8 Daily Habits that Will Make You Stronger

These small changes in your daily routine will make a major difference in your life by helping you grow stronger and more capable in the long-run:

1.  Make yourself somewhat uncomfortable.

You may feel comfortable bobbing around in the little lake that you’re used to, but if you don’t stretch your comfort zone and venture out into the adjoining waterways, you’ll never discover the beauty and immensity of the ocean – you will never even know it exists.  Holding on to what’s comfortable may be the very reason you often feel like something is missing in your life.

Remember, just because you venture out into the world doesn’t mean you can’t return home whenever you want to.  It’s okay to come back to where you started, but it’s not okay to never leave.

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9 Ways to Be a Great Team Member

I recently shared a tweet about ways to be a great team member and was surprised to see that it was my most retweeted tweet ever. It occurred to me that deep down inside we all know we can't do it alone. We know that Super Bowls are not won by individuals. They are won by a collection of individuals who make a great team. It's the same with work and life. We are better together when we are surrounded by great team members. In this spirit I want to share 9 ways to be a great team member.

1. Set the Example - Instead of worrying about the lack of performance, productivity and commitment of others you simply decide to set the example and show your team members what hard work, passion and commitment looks like. Focus on being your best every day. When you do this you’ll raise the standards and performance of everyone around you.

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9 Subtle Traits Of The Most Talented Leaders

Good bosses look good on paper. Great bosses look great in person; their actions show their value.

Yet some bosses go even farther. They're remarkable—not because of what you see them do but what you don't see them do.

Where remarkable bosses are concerned, what you see is far from all you get:

1. They forgive... and they forget.

When an employee makes a mistake—especially a major mistake—it's easy to forever view that employee through the perspective of that mistake.

I know. I've done it.

But one mistake, or one weakness, is just one part of the whole person.

Great bosses are able to step back, set aside a mistake, and think about the whole employee.

Remarkable bosses are also able to forget that mistake, because they know that viewing any employee through the lens of one incident may forever impact how they treat that employee.

And they know the employee will be able to tell.

To forgive may be divine, but to forget can be even more divine.

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Now That I'am the Boss, Do I Have to Turn Evil

5 tips from an HR expert on how to keep from turning into the boss you hated.

Dear Evil HR Lady,

As an employee, I noticed that bosses tend to be highly irritable, unforgiving, and quite volatile at times. I’ve had my fair share of being blown up at for missing a deadline by 5 minutes. But now that I'm running my own company and have my own employees, I understand how someone missing a deadline can start to affect the productivity, effectiveness, and even reputation of the entire company. 

However, I have yet to berate someone in public or blast them in an email for making me look bad. Is that what I have to look forward to: turning into an evil, hate-mail sending grouch? How can I avoid this and still get the work done on time?

--Not a Grouch

Dear Not--

I hope you don't turn into an evil, hate-mail sending grouch. That's my job and, quite frankly, I don't cherish competition. There are simple (note, I did not say easy) ways to avoid the urge to send these types of emails. Here are 5 tips.

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3 Types of Poison Employees

Here are three types of employees that drag your company down, and how you can stop their bad behaviour.

Wouldn't it be great if every employee were an angel to work with? As managers and CEOs, it would make our jobs a heck of a lot easier, right?

Unfortunately, we've all had our own version of poison employees in our companies at one time or another. We try our best to weed out the suspicious ones during the hiring process, but how much do you really know about someone after a couple of interviews? And besides, bad behavior can take months, even years, to rear its ugly head.

The challenge is identifying poison employees and eradicating their behavior. Hopefully you can do this without eradicating them.

I've identified three types of employees that could be bringing your company down, but I'm sure there are others. Please add your own categories in the comments at the end!

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10 Horrible Excuses for Being A Lousy Boss

Do you have excuses--or more likely "reasons"--for not being a better boss?

See if you recognize any of these:

"I'm under incredible pressure."

Of course you are. Join the leadership club. Every boss is stuck in between, with employees the "rock" and customers, vendors, investors, and even you the "hard place."

If demands seem overwhelming and pull you too far away from your team, get your employees more involved in your projects and responsibilities.

They'll be glad to help, especially if they gain skills and exposure in the process.

"I don't get paid enough to deal with this."

