The employee engagement survey has long been a staple of culture-savvy businesses—and for good reason! Engagement is key to employee productivity, morale, and retention—in short, good for the bottom line. And when it comes to taking the pulse on employee engagement, regularly checking in with employees to see how they’re doing, an engagement survey is really a no-brainer.

As a leadership speaker, I visit a lot of companies that do annual or semi-regular employee engagement surveys. I know that business leaders and HR executives see the value in these surveys—but sometimes; they don’t know exactly what they should be asking. They worry that their surveys aren’t providing them the kind of insights they need.

The Roots of Employee Engagement

It’s all too easy to ask the wrong survey questions when you don’t truly understand what motivates employees. So that’s a good starting point: To nail your employee engagement survey, you have to understand where engagement really comes from. Study after study confirms that engagement is locked into three basic concepts:

• Employees who understand their role and their fit within the broader organization;
• Employees who feel like they learn in the workplace, and develop their professional skillsets; and
• Employees who feel empowered to address challenges and changes in the workplace.

Asking the Right Questions

Once you understand these three drivers of employee engagement, you can begin to formulate some survey questions that really get to the heart of the matter. Here are a few examples of effective employee engagement survey questions:

• Do you understand the company’s mission and strategic goals?
• Do you know what you should do to help the company meet its mission and goals?
• Do you see the connection between your work and the company’s broader mission and goals?
• Does your team inspire you to do your very best work?
• Do you feel like you have access to the information and tools you need to make correct decisions in the workplace?
• When an unexpected problem arises, do you know who you can ask for help?

These and similar questions will help you to gauge employee engagement on the most meaningful levels.

There’s an old quote, commonly attributed to Aristotle: “You are what you repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

I will be so bold as to say that the same is true of productivity.

Being an efficient and high-producing person—the kind of person who starts each day with a lengthy to-do list and knocks several items off of it by lunch time, making every precious second and minute count—is all about cultivating the right kind of lifestyle; maintaining the right habits over time.

This begs the question: What are some of the habits of high productivity?

As a leadership speaker, I’ve talked to a lot of executives and learned how they make productivity a habit. Let me tell you some of the lessons I’ve learned from them:

Use your Sundays. I don’t mean you always need to work on the weekends, and in fact I think it’s necessary to take weekends to recharge your batteries and invest in activities that are replenishing. With that said, taking a few minutes on Sunday evening to map out your goals and priorities for the next week can enable you to hit the ground running on Monday.

Protect your time. Use Google Calendar or a scheduling app of your choice to block off time for all of your valuable activities—not just work stuff, but also exercise, family time, and time for yourself. Schedule all of these important, affirming pursuits.

Practice gratitude. Spend some time each day—ideally first thing in the morning—contemplating some of the things you’re most grateful for. Speak aloud one affirmation, one thing you’re glad to have in your life. Frame your whole day around gratitude and positivity.

Establish a morning routine. There’s something about a strong routine that helps you ground your entire day. Your routine might include a big breakfast, a workout, a quiet moment sipping tea, some time spent writing, a nature walk, meditation—whatever you need to do to start your day on the right foot, do it. Turn it into a habit!

Avoid multi-tasking. More and more productivity experts are coming around to this point: You’re better off focusing all of your attention on one task, really doing it well, than dividing it among several activities at the same time.

Follow these steps to start forming good habits—habits that will help you be a high producer in the long run!

I know that none of us want to believe we are in any way prejudiced—but let’s be honest: As human beings, we all have our biases, our opinions, our perceptions. As much as we might resist, these things can all cloud our judgment and impact our decision-making. That includes the decisions we make about hiring, firing, and recruitment.

As a leadership speaker, I talk to a lot of business owners and HR managers, and I’ve become familiar with some of the most common hiring and recruitment biases. Before you defend yourself as being totally impartial, I invite you to give yourself a check-up… consult this quick list of common recruiting biases:

Unfair extrapolations and assumptions. This is sometimes called the “halo/horn” bias—in other words, you just get a vibe that the applicant is either a really good or bad person, based on criteria that may be shaky at best. For example, you might subconsciously assume that the applicant who is well-dressed and physically attractive is a good worker; that the one with the annoying nail-biting habit isn’t; or that the applicant with strong sales experience would also make a good sales manager, even though there’s really nothing to back this up.

Biases based on recent hiring trends. This can come in many forms. One of the most common: “The last three people we hired were great, so let’s just hire some more!” Or: “The last person I hired with a degree from this school was horrible, so let’s ignore people with a similar background.”

