of what happens when leaders fail to prioritize and live respect as a cultural value. You can do better.
Communication
Common personality types of executives and how best to work with them
You can't control the personality types of executives you'll encounter, but you can control how you influence them and show your competence.
Leadership
CEOs make or break the value of advisory boards
Advisory boards only succeed when they have a clear role, commitment and relevance. Learn more about starting and sustaining advisory boards.
Leadership
Attention management is awareness intelligence
Awareness intelligence is a valuable skill for leaders in a VUCA world, and it requires a focus on attention management. Learn more.
Inspiration
4 reasons why a good life is more important than happiness
Happiness is good but impermanent. Learn why a good life is about how well we spend our limited time on earth.
Leadership
The change leader’s view: Why sustaining relevance matters
Sustaining relevance is a perpetual task for brands, and it's never guaranteed. Here's what you can learn from Plymouth's rise and fall.
Communication
Handling hybrid: 3 tips to get the most from modern meetings
Hybrid meetings are the new normal, and employers, managers and employees each have a role to play. Learn how to maximize hybrid meetings.
Leadership
Why you should sharpen your saw
Sharpen your saw in the mold of Stephen R. Covey through hydration, exercise, sleep and reflection, and you'll see productivity gains.
Leadership
Be the balm: Creating an anti-burnout culture
Fixing burnout isn't an individual problem. Leaders need to create anti-burnout culture if they want to address this crisis.
Leadership
Try these practices to increase your self-regulation
Emotional integrity and cognitive restructuring are key to learning self-regulation. Here's how to develop these qualities.
Inspiration
How to create community: Lessons from Homeboy Industries
Learn what the work of Homeboy Industries and the Rev. Greg Boyle can teach us about community and teamwork.
Leadership
Are you the manager Gen Z needs? Here are 2 mindset changes to get there
Young employees are upending work, but they aren't the problem. Instead, middle managers need to embrace the challenge and step up their leadership.
Leadership
Restructuring the puzzle of work
Leaders need to reframe work for the post-pandemic era. Here are seven areas to keep in mind.
Leadership
The power of a singular strategic objective
What's your singular strategic objective? Aim for that instead of getting lost in a pile of strategics, tactics and objectives.
Careers
Reclaim your authentic self by learning how to keep it real
Looking to reclaim your authentic self? Learn about this 4-step framework from an executive adviser and mental health professional.
Leadership
Connection: Today’s most essential leadership skill
A leader’s new power lies in his or her ability to connect with others, and that work begins by connection with yourself.
Inspiration
Why we long for leaders who actually care about us
Employees feel loneliness and lack connection when they don't sense that leaders care about them. Here's how to fix that in your culture.
Leadership
Leaders: Are employees creating or in coping mode? How to tell
How leaders behave will generate team creativity or send people into coping mode. Learn what behaviors matter and how to get the feedback you really need.
Leadership
Why tokens are the wrong incentive for workplace problems
Motivating people isn't as simple as giving tokens and other rewards. In fact, you might be incentivizing the wrong things.
Leadership
Leaders who don’t treat others with respect should lovingly be set free
Leaders must set the tone for values and behaviors they expect, including treating others with respect. Leaders who can't do that need to go.
Careers
Success statements show employers how you’ve added value at work
Learning to craft success statements and communicate them to executives will be key to your next project or promotion. Learn more.
Inspiration
Why hope matters now more than ever
We need to cultivate hope, and to do that, we need to think of hope as a practice.
Inspiration
Practical ways to find success in these troubled times
From humble beginnings and through adversity, you can still find success. Learn more about what's in your control.
Leadership
How do you handle team members who have little aspiration for advancing their careers?
The latest SmartBrief on Leadership poll question: How do you handle team members who have little aspiration for advancing their careers?
Sponsored
Tapping authenticity to realize your dreams: A Q&A with author Katharine Brooks
What is the enduring allure of the best-selling book What Color is Your Parachute?
Leadership
Are you proficient at each step in the leadership process?
How do you practice leadership? Do you have a leadership process? Learn this four-step approach.
Leadership
Defining problems vs. delivering strategy
Arguing over problems doesn't mean you're solving them. Here are three pivots to help move a business from defining problems to strategic management.
Leadership
Managing employee productivity: What research tells us
Research shows that managing employee productivity requires measurement and technology, but it's more than that -- you need a combination of objective measures and subjective observation.
Careers
Healing the long-term effects of COVID-19 on careers
COVID-19 has changed how people think about work and their careers. How can leaders respond to this new normal?
Leadership
Break often but briefly
Taking breaks is good for your body, mind and work. Explore proven methods for effective breaks and suggestions for what to do with your breaks.
Communication
Get out into the field with customers
Too many businesses miss out on an easy way to engage with customers, gain valuable intelligence and build business. It's called getting out into the field with customers.
Leadership
Making distinctions reduces conflict
Managing conflict requires leaders to gather information, question their assumptions and make distinctions. Learn more about effective conflict management.
Leadership
Lower resistance to change by following these 2 simple truths
Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley offer leaders a blueprint for leading change without provoking change resistance.