Meet Regularly with Each Employee
Providing meaningful feedback to employees is absolutely essential to help them develop their potentials. Without good feedback, growth simply is not possible.
Eight Traits of the Best Managers
All managers have many things in common: they all accept greater responsibility and accountability than non-management employees, they all exercise control over particular organization functions, and they all focus on getting things done through others.
Six Ways to Use Positive Reinforcement to Reward Employees
Positive reinforcement both shapes behavior and enhances an employee’s self-image. Effective reinforcers can be grouped into six major categories.
Ask Broad, Open-Ended Questions When Interviewing
When trying to find out how a candidate thinks, it’s always best to start by asking very broad, open-ended questions.
Prepare for the Interview
Make sure you have an interruption-free, private space where you and the candidate can talk comfortably.
Use a Standard Application When Hiring
Make sure that every job applicant completes one of your standard applications – even if they have already sent you a full, lengthy resume.
Five Steps for Dealing with Employee Complaints
When a complaint is made, the manager should follow these five steps.
Why You Should Be Open to Hearing Complaints
Accepted wisely, employees’ complaints can be useful tools a lab manager could use to improve and upgrade his work unit and keep his employees happy.
Staying Sane in an Insane Workplace
Faced with stress, is it even possible to stay calm, cool, and collected? To take it all in stride, function effectively, not lose sleep, and still handle problems successfully?
Five Reasons to Hold a Meeting
Before you hold your next meeting, be sure you and the others at the meeting know why it's being held. Meetings can drag on and feel like a waste of time if the goals are not clear to all in attendance.
Five Ideas to Increase Your Productivity at Work
Finding it hard to carve out time to get important things done? Checking email, people at your office door, unexpected meetings can all fill time but may not be getting you any closer to getting your own work done or to move ahead on projects.
Saying No to the Boss
If you’re the boss, you don’t necessarily want to hear the word “no.” If you have an issue or concern with a boss’s ideas, it’s not easy or may not be welcome to disagree. So is saying “no” taboo in the workplace?
Getting it Right the Second Time
Repeating yourself and doing it using different methods of communication can enhance persuasion and buy-in.
Are You a Manager or a Leader?
All leaders are managers but not all managers are leaders. Both managers and true leaders get things done through others, but managers do so by virtue of their specific position within their organizations, while true leaders— regardless of their official rank—do so by inspiring others.
The Myth of Work and Life Balance
No wonder a recent survey of North American employees found that 87 percent of respondents say their work/life balance is negatively affecting their health. If you’ve been killing yourself trying to achieve daily work/life balance, it may be a pipe dream.
Three Ways to Say No Without Saying No
We’ve all been there. A team member comes up to you with a “great idea.” Sometimes the idea is good, but maybe not great. Sometimes the idea has little merit. How do you respond in these situations without deflating the energies and passion of your team?
How Much Does Your Employee Turnover Cost?
Finding and keeping good employees can be a manager's biggest challenge. This online employee turnover calculator can help assess the financial damage that high turnover can create in an organization.
Four Tips for Conflict-Busting Conversations in the Workplace
The following tips will teach you how to turn your next meeting with conflicting employees into a productive conversation.
Leadership Reality Check
These seven “leadership realities” are often overlooked or undervalued in organizations.
6 Ideas to Improve Team Performance
Poor team performance and productivity is like leaving money on the table.
3 Strategies for Dealing with Toxic Leadership
Neutralizing assaults and waiting before responding can help deflect the problems of "working for a boss like that."
Why don't managers delegate more effectively?
By taking a closer look at why delegation may not be their strong suit, managers can learn how to move beyond the fears of delegation and start doing it effectively.
Seven Signs You May be a Bad Manager
Even if you have no doubts about your management abilities, it might be wise to take a moment of introspection to see if any of these Seven Signs You May Be a Bad Manager could apply to you.
The Three Levels of Leadership
One of the challenges many managers and leaders face is in understanding the distinctions between levels of leadership. In fact, there is a whole level of leadership that many people don't even realize exists.
You Can't Manage What You Don't Measure
Though determining what to measure and how to measure can be tricky, once metrics are in place, you can "tell which strategies are working and which aren't."