Biases relative to your current employees. If you go into a hiring process to replace your sales director, Marion, and begin with the attitude that nobody could ever replace Marion, you’re going to turn up your nose at applicants who might actually be great. Or, vice versa, if you say well anyone would do better than the last guy, you may not be as critical as you ought to be!

Confirmation bias. This is a well-known form of human bias—the idea that we like things that prove us right! Here’s how it often plays out in hiring: “Sheryl’s resume says she has done marketing work in the past… I’ll bet she’ll be great at marketing for our brand!” And just like that, a perception is set, without much evidence to back it up.

So what’s my point? For starters, it’s important to take a minute to reflect on your own biases—because you’ve probably got some; we all do! Also make sure you have multiple people involved with recruitment, if possible, and that you’re there to cover for each other’s blind spots.

Think a high IQ is a guarantee of business success? Think again! Today’s leaders know that brains alone aren’t enough to build a team or establish it for success. Emotional engagement is just as important. There’s where the concept of emotional intelligence—or EQ—comes into play.

Maybe you’re familiar with EQ. Basically, it refers to your ability to perceive and identify emotions in the workplace and in your relationships with others. It means being attuned to the emotions of the people around you, but also to your own emotions—and making your decisions accordingly.

The Importance of EQ

Emotional intelligence is a good predictor of your success in fostering relationships and forging strong teams. It’s a concept worth learning more about, and an aptitude that’s worth developing. Let me offer some reasons why:

EQ can help you cultivate employee engagement and retention. Today’s employees don’t merely want good salaries and benefits. They want a sense of belonging. They want a sense of social contact. If you can respond to the emotional cues of your employees and provide them with that sense that they are valued members of a true team, that can help you in both recruitment and retention.

Leaders with high EQ better understand how their employees derive satisfaction. Different people define failure and success in different ways, and have different factors that motivate their workplace performance. Having EQ will help you identify these specific drivers for each employee, and to build a workplace dynamic that provides everyone with the needed motivators.

EQ can assist in team building, too. How do you get your people to collaborate? How do you structure a team that allows everyone to play to their unique strengths? EQ helps you to answer these questions and to build a team that works cohesively.

Finally, EQ can help identify good fits for management style. How should you “handle” one employee compared to another, and which manager would make the best mentor for a given team member? These are the kinds of preferential questions that high EQ can help you to answer.

As a leadership speaker, I meet countless executives and managers who are looking for that secret sauce—that competitive edge to take their teambuilding prowess to the next level. I’m telling you here: EQ is a big part of it.

As a leadership coach and speaker, I interact with teams of all kinds—including many virtual teams. Telecommuting and remote collaboration technology have changed the way we work, and the benefits are striking. Companies can reduce overhead and provide their employees with more flexibility; employees, in turn, often love the freedom they have to get their work done in a home office environment.

Remote teams make many things easier, but some things a bit harder. Maintaining a unified company culture is one example. And providing work-life balance is another. After all, when your employees work from home, that means their leisure and their office space are ever-intermingled. How can you, as a manager or leader, help them maintain some sense of separation between the two?

Tips for Balancing Work and Life for Remote Employees

Let me offer a few quick, practical suggestions:

Set a schedule and stick to it. You can offer your team members some flexibility while still insisting that they get their work done within a reasonable set of parameters. The freedom to nap all afternoon and work into the wee hours of the morning may appeal to some employees, but really all it does is throw that sense of balance out of whack. Make it clear that your employees are to maintain more-or-less regular business hours. You can still be flexible with people who need to duck out for a doctor’s appointment, and at the same time keep your office working on basically the same timeline.

Take a break from e-mail. Here’s a good way to set the tone and lead by example: Don’t e-mail any of your employees after hours or on the weekend. Take a break from around-the-clock e-mail, and show your employees that you value their free time at night and on Saturday and Sunday.

Get together. From time to time—even if only once or twice a year—get everyone together for some face time. And don’t always make it a meeting, either: Social gatherings, parties, and team-building activities are wonderful ways to reorient your team members to a life of balance.

With these short tips, you can ensure that the folks on your team who work remotely aren’t letting their work kill their home life—or vice versa.

Have you ever wished you could be young again?

As we get older, and realize that our bodies and minds are maybe a tad less resilient than they used to be, it can be tempting to pine for our youth. And that’s not only true of individuals. It’s true of businesses, too.

