Few things kill likeability as quickly as arrogance. Likable leaders don't act as though they're better than you because they don't think that they're better than you. Rather than being a source of prestige, they see their leadership position as bringing them additional accountability for serving those who follow them.
Personality traits form at an early age and are fixed by early adulthood. Many important things about you change over the course of your lifetime, but your personality isn't one of them.
Chewing gum actually lowers your cortisol levels, the hormone responsible for stress. But chewing gum doesn't just reduce stress, it also makes you more alert and improves your performance in memory-oriented tasks. It does so by increasing the blood flow to your brain and alerting your senses.
Great leadership can be a difficult thing to pin down and understand. You know a great leader when you're working for one, but even they can have a hard time articulating what it is that makes their leadership so effective.
Effective listening is something that can absolutely be learned and mastered. Even if you find attentive listening difficult and, in certain situations, boring or unpleasant, that doesn't mean you can't do it. You just have to know what to work on.
Offbeat questions are nearly impossible to prepare for, and they don't achieve the interviewer's objective - to test out-of-the-box thinking and the ability to perform under pressure. That's the bad news. The good news is that companies are moving away from them.
When companies create ridiculous and demoralizing rules to halt the outlandish behavior of a few individuals, it's a management problem. There's no sense in alienating your entire workforce because you don't know how to manage performance. It makes a bad situation that much worse.
One of the toughest things for leaders to master is kindness. Kindness shares credit and offers enthusiastic praise for others' work. It's a balancing act between being genuinely kind and not looking weak.
Being a leader requires being confident enough in your own decisions and those of your team to own them when they fail. The very best leaders take the blame but share the credit.
Common sense would suggest that having ability, like being smart, inspires confidence. It does, but only while the going is easy. The deciding factor in life is how you handle setbacks and challenges. People with a growth mindset welcome setbacks with open arms.
If you can't relax during your interview, then nothing you do to prepare will matter. Being yourself is essential to the selection process, and interviewers will feel it if you're too nervous. Showing fear or anxiety appears weak compared to a relaxed smile and genuine confidence.
When it comes to getting promoted, you want to present yourself in a way that feeds into the biases that bosses have about what makes someone promotable. You're already doing the hard work, so why not frame your effort in such a way that it increases your chances of obtaining the position you want?
The biggest mistake most people make when it comes to listening is they're so focused on what they're going to say next or how what the other person is saying is going to affect them that they fail to hear what's being said.
Toxic people defy logic. Some are blissfully unaware of the negative impact that they have on those around them, and others seem to derive satisfaction from creating chaos and pushing other people's buttons.
People often cover their mouths when lying. A hand on the mouth or even a touch of the lips shows you that they are lying because this unconscious body language represents a closing off of communication.
The next time you need to win someone over to your way of thinking, try nodding your head as you speak. People unconsciously mirror the body language of those around them in order to better understand what other people are feeling.
More than half of people who leave their jobs do so because of their relationship with their boss. Smart companies make certain their managers know how to balance being professional with being human. These are the bosses who celebrate an employee's success, empathize with those going through hard times, and challenge people, even when it hurts.
Confidence is a crucial building block in a successful career, and embracing it fully will take you places you never thought possible. With proper guidance and hard work, anyone can become more confident. Once you pass a certain point, you'll feel it from the inside.
While exceptional employees don't seek conflict, they don't run away from it either. They're able to maintain their composure while presenting their positions calmly and logically. They're able to withstand personal attacks in pursuit of the greater goal and never use that tactic themselves.
If you struggle with putting things into perspective, just ask yourself two simple questions: What's the worst thing that could happen as a result of this? Will this matter in five years? Your answers should put a stop to cataclysmic thinking.
