Your friend is devastated. She’s just lost her job and looks like she’s about to burst into tears in the middle of the busy coffee shop. You don’t know what to do. You want to help her, but what do you say in this horrible situation? How do you make her feel better right now, and how can you help her get through the tough time to come?

If this year’s resolutions reflect previous years’ resolutions, 80% of people will fail. Why such little success? Unfortunately, the seeds of failure are built into the resolutions themselves. Though crafted with good intentions, these resolutions are all framed as outcomes. For example, losing weight isn’t something you do; it’s an outcome of other things you do (e.g., change your diet, exercise).

Empathy has always been a critical skill for leaders, but it is taking on a new level of meaning and priority. Far from a soft approach it can drive significant business results.

You always knew demonstrating empathy is positive for people, but new research demonstrates its importance for everything from innovation to retention.

As a leader, do you feel like you have to know it all? Or that expressing uncertainty or revising your viewpoints would undermine your effectiveness as a leader?

Unfortunately, this way of thinking can backfire. Nurse-leader and author Karlene Kerfoot, writing about health care, suggested that when leaders become entrenched in their routine thought processes, they are more likely to disregard others’ helpful ideas and innovative models of leadership.

According to a CareerBuilder survey of over 3,600 workers, most people don’t want to be managers. Of the subset who are interested in rising to management, they make up slightly over one-third of organizations (34%). This slim percentage does not provide enough innate appetite from individual contributors to fill company’s need for aspiring managers.

January 20, 2022 Planning for the future of work has always been important. However, the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the next big organizational shift—turning a hypothetical future into an immediate reality. In this rapid pivot, organizations gathered key learnings with long-term potential to improve operating models, employee experience, productivity, and more.

After all of the years that I’ve worked in leadership, there is one question that resurfaces again and again: Are leaders born or made?

While you can’t ignore that everyone is born with certain traits that will affect leadership abilities, this is not the end of the journey. Part of the challenge as leaders is to understand what those traits are and how to further develop them.

The reporter gig has its perks. We get a front-row seat to the most influential people on our beats, sometimes the most influential on the planet. We get paid to learn—and share the best lessons with you. Interviewing business leaders in 2021 has given us incredible access to America’s top bosses as they navigated a complex, volatile and remarkable year.

When it comes to leadership development, the business case for investing in the “best” given limited organizational resources appears straightforward: Individuals who have a demonstrated track record of success deserve to be recognized, right? They also seem like sure bets who will benefit the most from development opportunities because they have the requisite experience and capabilities to grow. But the individuals who receive the most development are often the ones who arguably need it the least.

So you want to be a leader, whether that means inspiring an entire organization or managing a small team. But do you know what it takes to succeed?

I’ve spent two decades working with researchers and workplace experts to identify the skills and traits that have gotten people ahead. Drawing from assessments of nearly 30,000 people at entry level, midlevel and C-suite, we compiled high-performance profiles that define what it takes to be great at each of these levels.

By now, it’s clear that The Great Resignation is much more than a short-lived fad. After more than 38 million people left their jobs last year, today’s retention surge shows no signs of slowing down. Gartner's research predicts that employers will need to brace for a year-over-year turnover rate that is 50% to 75% higher than what they’re accustomed to.

In business, longevity matters. Overnight success stories aside, starting and building a business that lasts takes time. Time to develop a great team of outstanding employees. Time to make lasting connections, forge lasting partnerships, and build long-term relationships with loyal customers.

Uncovering motivation in the workplace is something all organizations should strive for. If you truly understand what drives your employees, you can help them engage more fully in their work and make their work environment as positive and productive as it can be.

Do this using The 12 Driving Forces. This assessment measures why a person does what they do. It measures the motivation (and strength) behind behaviors, using 6 different motivators.

‘Just in time’ manufacturing has become next to impossible in a period of supply chain disruption and material shortages. In the same way, organisations can no longer take a ‘just in time’ approach to talent acquisition during a period of talent scarcity. It’s time to get creative about how you recruit, retain and reskill your people.

In my experience as a consultant who has transformed 16 companies, and as an entrepreneur who has built or bought almost as many of my own enterprises, I’ve learned that managers and leaders often miss one crucial point about emotional intelligence (“EQ”): EQ requires intolerance for the intolerable just as much as it requires empathy.

Virtual work—with its benefits and drawbacks—is not new. But its pace accelerated at a dizzying rate in 2020. Now, people don’t want to return to the office. That doesn’t mean they can’t be committed and productive through astute virtual leadership. Ensuring such leadership should become a key priority for organizations.

The business world has arguably seen more disruption in the last nine months than in the last nine years, bringing new and urgent demand for change. Initiatives are being launched by the dozen, adoption can’t happen fast enough, and the stakes are higher than ever. In the midst of a Covid-induced recession, and with some industries on the brink of extinction, change isn’t about fine-tuning — it’s existential.

Microsoft’s chief executive officer, Satya Nadella, often speaks of how his career — and his company — have been shaped by empathy. Nadella views empathy as a quality to be consciously cultivated, practiced and applied — “not just as something nice to have but (it) is core to (the) innovation agenda in the company,” according to a Quartz India article. In addition, he believes empathy can be a differentiator when working with clients.

In October 2021, Korn Ferry released a global report showcasing the pressure on talent acquisition in the year ahead. More than half of the professionals surveyed believe employee turnover will continue to grow in 2022 – and almost a third would quit their current job even if they didn’t have another one lined up.

A Cognitive Scientist at Seattle University, Therese Huston’s passion is straightforward, “I try to help smart people be smarter at work. It’s that simple.”

Huston is also a public speaker, consultant, and author, having just published her latest book Let’s Talk: Make Effective Feedback Your Superpower in early 2021.