Innovative Approaches To Strategic Leadership In Business

Key Takeaways:

• Understand how strategic leadership can transform businesses.
• Discover diverse approaches and techniques for effective leadership.
• Explore the significance of adaptability in a rapidly changing business environment.

Introduction to Strategic Leadership

Strategic leadership guides organizations toward their long-term ambitions and overarching visions. It encompasses planning and executing strategies that align with the company’s goals. This leadership style involves anticipating future challenges and opportunities and taking decisive actions that lead the organization to sustainable success. Leaders like David Stone Stifel exemplify strategic foresight and innovation, constantly reshaping and redefining business norms. These leaders help their organizations stay ahead in a competitive landscape by fostering environments that encourage continuous improvement and adaptability.

The Role of Innovation in Leadership

Innovation is undeniably at the heart of effective strategic leadership. It is the fuel that moves companies forward, allowing them to break free from traditional limits and pursue new opportunities. Innovative leaders employ creative problem-solving techniques and foster environments where new ideas can flourish without bias or hesitation. They understand that to maintain a competitive advantage, they must constantly push the boundaries of what is possible. According to the Harvard Business Review, companies with innovation at the heart of their leadership strategy are better equipped for rapid and effective adaptation to industry changes.

Building a Culture of Adaptability

Creating a culture of adaptability is more than just a strategic requirement; it is necessary in today’s swiftly changing business environment. This culture enables organizations to pivot and adjust to unforeseen challenges, ensuring longevity and relevance. Leaders who prioritize adaptability focus on cultivating a mindset of agility among their teams. It involves fostering resilience, encouraging ongoing learning, and promoting a proactive approach to change. Companies that embrace adaptability can fluidly respond to external pressures and internal dynamics, a hallmark of robust strategic leadership.

Effective Communication Strategies

The core of every strategic leadership strategy is good communication. Leaders must properly communicate their vision and plans to motivate and align their staff. Communication involves more than just disseminating information; it requires active listening, engaging dialogue, and constructive feedback. Implementing regular communication channels such as team meetings, roundtable discussions, and digital communication platforms ensures everyone is on the same page. Leaders prioritize transparency and openness to create trust, essential for cohesive and cooperative team dynamics.

Empowering Employees Through Inclusive Practices

Inclusion is not about diversity in this case, but about getting all employees positively involved in the direction of the business. An employee that has no input and no agency is a worker that is not engaged in the beneficial outcome of the company.

Inclusivity is a powerful tool in a leader’s arsenal, driving employee satisfaction and company-wide innovation. By fostering an inclusive environment, leaders enable diverse perspectives to surface, generating richer ideas and solutions. Inclusive leadership practices harness the varied insights of a diverse workforce, leading to enhanced problem-solving and creativity. As Forbes emphasizes, inclusivity does not happen by accident; rather, it is a deliberate strategy that requires commitment and action from leadership.

Navigating Challenges In Leadership

Strategic leaders frequently face many challenges, from economic downturns to rapidly shifting market demands. Navigating these challenges requires a blend of foresight, flexibility, and resilience. Leaders must be equipped to evaluate risks accurately, make judicious decisions under pressure, and lead their teams through turbulent times. By building strong frameworks and adopting an agile mindset, they can turn potential setbacks into opportunities for growth and advancement.

Measuring Success in Strategic Leadership

The success of strategic leadership is not solely measured by immediate financial gains but by the sustainable impact on the organization. A comprehensive evaluation considers not only the achievement of business goals but also the well-being of employees and the strength of client and partner relationships. Metrics such as market penetration, customer satisfaction, and innovation rates offer insights into strategic leadership effectiveness. Ultimately, successful leaders cultivate a legacy of enduring value and ethical governance.

Conclusion: The Future of Leadership

As the business world continues to evolve, the demands on leaders expand and intensify. Future leaders must embrace the dual imperatives of innovation and adaptability while cultivating inclusive and communicative organizational cultures. By focusing on these core areas, strategic leaders can guide their organizations through uncertainty, ensuring relevance and success in the years to come.

5 Secrets Behind Successful Business Leadership

The secret behind successful business leadership lies in the skills that every great leader has learned over the years. These 5 top traits can build a strong team, lead under pressure, and inspire thriving organizations.

1. Vision

When you look for successful leaders, you will often see one thing in common: They have a vision. This vision must be compelling, clear, and attractive. Great leaders such as the Dominican Republic’s former Minister of Finance, Donald Guerrero, have inspired people to follow them and knew that people needed something to believe in, a winning aspiration. They understand how to energize their teams and make it happen.

For most people, vision comes from within. It is the purpose of their lives that drives their behavior. A leader with a compelling vision communicates leadership by doing what they say. It gives the person the confidence to make tough decisions, take massive action, and achieve lofty goals. Look for examples of great leaders in your industry or even in your own life, and find out if this is true for you.