Think about it: There’s something exciting about working in a startup environment; something liberating about the nimbleness that a brand new business can offer. There are perks to working at an established entity, too, of course—yet it can still be tempting to wish for those youthful startup days again.

Alas: We can’t turn back the hands of time. With that said, there are some ways for even a well-established company to reclaim key aspects of startup culture—tempering them with the very real benefits of establishment and experience.

Here are just a few suggestions for bottling some of that startup magic:

Get rid of your org chart. Well, maybe you don’t have to throw it out completely—but do try to flatten the hierarchy some. Remove needless obstacles, barriers, or buffers. Create a business structure in which ideas flow freely, and in which even a lower-ranked employee can easily offer feedback to top leaders.

Be missional. Have a written statement of mission and values—and make sure all of your employees know it. Remind them regularly of what the overarching goal of the company is, and of how their role plays into the bigger whole. Make them feel like they are an integral part of something bigger.

Foster collaboration. Rather than assign a project to one person—or to a department—break up big jobs into smaller milestones, and assign each one to a cross-functional team of three or four employees. Create an environment in which everyone in the company feels comfortable in collaboration with everyone else.

Solicit feedback. Have an open door to employees who have feedback to offer. Use regular employee surveys—and customer surveys, too! Make it clear that you crave opinions other than your own—and that you truly listen to what people have to say.

As a leadership speaker, I know exactly how much big businesses envy the mobility of smaller ones—but you don’t have to settle for envy. You can actually gain some of those startup virtues back, by following these tips.

Sometimes I feel like we’ve got the concept of curiosity all wrong. You know the old saying: Curiosity killed the cat. There’s a very real sense in which our culture is wary of those who are open-minded, eager to learn new things or seek out new concepts. But I think that’s all wrong. As a leadership speaker, I encounter a number of businesses where curiosity is hardwired into the culture—and that only ever yields good things.

What makes curiosity so beneficial? For one thing, curious employees are engaged employees. Being open to new ideas and experiences leads to career enrichment, personal satisfaction, and a relentless hunger to do and learn more; when you’re curious, you can’t be complacent! Plus, those who are curious are always expanding their skillsets, often in ways that can make the entire team stronger, more dynamic.

I encourage business owners and managers to cultivate cultures of curiosity—but how? Let me offer some quick suggestions.

Encourage training. Bring in-house training sessions to your team, or else send them to conferences and seminars. Make ongoing education a core concern for your company. And don’t think all the training has to be immediately relevant to what your company is doing; anything that encourages employees to stretch themselves or think in a new way can be beneficial, even if you can’t immediately see how.

Foster collaboration. Make sure your employees are constantly working together in different partnerships and configurations; really encourage cross-discipline and cross-department teamwork. Allow your employees to be exposed to all the different talents and gifts represented on your team.

Give ownership. Be forthright in sharing the broader company vision with your team members—and solicit their feedback. Allow them to feel like they have a say in where the business is headed. Encourage them to think bigger than just their immediate tasks or daily responsibilities.

Curiosity is worth striving for—and possible to attain. Consider making it one of the central values of your business!

Leaders, I have an important question for you: Do you actively court feedback? Are you constantly seeking insight into how you’re doing your job, and suggestions for how you could do it even better?

To put it even more pointedly: If one of your team members approached you with a constructive performance review, how would you take it?

Would you get defensive? Would you get angry? Or would you welcome it for what it was: An invaluable opportunity to become sharper, stronger, and more effective as a leader?

See, we all like to receive praise and affirmation, but none of us particularly like being told we have room for improvement. That’s especially true when the constructive criticism comes from someone who is “under” us. But that feedback shouldn’t be viewed as a personal affront. We shouldn’t be insulted by it. Actually, we should soak it up. We should scramble for any chance we get to become even better at what we do.

We all have our blind spots—parts of our behavior that we may not see so clearly. Feedback helps us identify those areas, to see ourselves as others see us. That can be painful, but it can also be a kind of roadmap, pointing us down avenues for improvement.

A smart leader welcomes any and all feedback. Not only that, but he or she works to create a company culture in which feedback flows freely, and everyone craves chances for improvement. The question is, how can you do this?

Let me offer just a few quick suggestions:

Lead by example. Be careful to provide your team members with actual feedback—specific areas in which they are doing well or could do better. Make everything you say to them constructive and results-oriented, never personal or vague.

Have an open door policy. Make it clear to your team members that you’re always around and welcome any input they may have.

