Employees are the most valuable asset in a company whether your product is a service or a good. Be clear to your employees about where they stand in their jobs and promote a good work environment. Treating them well will go a long way, and so will find out what their concerns are. Even if you can’t do anything to ease their concerns during this economic downturn, listening and showing that you care about their lives will insure they continue to do quality work.

Many of the students graduating from college in May have found themselves in a predicament trying to find a job in this economy. Because of this, many will find themselves working for temp agencies which will allow for them to work in many different industries, assume many different positions, and adapt to a number of different work environments. This is very helpful when you are trying to define which activities and roles you are interested in and which ones you are not.

It seems like in some cases cars are a necessary evil. When the big push was to move to suburbia and escape city life, people needed cars to get them to and from work and many still rely on them as a sole means of transportation. However, what many people are not thinking of is how lightening the load of what is in your car can help you stop wasting fuel saving the environment and money. You can also check your tire pressure to make sure your tires are accurately filled to help reduce resistance. Another way to stop resistance is to remove any unnecessary roof or bike racks to avoid wind resistance. As always car pool when necessary and do your part to help out the environment.

A job hunt that hits obstacles is frustrating. Just be positive, remember that companies are still hiring and although the economy has not picked up entirely people are continuing to leave their jobs for a number of reasons. Whether they are changing their life careers, deciding to retire, starting a family, retuning to school or turning to a vocation those people are allowing for job openings. So whether you believe it or not openings will become available, stay positive.

This blog has covered how social networking is great to promote a new business, keep in touch with old friends, and make new friends and business acquaintances. When does it cross the line? Does social networking actually consume your life and actually lead to what many think of as an addiction? Many people new to the social networking sites such as Facebook or MySpace often find themselves spending a significantly more amount of time on the sites than more seasoned networkers. Just be sure you are not neglecting your other responsibilities or becoming too obsessive, instead use it for what its main purposes were connecting with friends and colleagues. This is not meant to be another means of being “plugged in”. You already have your cell phones, pagers, and e-mail for that.

Today is Earth Day. Take time to think about how to make your life a little more “green” today and everyday. As you already know, recycling is the first means of doing this both at home and at the office. This goes for not only scrap papers but also newspapers. In an effort to cut down on the amount of paper distributed each day you could turn to reading the newspaper online when possible. Also, try printing on both sides of the paper and adding a line to your e-mail messages reminding others to only print them if absolutely necessary. Turn off your printer and other electronics when not in use to help save the earth and save yourself some money in the long run.

Talking too much and saying too little is a problem in interviews, but it is also a problem in many meetings. There is a misconception that the length of a response is equivalent to a quality response. Try to be concise and to the point so that you are demonstrating your knowledge on the subject as well as expertise in the field while showing what value you are adding to the discussion. Don’t just keep repeating what someone else has already said by using different words.

Management courses explain Fiedler’s theory that there are two types of leaders. He believes that a leader is either task oriented or relationship oriented and therefore a leader can be matched to the situations that they would be suitable for. The difference between the “extremes” of being favorable and moderately favorable is that when the leader is trying to cater too much to one person or another he/she is acting in a favorable manner. However, if he/she is working in a moderately situational favor is he/she is going to favor the situation to a point, and enable people to feel included and working for a common goal, but at the same time it is keeping things at a reasonable level.

By definition, an After Action Review is a disciplined procedure whereby leaders invest time to help people review their events and activities on a regular basis and so they can continually learn from them. Every event no matter how many times it has been run, can be improved but only if they receive feedback. This is often done by exit surveys. Think about asking people if they enjoyed your event and what their favorite and least favorite parts were.

An organization that evolves because of an adaptive learning cycle is one that considers communication to be of utmost importance. Technology can be used to accelerate the adaptive learning cycle because with cell phones, PDA’s, the internet/e-mail, webcams and all other sources of communication it allows for people to receive feedback no matter where in the world they are and from someone that also may be across the globe. Communication is crucial in an organization and by adapting to the technologies that are available to promote it you will continue to grow and excell in your work.

A culture gap is the difference between desired and actual values and behaviors. Some techniques leaders might use to influence and change cultural values is to lead by example, pay close attention to others and initiate change based on legitimate concerns that will eventually serve the interests of the company. The other thing they can do is strongly express the values of the company so people are aware about where they stand within the organization and know that they are appreciated and their work is taken seriously.

Both a manager and leader work with people, it is hard to say that one is more concerned with people than the other. Many times leadership is considered the same as management even though they are different processes. Leadership creates the vision, the motivation and the drive to encourage followers to jump on board and begin designing initiatives that will create change. Management implements these initiatives, maintains the stability and forward motion of the group and improves work ethics and promotes efficiency.

