Alexandra Levits Water Cooler Wisdom What is Your Definition of a Leader

Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom What is Your Definition of a Leader Wikipedia defines a leader as a person who can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task. The leader may or may not have any formal authority. S/he is somebody whom people follow, who guides or directs others. Your definition may well be different. What does leadership mean to you? In putting together an exciting research study on the future of Millennial leadership with Deloitte and Universum, I have come up against the challenge of defining a true leader several times. Does our target leader have to manage others? Does s/he have to have a certain level of education? Are traits more important, or are skills? For our purposes, we settled on defining a leader as someone who had been out of college at least three years, who currently works for an established organization, and who supervises direct reports. However, this got me thinking. There is so much talk about leadership today, and yet what leadership means to one person could mean nothing to another. Lost in the weeds. This is particularly dangerous when your organization wants to teach leadership as a value to upwardly mobile young professionals. Without a concrete and mutually-agreed upon definition, how will talent know what to work towards, and how will your people be objectively evaluated on their readiness and performance? It’s all fine and good to direct people to informative reading, but if those recommendations don’t match up to what’s sought-after in your organization, your people will be operating at cross purposes. For more on what leadership means to different people, read on at Intuits Fast Track blog.

The reason therapy doesnt work

The reason therapy doesnt work My brothers are always the first people to send an email to say I misinterpreted research that Im linking to. (Which I accept as a love note to let me know they read my posts.)  So last week when my brother sent me a link he thought Id like, he also sent me a summary: There are more men in STEM careers than women, which of course you already know. But the real reason we cant solve the gender gap in STEM careers is shocking. At the time they enter into college, there are actually many more women who are qualified for STEM careers than men. However the majority of qualified women choose to do non-STEM majors in college. While the majority of men who are qualified for STEM careers choose STEM majors. So, it turns out that the researchers have found that the gap between men and women in STEM careers exists because men who are not qualified for STEM careers simply do not go to college.   So, women and men are very similar at STEM, but men not in STEM cannot get into college.  Which means the reason we cant solve the gender gap in STEM careers is not anything people could have ever imagined. Whats striking about this research is weve asked the wrong question. We have been asking why arent women going into STEM, but the truth is women dont want to go into STEM. They go into fields they like. This is a very similar issue to the question of why arent there more women leading companies.  In both cases, we assume that men and women want the same thing, and some nefarious forces make women not as successful in male-dominated fields. In fact, women are in control of their lives and they are making choices they want. So the real question should be why do we celebrate choices men typically make and castigate choices typical of women? Anyway, most of the problems we wrestle with are problems we dont understand. And this is why I think therapy doesnt work. For example, for the last year I have been decorating my new apartment obsessively. Ive been through three sofas and six colors with Maria Killam because I cant bear to pick any paint color without her. She is so famous now that I dont even know if you can talk to her directly any more. But I have known her long enough to send texts like,  Please call me right away. Its an emergency. I only have one hour to pick a new paint color for my living room or I will literally die. My therapist tells me that OCD is not just doing things, its also thinking things. I tell my therapist I think I am OCD about decorating. Like I missed an appointment with said therapist because I couldnt stop looking for a chandelier that would look good against  Palladian Blue.   We get nowhere in therapy. And the next week Im onto a different topic because who cares if its OCD because Im still going to use grocery money to buy picture frames. And anyway we have to talk about why I keep forgetting my appointment time. Is there something that is scaring you about coming here? he asks. Why do I need a therapist to ask me the most obvious question in the whole world? I have been to enough therapy that I can ask that question myself. Thats the whole point the therapist asks you the same types of questions week after week until you internalize the therapists voice and ask the questions yourself. As a person who coaches with no training or certification or whatever, I can ask non-standard questions: Are you gay? Why are you not making more money? What is the point of living there? How much money does your spouse make? When do you think youll have time to take care of kids? I dont feel limited to getting the answers from the person Im coaching. I dont need to say, What is keeping you from getting a promotion? I can just go straight to I can tell your boss hates you. The result is that at the end of the one-hour session every person says some version of, I never imagined that this is what we would talk about, but I really appreciate it. People dont know what they need help with. I didnt realize this until I started coaching people regularly. And recently I realized its me, too. I go to therapy every week and have no idea how to prioritize my problems. After all, if I could see them, I could probably deal with them, too.   Lauren came to visit for three days. Shes my only friend who is a life coach. I used to have a lot of friends who are investors. And when we had lunch I was never sure if I was hanging out with them or pitching them for my next round of funding.  Thats how I feel spending time with Lauren I never know if we are being friends or if she is being my coach. But this time I knew: I told her Im having a really difficult time keeping to a schedule. I wrote our schedules down each of the boys and mine as well. We have every minute of every single day scheduled and still I mess it up. I told her things change too much. Or I have dyslexia for numbers. Or I worry too much. Or the boys dont watch the clock. Everything. Everything is wrong. I tell Lauren this while we walk to the place where my younger son practices piano. But we are late. Because I was on the phone with Melissa. I ask Lauren whats wrong. Each time were late its because you let your emotions build up until its unbearable. You were so upset with Melissa you had to stop everything to call her. Shes right. Its so clear when she says it but I couldnt see it. I can list a lot of problems I have, but I wouldnt have listed that theres no time to be me.   Part of me hates writing this because its so cliched that a working mother of two kids is not making time in the schedule for herself. I hate being so obvious. But what I really hate is not knowing what questions to ask. My life is the STEM gap and the CEO gap and all the other gaps between the questions we ask and the real trouble that we face. I want to make my learning cycle faster by asking better questions. But I think Ive hit a wall. And now I see why so many people are in therapy for years and yet theyre getting nothing done: Therapy only works when we know the questions to bring to the therapist. When we bring ancillary issues to the therapist then we spend all our therapy time on ancillary issues. The best coaching comes from someone who sidesteps the issues we present to them and goes after the issues that matter. So now I know why Im frustrated with therapy: each week we can only talk about the problems I can see. The help each of us needs is to talk about the things we dont see.

