As I spot “Help Wanted” signs on the windows of many establishments today, I often consider the qualities young job seekers should learn. Too often, young adults don’t take entry-level positions because they feel those jobs are beneath them. I recently reflected on the early experiences I had in my career that taught me lessons I may not have learned otherwise. I submit them here.

Late last year, Facebook announced plans to hire 10,000 people in Europe to build out its “metaverse,” an augmented-reality space. Amazon, meanwhile, announced plans to hire more than 55,000 people for corporate and technology jobs in the United States even as Google is moving to hire thousands of technologists.

Leadership development has always been and will continue to be a pressing need in the workplace. Trouble is, “people development” is often among the first budget items to take a hit in tough times. You may have noticed: We’re living in tough times.

There’s no perfect formula when it comes to success, but there are ways leaders can encourage growth through small steps every day. Growth is an ongoing process that requires continuous effort and dedication, but little steps soon add up to big results.

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with meetings. We dread attending because there’s usually a thousand other things we’d rather do with the time. Part of the problem with meetings is that we don’t think enough about them, says Donna McGeorge, author of The 25 Minute Meeting: Half the Time, Double the Impact.

Your brain is a prediction machine, meaning that when things don't go as planned, there can be significant consequences. You’ll have experienced this many times. That tight feeling in your chest when receiving adverse news. That sinking feeling when a decision you made starts to look like a costly mistake. That anxiety when your schedule changes at the last minute. We're all human.

One of the most important characteristics of strong leaders is their confidence in themselves. If you find a leader who is not confident in their ability as a leader, you will find a team or organization that is less than fully engaged. We are positively influenced by confident people. Developing Your Confidence Day-by-Day

Are you tackling a new and difficult problem at work? Recently promoted and trying to both understand your new role and bring a fresh perspective? Or are you new to the workforce and seeking ways to meaningfully contribute alongside your more experienced colleagues? If so, critical thinking — the ability to analyze and effectively break down an issue in order to make a decision or find a solution — will be core to your success.

A critical aspect of effective leaders today is the ability to lead change. Indeed, many would argue that the most distinguishing difference between people we identify as good managers and those we deem to be great leaders is that leaders are adept at bringing about change.

Most organizations are struggling with potential disruptors, including digital transformation, increasing global competition, and changing customer expectations.

Paul Bloom is a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto and a professor emeritus at Yale. The author of six books, his writing has appeared in Nature, Science, The Guardian, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic.

Below, Paul shares five key insights from his new book, The Sweet Spot: The Pleasures of Suffering and the Search for Meaning.

CEOs often prefer to focus on the positive. After all, it’s a good place to start when it comes to learning lessons and finding takeaways from both successes and miscues. But CEOs also benefit from learning how to recognize when they’re exhibiting bad leadership qualities.

Public speaking isn’t an easy thing for every leader, but you have to conquer the fear factor if you’re planning to represent a business. By focusing on your passion for going into business, sharing authentically, and continuing to practice being in front of a room full of people every chance you get, you’ll be a pro at it in time.

A study by MIT Sloan Management Review shows that toxic corporate culture is the top predictor of employee turnover. In fact, it’s 10 times more important than compensation. Salary didn’t even make the top five predictors.

In February 2022, Netflix released an eye-opening documentary titled “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing”. The documentary is centered around the fall of Boeing after the two back-to-back crashes of their newest 737 Max model — causing the deaths of 346 people on board only minutes after takeoff.

Have you ever been caught in the trap of making tradeoffs between doing well and doing good? A short-term focus on revenue at the expense of all else can be not only stressful and exhausting, but in the long-run hurt profit and growth. There is a better way.

Though they might look like the same people, those who left the office at the start of the pandemic have dramatically different priorities, expectations, and needs than those who are returning today, according to Microsoft’s second annual Work Trend Index.

The old proverb says, “If you give a man a fish, he will eat for a day. If you teach a man to fish, he will eat for a lifetime.”

But too often, managers fall into a habit of simply giving their employees a fish — or in this case, all the answers. “Do as I say, and you will succeed” is, unfortunately, not an uncommon approach to management.

Matt Dailey, a software engineer for a data management company, was managing a team with an engineer who wasn’t performing well. This was clear to Dailey—and to the employee. Yet, as I describe in my new book Mastering Community, Dailey said he “wasn’t bridging the gap of how to make the situation better.” His team missed their deadline.

DISC is an incredibly popular assessment tool for a reason; it’s comprehensive, actionable, and easy to understand. But what happens when your DISC profile reveals that your current position isn’t a great fit?

One of the ways that you can determine this through a DISC profile is by looking at both your Natural and Adapted scores.

I am about to show you that most managers have some mistaken beliefs about the best kind of feedback to give their direct reports. In a survey we shared on Harvard Business Review of 7,631 managers, my colleague Joe Folkman and I asked whether they believed that giving negative feedback was stressful or difficult, and 44% agreed. When talking with managers about giving feedback, we often hear comments such as, “I did not sleep the night before,” “I just wanted to get it over quickly,” “My hands were sweating, and I was nervous,”