Respond appropriately. Remember, if you’re going to tell people you care about their input, you can’t get defensive when they tell you things you don’t want to hear. Listen and acknowledge whatever feedback comes your way.

Have a formalized feedback process. Make sure you have regular performance reviews; don’t just provide employees with feedback, but also give them a chance to offer you some feedback.

Take it to the customers. Look outside your team for potential feedback or suggestions. Send out customer surveys. Let your clients know you care about their experience and listen to what they have to say.

Building a feedback culture may take some time, and may leave you feeling a little bit bruised along the way—but it’s ultimately worth it as you seek to make your leadership as effective as possible.

Leaders, are you paying attention to the younger employees on your team—members of the so-called millennial generation, in particular?

I occasionally see comments that are dismissive of these younger workers—alleging that they are too tech-obsessed, they are always glued to their phone, or what have you—but in my experience none of the common complaints about millennials actually hold true. These folks always seem pretty sharp and pretty substantive, as far as I can tell—and that’s a good thing: As of last year, they represent the single largest generational demographic in the workforce.

They are not going anywhere, either, so it’s important to try to understand what drives them. What drives members of this generation may be different from what drives older employees. Millennials aren’t just out for a paycheck. What they’re after is a richer array of benefits: A flexible work environment. Opportunities to learn and to develop themselves. Companies that have a distinct vision, and invite employees to be a part of it.

In other words, what millennials want is culture.

There are a variety of explanations for this. First, millennials came of age during the Great Recession, and as such they know how tenuous employment can be. Chances for professional growth and development matter nearly as much as a steady paycheck, then, because even if the paycheck goes away, the skills mastered can be carried over into a new position.

Meanwhile, the consumer environment in which millennials have grown up places a clear premium on ideas over tangible goods. Think about how the vision and ethos of Airbnb, Uber, and even tech companies like Google have united people, provided a sense of belonging and social engagement.

There are a few takeaways from all this. First and foremost, if you want to recruit top talents from this critical demographic, you’ve got to offer more than the standard salary-and-benefits package. You’ve got to offer a culture to which they feel like they belong. You’ve got to invest in them.

And even if you don’t hire any young folks any time soon, you can take a page out of their playbook. Remember that there is more to your company than what you see with your own two eyes. Some of the things that mark a company’s culture are esoteric, even unexplainable—yet so important to what makes that company unique. Employees know it, consumers know it—and hopefully, you know it too!

Leaders, here’s a question for you: When was the last time you checked in on one of your employees?

It’s not a trick question. I’m asking because, in an increasingly dispersed work environment—with more and more teams including remote employees—it’s more critical than ever for you to be intentional in connecting with your team members.

The concept of the huddle has a surprisingly rich history. It emerged from a practice called Management by Wandering Around—something that may sound aimless or even silly, but in reality is anything but. The best-known proponent of this management style was none other than Steve Jobs, who would often make rounds throughout the Apple offices to answer customer calls, involve himself in customer service e-mails, and just generally keep his finger on the pulse of what was going on.

This may have been random, but it was not purposeless; Jobs used this approach to stay involved with the nitty gritty, everyday stuff his team was doing—not just taking a broad view, but actually rolling up his sleeves and immersing himself in the specifics of what his team was up to. This gave him incomparable leadership perspective, and it’s not surprising that many other leaders have adopted the same philosophy.

But how do you practice this kind of “wandering around” management style when your employees aren’t necessarily in the same room or even the same building? That’s where the concept of the weekly huddle emerged. The purpose is much the same, but the specifics are different: Rather than being random, you have to be really structured, making an effort to connect with each team member at least once a week, ideally at the same time each week.

And of course, you won’t always do this in person. Most of the time, you’ll do it via Skype, e-mail, an employee survey, or the good ol’ cell phone!

As you huddle with employees, make sure you have a sense of structure in place. It’s fine to ask So how are things going?, but that shouldn’t be your only question. Don’t keep it so open-ended. Ask for specific feedback, keep your employee up to date on the company mission and goals, be candid about any current or expected obstacles, and offer your feedback on the employee. None of this has to be in-depth—again, this is a weekly huddle, not an annual performance review—but it’s always good to provide some acknowledgment, and just to immerse yourself in what your team members are doing.

It’s a practice that I recommend starting today!

As a leadership expert and keynote speaker, I spend a lot of time talking about mission. In the end, that’s the only way to really define leadership, or to measure your results. You’ve got to have some sense of purpose—some vision you share with your team—in order to lead effectively.

