It doesn't matter whether you are in the business of delivering products or services — either way, your success depends heavily on communication. When things go wrong, you can almost always trace the problem to a breakdown in communication. And when things go right, it's usually great communicators who helped create the successful results. It's a necessary skill in every aspect of business, social and family life.
What does "executive comportment" really mean, and how do you qualify for it? The following are the "five Cs" that are key ingredients defining it, and they can be useful when looking for co-founders and other team leaders.
Do you feel passionate about your job? If you answered yes, then you're abnormal, at least if you go by the numbers. Bloomberg Businessweek's Ira Sager reports on new research from Deloitte Consulting's Center for the Edge indicating that "truly passionate U.S. employees" make up "a scant 11 percent of the workforce." Deloitte defines a passionate worker as one who hopes to have a lasting and increasing impact on a particular industry or function, actively seeks out challenges to rapidly improve performance and looks for deep interactions with others and builds strong, trust-based relationships to gain new insight.
At this point in your fire service career, you've probably attended leadership conferences or classes, read leadership books, watched leadership videos and heard every leadership term known to humanity! There's Lincoln of Leadership, the Painful Side of Leadership, 360-Degree Leadership, 220 Degrees of Leadership, Servant Leadership, Bootstrap Leadership and Effective Leadership. The list seems to go on and on.
"The pursuit of successful change has been consistently present at every rank and in every organization during my career," writes Frank L. Frievalt, an assistant fire chief in California. "Although the specific topics regarding change are seemingly unlimited, successful changes do share some common strategies. Yet, even with the right strategy, two necessary ingredients for success are required: discretionary time and genuine conversation."
5 things super successful people do before 8 a.m.
Rise and shine! Morning time just became your new best friend. Love it or hate it, utilizing the morning hours before work may be the key to a successful, and healthy, lifestyle. That's right, early rising is a common trait found in many CEOs, government officials and other influential people. Margaret Thatcher was up every day at 5 a.m., Frank Lloyd Wright at 4 a.m. and Robert Iger, the CEO of Disney, wakes at 4:30 a.m., just to name a few.
The real cost of onboarding is $240,000 per employee, according to a blog post by a well-known recruiter named Jorgen Sundberg, That's some serious sticker shock. He notes that the total cost of recruiting the wrong employee includes hiring, total compensation, eventual severance pay and other factors like legal fees and totals more like $840,000 when you factor in all of these costs. In other words, how you hire couldn't be more important.