2. Storytelling

Successful leaders are often known for being good communicators. And influential leaders are always good storytellers. If you look at the history of the business world, stories have always been used to unite people and to teach and train. They have also been used to inspire people and to build a unified vision throughout the company. That's why storytelling is an essential skill for all types of leaders. 

As a leader, it is important to remember that storytelling helps you make an emotional connection with your followers. It will help them relate to your purpose and share their own stories with the world. And as you may already know, people read stories to make decisions. In addition, they use stories when looking at products or businesses, so you need to make sure that yours tells a compelling story to convince people to trust you.

3. Adaptability

Adaptability is a fundamental trait that can lead to increased trust, recognition, and responsibility. While some changes can't be avoided, the vast majority should be seen as opportunities. When faced with a challenge, adaptability prompts initiative. People with adaptable attitudes take the initiative to make first moves and take advantage of new opportunities. 

4. Responsiveness

A resilient leader is aware of the constantly changing nature of business and takes action to address challenges before they become crises. In addition to being responsive to situations, a good leader understands the context in which they operate and the people they lead. They seek to understand what is happening and acknowledge when they do not possess the requisite skills to make a difference. 

Responsive managers are highly influential. They listen to others and are perceived as helpful, reliable, and helpful. When dealing with people above them, a responsive manager is perceived as someone who will go the extra mile to help them succeed. They are also trusted and respected by their staff. As a result, the team will work harder to be responsive to their manager. By acting in this manner, responsive managers build relationships that benefit both staff and the company.

5. Kindness

Great business leaders are kind, transparent, and authentic. They celebrate success, recognize excellence, and treat people like real people. Their actions inspire others and model the kind workplace of the future. These traits can lead to better performance, excellent employee retention, and more robust company cultures when implemented in the workplace. Kindness leads to more positive outcomes for team members and stakeholders. Although thoughtful leaders know that heart takes time and can sometimes be difficult, they make better decisions because they are kind. It will pay off in the end. Whether you are a CEO, a manager, or a leader of any type, being kind is a powerful skill.

Leading a business into growth and prosperity is no small feat. Keep improving your leadership skills and effort for long term success.

Functions Of A Chief Executive Officer

A chief executive officer is the highest-ranking member of a corporation. They are responsible for determining the company's big-picture strategy and working with other senior executives to achieve this goal.

A CEO also manages the financial and operating structures of the company. They ensure the company has enough resources to meet goals and stay in business. They create a culture that encourages success. They also make sales and close deals to increase the company's financial assets. 

5 Key Functions Of CEOs

1. Strategic Planning

Strategic planning involves establishing goals, objectives, and priorities for your business. It helps to ensure that you spend your energy in the right places and that your staff works towards the correct objectives.

A CEO like Mark Hirschhorn is usually the one who formulates the strategy and vision for the company. They also make decisions and are responsible for implementing the changes proposed by the company.

Strategic planning takes a lot of time and is highly research-intensive. It requires analysis of industry, market, and competitor trends.

It then involves defining long-term and short-term goals, core values, departmental objectives, and budget and finance needs. It then incorporates these into a comprehensive business plan identifying how the company will achieve its goals.

2. Leadership

The ability of a company's management to define goals, deal with competitors, and solve problems swiftly and efficiently is referred to as leadership. It also refers to a company's management's tone regarding its corporate culture.

The functions of a chief executive officer include overseeing business and strategic decisions, motivating subordinate staff, building relationships with external companies and stakeholders, and reviewing financial reports. This job requires excellent leadership skills, an entrepreneurial mindset, and a strong knowledge of business processes.

The best leaders are committed to people and the organization's goals, have good people skills, are highly concerned with their employee's well-being, and can excite and inspire them to work toward corporate goals. They also have high emotional intelligence to collaborate effectively with others.

3. Financial Management

Financial management is the process of planning, directing, and controlling money to achieve business objectives and return maximum value to stakeholders. It involves identifying resources, devising a financial plan, and establishing procedures for collecting data and making financial decisions.

Financial managers work to raise the company's profits by reducing costs and increasing returns. They also work to minimize risks and reduce the cost of capital. They also advise on resource allocation, which involves determining how to use a company's assets to maximize revenue.

4. Human Resources

Human resources are an essential component of any organization. It includes everything from recruiting new employees to maintaining payroll records, ensuring all employee benefits are properly paid, and helping with labor relations.

A chief executive officer must have strong leadership and communication skills. They need to be able to communicate with employees and understand their needs, which will help them create an environment where everyone works together as a team.

They also need to keep up with industry trends and best practices. It will ensure that the HR administration operates efficiently and can meet its goals. It is also essential to be able to manage employee conflicts. These can lead to a loss in productivity and morale, so they need to be able to handle these issues quickly and effectively.

5. Communication

Communication is an essential function for a chief executive officer. It helps them execute corporate decisions, craft strategic plans and guidelines, update the board of directors on company performance, and serve as the organization's public face.