Is Your University Logo Being Sold For $8 Without Permission - Career Geek

Is Your University Logo Being Sold For $8 Without Permission - Career Geek It has come to our notice that a third party website is selling University logos at a premium price, for which it does not even hold the rights! For example, the University of Birmingham logo in vector format is available from here for $8.00. The site sells many other digital items, not just university logos. Pycomall.com describes itself as new media development firm Pycotech Pte Ltd specializing in providing solutions for merchants and the community of developers. Founded in 2006 as a web development company has grown to become one of the forefront developers utilizing Macromedia development products. Essentially, it sells digital content, well technically, it is a platform for users to sell content. Similar to Amazon, Ebay or Etsy, except it only sells digital content. I am sure universities dont sell their logos at this site. One reason for that is because the image provider is Victors. Now, unless there is a conspiracy by universities to raise funds under the name Victors, this is fraud! University logos are not usually sold. If you want to use a logo, search the university site and logo in the resources. A quick search for the keyword University on the mentioned website shows up 113 results! With lots of universities from the UK, US and Australia. See if your university logo is being sold on the site and we advise you to write to Pycomall.com and request that the image is taken down. If  Victors is reading this post, then dude/dudette, good idea, but unfortunately for you, we write about education and are one of the first blogs to track university news. Our resource showed your deed and we had to inform our audience. Was your university logo being sold or did you write to Pycomall.com and get the image removed? Share your view/feedback on this story in the comments section below. 0

