POST CATEGORY : CEO Leadership

Don’t Give Them All the Answers: Putting Autonomy to Work

If you’re a business leader who feels more like a schoolteacher, you’re doing something wrong.

When an employee comes to you with a question, it may seem counterproductive to tell him to figure it out on his own, but sometimes that’s the best thing a leader can do.

It might be easier and make you feel more comfortable to give them all the answers, but by allowing employees to find the answers themselves, you’re empowering them to be resourceful and learn from their mistakes, which is more beneficial in the long run.

Leader assigning responsibilities

The Benefits of Withholding Answers

Having all the answers is great, but that doesn’t mean you have to share them.…

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Survey: Most Business Owners Remain Optimistic in California

Most California-based entrepreneurs want to invest more resources to grow their company, according to a recent survey by California Bank & Trust (CB&T). About 60 percent use social media and Web marketing to promote their business, and many business owners believe their products and services will see growing demand.

Downtown San Francisco

photo credit: Adam Kuban

Nearly 38 percent of small business owners want to conduct international sales efforts, while 53 percent want to hire new employees in 2014.

These plans reflect optimism among entrepreneurs: Over 86 percent say their business is heading in the right direction, while 63 percent expect their company’s growth rate to increase in 2014.…

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Better Together: Essentials for a Successful Business Partnership

Modern society glorifies individualism and the concept of self. Innovative platforms have enabled us to become self-taught in numerous fields, making education more accessible to people worldwide. The rise of feminism has liberated women from the singular, purely domesticated trajectory that once epitomized the gender; women, once expected to acquiesce to a life at home, are now encouraged to pursue their own interests. Mediums of expression, such as YouTube, Twitter and Instagram, spurned a trend of online divulgence that revolves around users’ eagerness to publicly display their personal lives.

Partnership

This cultural shift, one that characterizes the new millennium, has trickled over to the world of business as well.…

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Take Out Your Notepads: 7 Media Moguls to Learn From

Discovering the next trending media story or topic before exposure to the world isn’t simply about being in the right place at the right time. Social media journalism requires creativity, gusto, and persistence. The top media moguls are relying on more than chance. Here to teach a lesson on entrepreneurship are some of the greatest media moguls of all time. Sharpen your pencil and take a seat. Class is in session.

Walt Disney

1. Benjamin Franklin

Everyone’s favorite patriot, Benjamin Franklin, was more than just an inventor and politician. He was America’s first media mogul. A prolific speaker and journalist, Franklin’s various newspapers, almanacs, and other texts inspired and entertained readers.…

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What Does a Great Leader need? Time to think!

As a leader, you’re paid (and praised!) for delivering results. It’s all about setting an ambitious plan and then executing it. This requires action. Modern business life is busy and there’s often a barrage of unexpected events you have to deal with. This involves more action. Do you ever have a moment to reflect, to ponder, to think? It’s all very well investing time in action, but if you’re neglecting thinking time, then you’re heading for a fall.

Thinking leader

1. Be more effective

The world is not static. The great plans you make at the beginning of the day, week, month or year will, inevitably, need to be amended over time.…

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Every Company Has Projects to Manage – How Do You Manage Yours?

Every company on the face of the planet has all kinds of different projects to manage and the size of all the projects vary, some are small close knit teams and others are large scale global projects. Here, we are going to talk about project management efficiency and I will also throw out some great tips of my own as I have managed many in the past for a wide range of businesses in different sectors.

Project Management

High Rates Of Failure, More So Than Success

Unfortunately there is a high rate of failure when it comes to completing projects, more so than actual success, this all come down to how the project was managed with a handful of people in the team not pull their weight and keeping up with targets.…

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Tackling the 20 Percent of Revenue You are Losing to Inefficiency

You already know that inefficiencies are bad for business, but do you understand how bad? Every year, many organizations lose 20 to 30 percent in revenue due to inefficiencies. That’s some serious cash that could be going back into developing your business.

Catching money

If that’s news to you, you probably haven’t prioritized the best strategy for increasing efficiency: Documenting your processes. The thought of getting your processes in writing may sound tedious, but once you start doing it, the thrill of saving so much time and money will make you want to keep improving.

The Far-Reaching Impact of Efficiency

When given the same task, 12 different people will do it 12 different ways.…

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Self-Awareness: The Key to Better Educational Leadership

An effective leader exhibits a number of features that motivate people to follow them. Honesty, charisma, confidence, know-how, a willingness to take risks — the qualities of a better leader are myriad and diverse. One of the most important characteristics in an effective leader is also one you can further develop with a bit of effort and reflection: self-awareness.

Self-awareness

Whether you’ve been leading an organization for years or you’re embarking on a path to become a better leader, self-awareness is an essential part of educational leadership success. Knowing your desires, feelings, strengths, weaknesses and motivations will not just help you reach your goals, it will keep you firmly in control of yourself through good times and bad.…

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Using the 3P’s (People, Process, Product) to Make Your Business Successful

I’m sure many of you have heard this standard uttered lately by billionaire entrepreneur, Marcus Lemonis of NBC’s “The Profit”.

Perhaps you mistakenly think he coined the phrase?

Mr. Lemonis is definitely someone to be admired, and he’s successfully used this event-driven business management tool better than most. He defines a good investment as one that has at least two of the three P’s covered.

3P for business success

The truth is, the methodology itself has been around for a long time now. It exists in every successful business, industry, niche, system, etc. Any successful business owner can likely identify this process in their own business, even if they’ve never put their management practises into this context.…

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Scams (Old and New) That Target Small Business Owners

Just because your a small business owner doesn’t make you safe from money-hungry scammers looking to separate you from your hard-earned cash. As technology improves, scams become more elaborate.

Following, you’ll find some of the most popular scams – those which seem simple on the surface, yet still dupe thousands of unsuspecting businesses each year.

scammer

Directory Scams

Criminals know how badly you want to increase/maintain your marketing reach, so they use the good ol directory scam.

They might call, fax, email or otherwise solicit you indicating that it’s time to get your business listed in the back of the local phone book, or an applicable business directory of some sort.…

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