5. Surf’s Up: Five Leadership Lessons I Learned from Surfing

I’ve wanted to surf my whole life, which is ironic considering I was raised in upstate New York, could hardly swim and was terrified of putting my face in water. Yet I had dreams of riding a wave and enjoying every minute of it.

I’m a runner and a biker; swimming is not in my vocabulary. So I knew that if I were to make this dream a reality, I’d have to take it one step at a time.

Once I knew how to swim, and could successfully swim in the ocean, it was time to book surfing lessons. I couldn’t sleep the night before my first lesson because I was so excited. What I didn’t know was that my surfing lessons would actually teach me leadership lessons too.

Here’s what I learned about leadership while learning to surf.

4. How to Fire Someone Without Sacrificing Their Dignity

Hiring the right person is a work of art. So is firing someone.

There are many articles written about hiring and retaining the ideal candidate for your organization. Hiring the right people is so important that some companies are even moving into big data to supplement the process.

What you don’t find much information about is the process of firing. Do you have a humane firing process in place? When employees are let go, do they leave with dignity?

Here’s how to fire someone without sacrificing their dignity.

3. Here’s Why You Can’t Attract, Develop and Retain Female Talent

Second-generation gender biases are ‘work cultures and practices that appear neutral and natural on their face,’ yet they reflect masculine values and life situations of men who have been dominant in the development of traditional work settings, according to the researchers at the Center for Genders is Organizations (CGO). So while gender bias is not as “in your face” as it was in the past, it’s still here and even trickier to destroy.

Does your organization exhibit second-generation bias? Read more to find out three factors that signal second-generation bias on the organizational level, and learn six ways you can correct the second-generation bias, whether you spot it or not.

2. Why Emotional Intelligence Affects the Bottom Line

Having a high EQ isn’t for promoting warm and fuzzy feelings in the workplace. It is directly related to the bottom line. Pepsi found that executives with high EQs generated 10% more productivity, had 87% less turnover, brought $3.75M more value to the company, and increased ROI by 1000%. L’Oreal found that salespeople with a high EQ sold $2.5M more than others. And when Sheraton decided to incorporate an EQ initiative, their market share grew by 24%.

How can you tell if your EQ is low or high? How can you improve it? Read more here to find out.

1. The Future of Work: Creating Purpose-Driven Organizations

It’s time to change the way we work. I don’t mean a revolutionary time management system, or a productivity breakthrough. I’m talking about integrating purpose into the workplace.

While “finding your purpose” may sound like a nebulous buzzword, it’s actually a viable way to revolutionize organizations and the workforce that powers them.

Read more to clarify what “finding purpose at work” means and learn four ways to create a purpose driven organization.

Interested in the future of work? Check out The Future of Work: 13 Tips To Prepare Your Organization, and A National Survey of the Freelance Workforce: America, Meet Your Future Workforce. You can also watch my speech from the Stretch Conference in Budapest: Future Focused Leaders Create Cultures of Purpose.