You're right. Great leaders are chronically under-compensated and under-appreciated, and that will probably never change.

But great employers see the satisfaction they gain from praising, developing, mentoring, and helping employees reach their goals as a part of their total compensation package.

If you don't see it that way, rethink whether you want to run a business--otherwise you'll always be unsatisfied.

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6 Reasons Why You Hire the Wrong People

Hiring the right people is critical for any business, and that's especially true for a small company with relatively few employees.

Bringing in the wrong person not only not only wastes time and money, it also creates a ripple of negativity that impacts every other employee--and therefore your business.

Here are six reasons why you wind up with the wrong candidate:

1. You ignore the total package.

Every employee has to follow company rules and guidelines, whether formal or unwritten. Still, some people can't... or just won't.

The skilled engineer with an incredible track record of designing new products while berating support and admin staffs won't immediately turn over a new interpersonal leaf just because you hired him. The programmer who only works Selene hours as if she'll melt in sunlight won't magically transform into a standard-issue 9-to-5er.

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Leadership Lessons from Lance Armstrong

Executive coaching sometimes covers the bases on helping leaders be the best at what they do. Sometimes, being the best means eating crow when something is your fault. An executive coach will help reunify the office or business so life can go on post-mistake.

While there are crisis intervention public relations folks who deal with the public during an emergency (i.e. a CEO was caught stealing) that’s not what we mean.  This type of executive coaching is designed for executives to be a better leader on a day to day basis.

There is no better person, perhaps, to prove our point on a very large scale than Lance Armstrong. Based on his recent interview with Oprah, we got so see just how far not coming clean after a huge mistake will get us – he wasn’t winning all those medals thanks to his team uniform designs.

To get started, here’s the best holistic (i.e. on a realistic day-to-day basis) approach to almost any mistake:

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Unplug Your Ears And Listen

There's a wonderful scene in The Odyssey when Odysseus prepares himself to steer his ship and his men past the treacherous Sirens, creatures who sing a seductive song that can lead a person astray. It's a great moment in literature — and an extremely useful image for managers intent on ferreting out the feedback they need for career advancement. To prepare for his challenge, Odysseus orders his crew members to put wax in their ears, but to be able to hear the Sirens' message, he leaves his own ears unplugged. But he asks his men to strap him to the ship's mast to prevent him from recklessly heeding the Sirens' call.

Managers, like Odysseus, need to hear what people have to say — and be able to filter the messages. Those who solicit career feedback are likely to hear many, often conflicting messages and need to be astute in sorting out the most critical input to avoid careening off course. To succeed, as Odysseus did, keep three things in mind.

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Bad Leaders Can Change Their Spots

We have many ways to describe the common belief that a person's behavior is relatively fixed: "A leopard can't change his spots." "You can't teach an old dog new tricks." You could probably add a few more old saws yourself. This view, we've found, seems especially prevalent in relation to senior leaders with noticeable weakness, like an uncontrollable temper or a marked tendency to be rude or unreasonably demanding.

John H. Sununu, former governor or New Hampshire and later White House chief of staff to George H. W. Bush, had a reputation for being extremely unpleasant to work with. This finally prompted him to ask an aide, "Why do people take such an instant dislike to me?" After a brief hesitation, the aide replied, "Oh, I'm not sure sir, but I guess it just saves them a lot of time."

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Three Temptations That Destroy Good Leaders

We are subject to a number of temptations, every one of us almost. While there could be a long list of temptations, some of them are so deadly, it can destroy us completely, professionally and personally. I am sure that we can get a few names in our minds instantly on the subject of temptations.

This is a guest post by J. Warner Wallace. Wallace examines these three motives in more detail in his new book, Cold Case Christianity: A Homicide Detective Investigates the Claims of the Gospels.

I’m a cold-case homicide detective. In the many years that I’ve been doing this job, I’ve come to recognize that every murder is driven by one of three sinister motives. It turns out that these same three motives lie behind very crime of the heart, every bad decision, and even every fatal mistake made by a leader. If you can be honest about what motivates you, there’s a good chance you can avoid the destruction that results from allowing yourself to succumb to one of these malicious motives. When I first launched a church as a bi-vocational leader, I carefully constructed my leadership template to guard myself as best I could:

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