Employer Branding The HP Way

Employer Branding The HP Way Good old HP, or should I say Hewlett-Packard, got split into two separate units, one focusing on hardware and the other on services. Which one has fared best in terms of talent attraction? Ovidiu Voina  is the  Global Employer Brand Digital Media Lead  at  HP, in this episode he shares how the company approaches talent attraction, what the ‘HP Way’ is, and how they have harnessed video for employer branding campaigns. Have a listen to the interview below, keep reading for a summary and be sure to subscribe to the  Employer Branding Podcast. Listen on  iTunes,  Stitcher Radio,  Google Play  or  SoundCloud. In this episode youll learn: What the difference is between HP, Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Enterprise Why the culture at HP is all about collaboration Why HP is faced with digital talent challenges How their employer brand helps tackle these challenges What HPs best source of hire is About HPs career vlog, the first of its kind! What the toughest challenges  Ovidiu has been faced with at HP Ovidius  top tips for employer brand managers around the world How HP measures employer brand. Connect with Ovidiu on  LinkedIn.

What I Learnt from the Worst People Managers

What I Learnt from the Worst People Managers We learn more from what we get wrong than what we get right. Research proves this theory. I believe we can extend this theory to the fact that we can learn a lot from those that have managed us badly. All those moments when we finished work and thought, ‘I could have managed that so much better’.In my career I have been fortunate to work for some truly inspirational people. I hope to be at least half as good as they are. I have also worked for people that were truly awful people managers. Those people that were promoted for their job competency, rather than their people management competency.Photo Credit- Pexels.comThe Peter Principlewas a concept of management theory formulated by Laurence J. peter in 1969. It states that the selection of a candidate for a position is based on the candidate’s performance in their current role, rather than on abilities relevant to the intended role.Treating My Time as their OwnevalIn my early career, as a supermarket buyer in the UK, I worked a lot of hours. My Dad had worked a lot of hours, and my brother did. It was what I knew. This meant that I worked from 8am to 7pm most days. This was my choice, though not a conscious one and I knew no better. Unfortunately my boss at the time worked a lot of hours too. There were three problems with this, that I now understand and didn’t back then.Having been a time management trainer, blogger and thought leader on the topic for 15 years, I know that the connection between results and hours is a tenuous one. A little like watching a faulty machine making golf balls. Every 8thgolf ball is the shape of a flying saucer. The answer? Run the machine longer until we catch-up every 8thmis-shapen golf ball.The second problem is that my boss, my line manager, he in charge of my development could not see beyond his own shortcomings and not only did he not discourage it, he offered no means of helping me to change those critical behaviours in my formative working years.The final problem was that being someone that worked long hours too, he realised that he could get work done after hours and began scheduling meetings with me at 7pm to 8.30pm. I knew no different and did as I was told. Over time 8am got extended to 9pm, as we worked closer together.Action:Treat people’s time as their own. As a people manager it is not yours to own.If You Have ‘Director’ in Your Job Title, DirectAll too often we see people doing the job of the person below. Either through a lack of trust, or because they’ve done their job, or because they don’t know how to do their own job, too many people focus downwards. This causes the problem of micro-management and encourages every layer to do the same to the layer below. No-one earning their salary because they are too busy doing what they believe others cannot.If you are a Director, direct. Whilst it is easier to do the job you have done, agree SMART targets with your team, have regular 121’s, and support them to achieve. This is fund amentally different to doing it for them.evalFor me, the most profound example of this was when I was told by my boss that he and two other Directors had met about one of the ranges in one of my buyer’s categories, and decided that the pack colour was wrong and that it should be a different colour.The point isn’t that they might have been right, or they might have been wrong. In fact, it was unprovable either way. The point is that 3 Directors, paid 6 figures each, met to discuss an insignificant detail. If the strategy for the business had been clear my gripe would have been much smaller. Unfortunately the 3 year strategy was missing, we, as a wider team, lacked real leadership, and yet here we were with Directors spending time on the details because they found it comfortable to do so. Meanwhile we the company direction was lacking.Action: ‘Fiddle with the tins’ when you know that your store is making money for the long term.