It’s not enough to simply have a mission, though. That mission must saturate everything you do. All aspects of your company must ultimately reflect that central vision—that greater sense of mission.

That includes your marketing.

Ultimately, your marketing should convey what your company stands for. It should leave no doubt in the consumer’s mind what value you can provide them, or how you can ultimately help them.

Let me offer some guidelines to show you what I mean:

Be consistent. Is your mission to provide easily-accessible tech support to lay people? To create products that are environmentally friendly and energy efficient? To make life easier for busy managers, or perhaps for stay-at-home moms? Whatever your mission is, each piece of marketing content you develop should reflect it. Every time you create marketing collateral, ask yourself how it aligns with your mission—and if it doesn’t, don’t use it. It’s that simple. Make sure you are always sending a clear message about your brand and its mission.

Create mission-centered topics. Is your mission to provide quick and affordable plumbing services to local homeowners? Then write blog posts and create YouTube videos that exhibit some basic plumbing skills or DIY repairs. Stay on-brand and on-message, and show thought leadership in the process. Likewise, if your company focuses on environmental stewardship, pen some blog posts or social media content that draws attention to this realm.

Match your tone to your mission. Even the word choices you make should reflect your mission. The marketing content for a B2B company should be more formal and professional; a company catering to stay-at-home parents, meanwhile, can probably afford to be a little more personal, approachable, and irreverent.

When you get something right, promote it. There’s nothing wrong with a little self-promotion from time to time. If your goal is to innovate, send out a press release for each new product you create. If your mission is eco-friendliness, promote your green initiatives. Use press to reinforce that sense of mission.

Remember: Mission should be what all parts of your company align with!

There’s much to be said for working remotely. I often do it myself, actually: Rather than dressing up, packing my briefcase, and making a commute to the office, I’ll simply sign into Skype and settle in for a day of working at my home office.

It’s nice, but not without its challenges: How do you separate your work and home life? And how do you stay productive outside the walls of a traditional office?

These are questions that more and more employees and leaders are asking, as digital communication and collaboration technologies make it more and more feasible to work from a home office.

If you’re trying to put in more hours at the home office, but need a little guidance in staying on top of your to-do list, let me offer some quick tips.

Staying Productive While Working from Home

Have the right equipment. If you’re going to be working from home, it’s important to invest in a computer that’s just as robust and as fast as the one you have at the office. Don’t let a slow, laggy machine hamper your productivity.

Develop some ways to stay active. Working from home can make you feel a little stir-crazy sometimes, so make a special effort to get up and get moving. A treadmill desk is nice, but a trip to the gym or a stroll around the neighborhood can also work fine.

Keep your work and home separate. You need a clearly-defined office space, a place where you only do work; and, you need to resist the temptation to bring your laptop into the bedroom or to answer work e-mails during what’s supposed to be family time. Boundaries are key!

Keep regular work hours. Make sure your family members and friends know that, just because you’re working from home, you still have work to do, and are not free to socialize or to run errands during that part of the day.

Have an open door/closed door rule. One way to keep distractions at bay is to let people in your family know that, when the office door is closed, you’re not to be disturbed. Just as important: Leave the door open sometimes so your kids or your spouse can come say hey, leave you notes, or simply see what you’re doing in your work life.

Schedule blocks of time for e-mail and social media. When you work from home, these distractions can be pervasive—and the best way to deal with them is to simply put them in their place, blocking out a few minutes in the morning and/or the afternoon to address them.

Working from a home office doesn’t have to mean a sacrifice in productivity—but you’ve got to be intentional. You’ve got to safeguard your time and your space!

Leaders, let me invite you to step back and take an honest appraisal of your company culture. Do you find that there’s a lot of wasted time by your team members—even by yourself? Do you feel like you’re pulling teeth simply trying to get people to get some work done? Do you, personally, find your office environment to be a place where it’s easy to get distracted, hard to buckle down, and seemingly impossible to accomplish anything?

If you answered yes to any of those questions, then clearly you’ve got a problem with productivity. Don’t panic. It’s a fixable problem. The trick is to be intentional in building a culture where productivity is ingrained.

How to Build Productivity into your Culture

This isn’t something you’ll be able to do overnight, and frankly it’s a task I recommend you tackle alongside a coach or consultant. For today, though, I can offer you a few quick tips for building a productivity culture:

Share your vision. The secret to productivity isn’t you being a relentless taskmaster. It’s you creating a broader sense of purpose—providing a clear objective and showing your team members how they fit into it. Be clear and unambiguous about what your company’s mission is, and about how each employee’s role helps the team achieve that mission.