A “consideration” style of leadership deals with the extent to which a leader is sensitive to subordinates, respects their ideas and feelings, and establishes mutual trust. An “initiating structure” style is the extent to which a leader is task oriented and directs subordinate’s work activities toward goal achievement. I personally feel that a good leader would be receptive to both of these types of styles. It is important that leaders develop a mutual, but professional trust. People often respond very well to goals, and are motivated to meet them. However, having a thoughtfulness for employees when you know they are having a bad day or are going through a tough time and being considerate by shifting some of that person’s responsibility to someone else for a little while is also often appreciated as long as that is not abused.

Culture is important to organizations for two main reasons. The first is it integrates members so that they know how to relate to one and the second is it helps the organization adapt to the external environment. Because culture is very important to organizations it is even more important to develop strong cultures that encourage teamwork, collaboration, and mutual trust. If a strong culture promotes teamwork, collaboration, and mutual trust this could be positive for a firm because it allows for people to be comfortable in sharing their ideas and asking for help that would allow people to share their strengths in an area where others might not be so skillful. This could be negative for the firm, because it is difficult to integrate a new person into what some would consider a “clique”. It could also be negative if people are a little too comfortable in telling others “constructive” criticisms, and eventually make people uncomfortable sharing their ideas or asking for help.

It is intensely important for leaders to have a basic understanding of the equity theory. Equity theory is based on the idea that people are motivated to seek social equity in the rewards they receive for their performance. If people believe that they are being slighted or are not on the same pay scale as someone with the same amount of experience putting in the same amount of work etc, they will respond by decreased motivation and effort. If they believe they are on the same scale it will show in keeping up with their work and possibly doing more work in order to move on to the next step. Providing bonuses, raises or any other perceived inequity to people based on work performance really must have warranted reasons for doing so which are outlined before anyone talks about a change in pay. There must be specific guidelines to different payment tracks and methods that are equal to all employees.

Management and leadership I feel are often coupled together. People assume that a leader will help in the management responsibility because often the leader is directing, encouraging and motivating a following of people, and those people need to be managed. The definition of management and leadership however are different. Management is the attainment of organizational goals in an effective and efficient manner through the planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling organizational resources. This is not to say that leaders cannot be managers and vise versa but leadership is often responsible for the inspiration and long term outcome which creates that culture for accountability for which the managers will be working towards.

Diversity within an organization leads to better problem solving and creativity, because it breaks the mold. Diversity within an organization means that the best people for the job are hired regardless of their race, ethnicity, socio-economics, family statues, language, religion and more. Internally, diversity is allowing for the needs of individual customers to be more comfortable in the respect that they are seeing people “like” themselves. Diversity within the organization also allows for how diverse people live and what they want and need. The organization will also benefit outside of the internal environment because is allows for people to feel valued for what they bring to the organization which allows for higher morale amongst the workers. Allowing for diversity also opens up the possibility of people with different backgrounds that could have a better or different understanding of a situation and allows them to show off their strengths.

Empowerment is power-sharing; delegation of power or authority to subordinates in the organization. Empowerment and learning organizations go together very well. Empowerment is about sharing power and authority down the hierarchy. Power sharing allows for collaboration. By spreading and sharing knowledge we are opening the lines of communication. This in turn is encouraging and giving employees a voice and feeling of value added to the company. Knowledge is power, sharing the power throughout the organization is allowing people to learn and add to the conversation in ways that can be beneficial to the organization.

It is very common to hear about being or how to be an effective leader. What about being an effective follower? To be a good follower, certain characteristics such as being a critical and independent thinker who actively participates in the organization is important. This contributes to building a community because effective followers also respond and act towards everyone in the organization regardless of their position in the organization the same way. They do no avoid conflict, they initiate change and efficiency to serve in the best interest of the organization. This contributes to building community because effective followers are the reason an organization can function well. They provide the appropriate dependability and cooperation to the overall organization.

The relationship between needs, rewards and motivation is one of interdependence. A person’s need arises out of the desire to fulfill a void. Whether it is a desire to fulfill the need of money, relationships, recognition or achievement there is void that requires a need. Motivation is what drives the action to perform the necessary steps to accomplish the need, and a reward is the result of accomplishing the need. The rewards can be either intrinsic in the feeling of accomplishment of performing the process that led to fulfilling the need, extrinsic rewards those given by a supervisor such as promotion or raise, and lastly system wide rewards are one that because of your work benefit the entire organization.

How is your organization designed? Is it more focused on efficiency and performance or learning? Or is it a combination of both? If it is not, should it be? The differences between organizations designed for efficient performance and one that is focused on learning is that in a learning organization everyone is involved and active in identifying and solving problems. In an organization when efficiency and performance is the most important sometimes quality gets left out. In a learning environment people are constantly able to build on not only what they are learning but what others around them are learning because it opens up doors for communication across levels within the organization.

Interactive leadership is a leadership style in which people develop personal relationships with followers, share power and information, empower employees and strive to enhance other’s feelings of self-worth. It is one that’s foundation is from relationships rather than power/authority. Although more commonly associated with women, this approach is becoming increasingly important now because of the flatter hierarchy of teams within organizations. Because of this, male leaders are becoming more interactive leaders as well.