5 things you need to know while considering a career in primary school teaching - Margaret Buj - Interview Coach

5 things you need to know while considering a career in primary school teaching If you love being around children and want to work in the education sector, becoming a primary school teacher could be right up your street. Seeing little ones totter into your classroom, book bags in tow, can be extremely rewarding, but here are five essential things you need to know while considering this career path. You must be fully qualified In order to land the job of your dreams, you must be fully qualified and this can involve a lot of hard work and study. Unless your first degree is a Bachelor of Education (BEd) or a BA/BSc with Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), you must gain QTS (or in Scotland a general teaching qualification QT), in order to teach in mainstream, local authority schools. 2.  There are several ways to gain QTS/TQ Thankfully, there are many ways to gain QTS/TQ. You could, for instance, apply to a university to do a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) â€" or in Scotland a Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (PGDE). If you’re looking for a more hands-on approach, School Direct courses are available, which will help you train as a teacher on the job. 3. Teach First programme Up for a challenge? Then perhaps a Teach First route into the profession could be something to consider. Essentially, this is a two-year programme including a PGCE where top candidates are placed in challenging schools. When you finish your studies, you’re not obliged to stay at the school and can either look for a job elsewhere or change careers completely. 4. Teachers work long hours While there’s a long-standing joke amongst other professions that teachers work part-time and have long holidays, the reality is very different. Sure, the children might only be at school from 9am-3.30pm in most cases, but planning, classroom preparation, parent’s evenings, marking and other duties mean teachers very rarely get to rest. Hours can be long, so before you dedicate your life to education, make sure you’re prepared to give it your all. 5.  You won’t just be a teacher These days, teachers are expected to do far more than just teach. In fact, while children are in their care, they must monitor the behaviour, attitude and progress of every pupil, liaising with educational psychologists and social workers if necessary. Teachers also need to be able to deal with students from different social and economic backgrounds and handle family issues and parental concerns in a professional manner. Becoming a teacher can be extremely rewarding, but it’s important to know what you’re getting into.

High School Resume Examples and Writing Tips

High School Resume Examples and Writing TipsHigh school resume examples and writing tips are important for any new high school graduate to know. A high school diploma is a huge step in the right direction towards a bright future.Of course, the moment you get your high school diploma you're looking forward to getting into college and taking your first college class. In this regard, you should always make a good impression on the college admissions officer during the application process. Whether you're applying to a technical school or an undergraduate degree program, you should prepare yourself for the dreaded letter of intent application with high school resume examples and writing tips.Getting your high school diploma can certainly give you a competitive edge when it comes to applying to colleges and universities, so you want to make sure that you're taking full advantage of every opportunity you have. When you apply to college and you've got a diploma, you'll find that some college s are more inclined to accept you than others. By way of high school resume examples and writing tips, you can learn how to effectively convey to prospective colleges and universities why you think you're the best candidate for admission.First of all, getting your high school diploma doesn't just get you into college - it gets you ready for the rest of your life. You've seen the world through the eyes of someone who's finished high school. You understand what it takes to be accepted at college. And you know all about the college admission process.It's no secret that getting your high school diploma is something of a big deal. Whether you're choosing to go to college as a graduate of a school that didn't offer one, or choosing to go to college even though you didn't finish high school, getting your diploma is a big deal. High school diploma examples and writing tips will help you get the most out of your chance to attend college. Even if you do not get accepted to your preferred coll ege or university, you will still have learned a lot about yourself and the world around you.In the past, getting your high school diploma was almost like pulling teeth. Instead of dealing with college admission officers, who were either outright rude or didn't understand what a diploma was, it was much easier to give up. Because of this, you missed out on a great opportunity to build upon your education. With a high school diploma you will be able to create your own path in life. When you graduate from college with a diploma, you'll be well on your way to establishing your own career.As soon as you get your high school diploma, you'll be able to count on being accepted to almost any college that offers online degrees. Once you have your diploma, you can work your way into a college program. After all, a diploma can be the starting point for many different careers. Once you've got your college degree, you can begin to move your way up through the ranks of your chosen career field.Wh en you get your high school diploma, the world will recognize your efforts. High school diploma examples and writing tips will help you be successful in your efforts to achieve your dreams.