Be clear about different roles. Every team member should have a clear sense of responsibility, and of the scope of his or her duties. Impart to each team member the specific value that he or she brings to the whole.

Provide opportunities for growth and development. Over time, employees may grow a little tired or bored in their role, which is when productivity can slack off. Make sure you provide plenty of ways for employees to reach for the next thing—to improve their professional skillsets and take on greater challenges. Formal training programs can be especially valuable!

Provide regular feedback. To have a culture of productivity you also need a culture of feedback. Have formal channels for appraising your team members’ work, including a regular employee review cycle.

Facilitate collaboration. Team members will work harder when you allow them to work together. Make sure you assign big projects to groups, not individuals, and provide a space that lends itself to collaborative work.

Make productivity a part of your culture—and start by showing your team members how they fit into the big picture.

As a leadership speaker, part of my job entails conferring with business owners about the issues they are facing. From time to time I encounter a business owner whose business has stalled, somehow, and he or she can’t quite figure out why. The product seems fine, the consumer base is still there, the underlying financials are all in order—but in terms of business growth, they’ve just hit a wall.

Invariably, I come at them with this question: Are you sure the problem is not with your team?

You see, one of the most common reasons why a business slows down is the presence of toxic team members—employees who aren’t working toward the same goal as everyone else, and who may be stymying the efforts of your other employees, too. To get your business back on track, you need to identify these toxic team members and counsel them, if possible—though frankly, in most cases, the only real solution is to let them go.

But what do toxic team members look like? They come in many different guises. Let me show you just a handful of the most common ones:

People who aren’t committed to the same vision. These are the folks who cause the most trouble—the ones who either can’t see the big picture or simply don’t care; the people who put in a baseline effort to avoid getting sacked, but aren’t ultimately devoted to the mission of the team. These people can be sandbags for your organization!

People who get stuck in the hierarchy. Once you get promoted to a management position, the expectations for you become even greater. Unfortunately, many employees get caught up in their status and simply like to boss people around rather than rolling up their sleeves and working toward a common goal.

People who are burned out. You might think that team members who burn the midnight oil, forsaking sleep to work on a big project, are assets to your company. They can be, but not if they’re doing this chronically, coming into work every single day on minimum sleep, their creative juices sapped. Employees who don’t take care of themselves will start holding everyone back, eventually.

People who complain all the time. Allow complainers into your organization and you’ll see morale take a dive and productivity fall into a rut—every time. Believe me: You need to deal with complainers ASAP!

The list could go on—but my point is this: You need to find the people who are impeding your team’s functionality. And you need to deal with their toxicity one way or another.

Summer’s winding down, but there’s still plenty of time to take a vacation—and if you’re in a position of leadership, that’s something I can’t recommend highly enough.

Far too often, leaders fall into the easy trap of thinking they have to be there, hands-on, day in and day out… that the place will fall apart without them.

This is damaging for a couple of reasons. One, it shows that you don’t really trust the team you’ve built—and don’t think they won’t pick up on it. You’ve got to show them that you believe in their ability to get the job done, even without you there looking over their shoulders. And two, not taking a vacation means that you’re running yourself ragged, not taking the much-needed time off for mental restoration and refocus.

I urge you to take a vacation this year, even if it’s just for a week; if you don’t like the beach or the hot, hazy weather, then wait until fall and do it up right. When you do vacation, though, make sure it’s a season of true relaxation.

Let me tell you how:

Plan! Meet with key team members well in advance of your vacation and brief them on upcoming issues. Make sure all your daily duties are clearly designated to your team members before you go—that everyone knows what he or she needs to do and has plenty of time to ask you any questions they might have.

Assign decision-making abilities to just a few. Make it clear who has executive decision-making abilities while you’re gone, and don’t assign such powers to more than a small handful of people.

Set up an e-mail auto responder. Give it a single point of contact: I’m out of the office until [Date], but if you have an emergency before then please contact [Person on your team].

Reach out to key clients. Let them know you’re taking some time off, and ask what you can do to help them before you go.

Set the right expectations with your family. Tell them your vacation is all about spending time together—that you’re not going to be working on the trip, and that you really want to be present in the moment with them!

Taking a vacation is one of the best things you can do for your business, and for yourself. Invest in yourself by taking a step back—and really make it count.

Most business owners have seemingly endless to-do lists, and only so many hours in the day. Combining key tasks is ideal, but often elusive. Well, I’ve got some good news: There are ways for your business to combine the important functions of teambuilding and corporate responsibility, effectively killing two birds with one stone.

See, there are any number of ways to improve team dynamics—team training, bonding activities, and basic workplace collaboration. You can also do it by setting aside some time for your team members to work together on volunteerism, perhaps in service of a non-profit group your business supports.

Some general tips for doing so:

• Provide your team members with some actual time off to invest in non-profit stuff. Don’t make them do it during their precious evening and weekend time, at least not always. Even devoting four hours on a Friday afternoon to serving at a soup kitchen or putting together gift boxes for military families shows your company is committed.
• Delegate responsibilities within your non-profit initiatives. Don’t feel like you have to take the lead on everything. If you have one employee who is especially passionate about social responsibility, involve him or her in the decision-making process, and provide some opportunities for real service.
• Don’t underestimate the value of education. Maybe your company’s cause is breast cancer awareness. Get your team together some morning for an informative seminar, video, or Q&A with someone from a local cancer center. Build knowledge, as well as action.
• Give your team members some time and space to talk about the social initiatives that are meaningful to them, and to brainstorm some ways they could lead the company’s philanthropic outreach. Give them a sense of ownership.

Teambuilding and philanthropy are both important to fleshing out your company culture—and the way I see it, there’s no reason the two things can’t be done in unison.

Those of us who are in positions of leadership want to get our jobs done, and to make sure that they are done well. We can be a meticulous crew, checking and double-checking our work with a fine-toothed comb, never resting until everything is just so. That zeal for excellence can obviously be a positive trait, yet it can also be taken a bit too far. Perfectionism, when unchecked, can lead to control issues, a lack of delegation, indecision, and lost productivity. And I have encountered many business leaders who allow their own perfectionist tendencies to spiral out of control.

The question is, have yours? Has your perfectionist streak officially become a liability? There are a few ways to tell—including a handful of dead giveaways:

• You become defensive when you receive feedback. A good leader recognizes his or her own flaws and accepts meaningful criticism from others; if you find yourself bristling at the suggestion that you might do things differently, it could be a perfectionism issue.
• You’re needlessly critical of others. Offering constructive feedback is part of your job as a boss; nitpicking everyone for not doing things exactly how you would do them, or offering feedback that doesn’t have actionable value, is not.
• You’re a procrastinator. I see it all the time: Procrastination as a way to avoid tackling big tasks, because you know that your perfectionist tendencies will make those big tasks massively time-consuming and difficult.
• You’re always beating yourself up. Everyone makes mistakes, and the important thing is to learn from them—not kick yourself for every little misstep or lapse in judgment.
• You’re daunted by risk. Too afraid to rock the boat, or to think outside the box? Paralyzed by the thought of creative thinking? The reason may be your slant toward perfectionism.
• You’re terrified of being rejected. If your greatest fear is that people won’t like you or won’t appreciate what you do, that effectively prohibits you from ever really leading or taking initiative.

You can’t always achieve perfection—and if you exhibit any of these traits, you’re trying too hard!

Maintaining a positive sense of work-life balance doesn’t just help you in your personal life. It emboldens your professional life, too. Having that clear demarcation can optimize your performance in the office because it allows you to truly recharge your batteries while at home. What I’m getting at is simply this: Striving for work-life balance doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing anything professionally. On the contrary, it may be a tremendous boost to your workplace productivity, creativity, and vigor.

The question, of course, is how can it be done? As a leadership speaker, I meet a lot of entrepreneurs and executives who wonder about balancing their work and home lives. Here are five of the tips that I provide them:

Involve your family. Sometimes the best way to figure out that work-life balance is to just put your cards on the table and ask for insight and support. Be real with your spouse and your kids about your goals and aspirations, both at work and at home. Ask them to help you brainstorm some ideas to juggle those priorities, and to hold you accountable to those goals.

Set a good example for your team. It’s important not only that you seek balance, but that you create a culture where balance is cherished. Don’t talk all day about work-life balance and then send work-related e-mails well after midnight. Live up to your own ambitions for work-life balance.

Take breaks and vacations as needed. Listen to your body, as it will tell you when it’s being taxed too hard and sapped of its strength. Don’t be afraid to take a long lunch, a half-day, or even a week-long vacation to clear your head and regain your focus. Ultimately, that can only help your productivity.

Have work-free zones in your home. Having a home office is fine, but taking your laptop into the bedroom isn’t. Make sure you set some areas aside where you only focus on your family life, and leave work at the door.

Schedule family time. If you’re struggling to see your kids or spend time with your spouse, do what I do: Actually add it to your calendar. Make appointments for everything, even your time at the gym, and then guard those blocks of time zealously.

Achieving balance is never easy—but it’s a worthy pursuit. Both your team members and your family members will appreciate the effort!

As a speaker, I give different presentations to different groups—but one of the topics I’m most passionate about is transformational leadership. True to its name, I believe that transformational leadership has the power to transform your team, your company, and your own approach to leadership. I’ve seen it happen at a lot of companies, and I’ve even witnessed it in my own life and work.

Defining Transformational Leadership

But maybe this is your first time hearing about transformational leadership—and maybe you’re wondering what I’m even talking about. Let me give you the one-sentence, Rick Goodman definition: Transformational leaders are those who stimulate and inspire followers to both achieve extraordinary outcomes and, in the process, develop their own leadership capacity.

This may sound a little highfalutin, but let me tell you: Transformational leadership, with its emphasis on vision, employee empowerment, and challenging the traditional leadership paradigm, has become a well-liked model among today’s more progressive companies. And it’s not hard to see why: The benefits of transformational leadership are several.

• Higher levels of productivity.
• Increased employee satisfaction.
• Increased retention.
• Stronger relationships, based on trust.

Transformational vs. Transactional Leadership

Another good way to understand transformational leadership is to cast it in light of its opposite—transactional leadership, which has been the more common leadership paradigm for some time now.

Here’s how I would break things down:

• Transformational leaders look to satisfy the greater need of the individual.
• Transactional leaders try to make a lot of deals with those being led.
• Transactional leadership is based on rewards versus punishment.
• Transactional leadership is based on quid pro quo, or this for that!

Are You a Transformational Leader?

I’m speaking big-picture here, and I know it’s a lot to take in—but let me leave you with this question: Do you consider yourself to be a transformational leader? If you have a clear vision, with goals and expectations clearly outlined; if you are passionate and energized in the workplace; and if you are focused on helping everyone to succeed, then you just might fit the bill!

If you want to learn more about transformational leadership, I encourage you to reach out to me. I’d love to come speak about it at your company.

Everybody knows that you have to work hard if you want to be successful—but even hard work has its limits. You can push yourself too far—or take too few breaks—and end up with a bad case of burnout; then, all your hard work may actually wind up counterproductive.

I talk to a lot of business owners who are eager to do what they can to achieve some balance in their lives, and to prevent burnout as best they can. It seems to me that the first step toward preventing burnout is understanding what really causes it. So let’s take a quick look at some of the science behind burning out.

The Real Cause of Burnout

Psych Central just published a new report that’s illuminating. All of us have unconscious needs—physical, mental, and emotional ones—and we also have demands within our professional lives. According to the Psych Central article, burnout comes when there is a mismatch between the needs and the demands.

“For example, burnout may happen to an outgoing accountant who seeks to make new friendships but whose job offers little opportunity to do so, or perhaps to a manager who does not enjoy taking center-stage or being in a leadership role,” Psych Central says. “In both of these examples, there is a mismatch between the employees’ individual needs and the requirements on the job.”

Practical Implications of Burnout

So what does this really tell us about burnout? On one level, it’s pretty simple: You have certain needs in order to be truly motivated and energized, and you’re going to resist burnout so long as your daily responsibilities meet those needs.

Maybe a good place to start is with a self-inventory. Admittedly, this is where things get a little more complicated, but it’s still worthwhile to ask yourself the following questions:

• What motivates you? Think through the tasks or responsibilities that leave you feeling the most pumped up—the most energized.
• Which daily activities or responsibilities seem to drain you the most? These are likely going to be the things you dread the most.
• How emotionally satisfied does your job really leave you? Do you think a change of position is needed to have a truly satisfying work life?
• Think also of your employees. How well are their personality types and internal motivations paired with their responsibilities? If your team is generally low on motivation or on energy, it could be because you’ve given everyone ill-fitting roles.

According to the article, “interventions that prevent or repair such mismatches could increase well-being at work and reduce the risk of burnout.” So even if your needs and your daily demands are not well-matched, there’s still time for you to take action and be proactive against burnout!