It also enables the CEO to articulate a clear purpose and mission, leading a company toward tremendous success. It can be done by communicating effectively with everyone involved in a company - from shareholders to employees and even customers or the media.

Communication for chief executive officers is a two-way process that can be done verbally or nonverbally. It is also affected by context, noise, and feedback.

How To Lift Employee Morale During A Crisis

The mental health and well-being of your employees should be a priority right now if it wasn’t already. The coronavirus panic has made things very difficult for a lot of them, and they need your support now more than ever. Morale issues were already a big problem for companies before the pandemic and they are a challenge that many businesses will have to concentrate more of their time and resources on. Here are a few tips for lifting your team’s morale during the coronavirus crisis. 

Show That You Care About Their Safety 

The first thing you have to do is make sure that you show them that their safety is a priority. You have to make sure that you have clear protocols in place and that everyone follows them. You don’t have to stick to CDC or your state’s guidelines either. If you want to enforce things like mandatory PPE or a sneeze guard even if they are not mandated by your local government, go ahead. This will show your commitment not only to your employees, but the public as well. 

If you don’t have sneeze guards already, we suggest you look for a sneeze guard company that will be able to build custom guards for you. They will be able to provide partitions for office spaces or to protect client-facing employees. 

Consider Going Hybrid Instead Of Fully Remote 

A lot of businesses have decided to go either fully remote for their operations, or for a hybrid workplace. Hybrid workplaces are the best for morale as they allow your employees to choose the best environment for them. Some may feel isolated working from home, and it can start eroding their motivation and morale. Allowing for hot-desking with proper social distancing also allows for better cooperation and teamwork. This working arrangement could also outlive the pandemic and allow you to give your employees the freedom to work from whichever setting they prefer. 

Stay In Touch 

If you decide to go remote, you have to make sure that you keep your team in the loop all the time. You also want to let them know of any milestones or accomplishments the business has made. You still want to make them feel like you’re working as a team. You want to congratulate your whole team, but also individual performers. You have to let them know how valuable they are to the team and how much you need them. On the other hand, you also want to speak with those who may be falling behind. While in some cases, it might be because of morale issues, you also have to be able to tell when it is a lack of effort. Some employees might not be the best suited to this format since they need constant reinforcement. These are the ones you will need to keep your eye on the most for your workers. 

Maximize Morale

There are plenty of things that you can do to keep your employees engaged during those difficult times. The first is to make sure that you let them know that you are there for them. When you show your employees you actually care, it can help to maximize morale as much as possible in the new normal.

3 Tips To Be A Successful Leader In Business

Every entrepreneur dreams of having a successful business. To be a successful entrepreneur there are many traits you need to have, such as confidence, business savvy, and most importantly leadership. Leadership is one of the defining traits of any successful business owner. 

Being a strong leader can help you build teams, attract top talent, and have a more productive and effective business. Becoming a successful leader in business is a must for any entrepreneur. 

But how can you improve your business leadership abilities? Here are 3 tips to be a successful leader as an entrepreneur. 

1. Set Up A Routine 

Routines are often praised as the hallmark of productivity and are strictly followed by famous entrepreneurs. Along with claims of increased efficiency, productivity, and more time freedom, routines can also help you be a better leader. 

Effective routines are a great way to provide structure, set expectations, and create easy workflows for your employees. Additionally, by implementing routines for your team, they will be easier to lead, as routines will lead to less supervision. Utilising something like this staff rostering software will help you to become a better manager of your workers and increase efficiency within your team, as it streamlines the process of managing shifts.

There are many ways you can implement routines in your workplace, on either a personal, department or even daily level. You can create routines in your business to help have more productive meetings, easier workflows, and promote teamwork. These easy routines help set expectations and can be implemented in nearly any business. 

Routines To Set For Employees 

● Create Daily Routines For Roles: A great way to help lead your team is through clear expectations. Help your business set up daily tasks and expectations for any roles and responsibilities your company has. Make sure all tasks have a deadline and are completed on time. 

● Only Schedule Meetings During Set Times: Make it easier for your employees to be prepared for meetings, and have set meeting lengths, structure, and formats. This can help your employees have more productive meetings and be properly prepared. 

● Schedule Weekly Reporting For Your Business: Create a routine and expectations for daily and even weekly recaps and reports. This will help your team share daily performance and task progress and keep you and your team in the loop. 

Decisive daily routines offer many benefits to entrepreneurs as well as your business. Routines can help you be more focused and productive with your time, and also ensure that the most important tasks are completed. Lead your business by implementing some strategic routines into your daily life. 

Daily Routine Tips For Leaders 

● Affirmations / Positive Focus: Start each day on the right foot with a positive focus, or affirmation. Take time out of each day to build a positive mindset and be in a better mood! 

● Prepare The Day Before: Don’t let your day catch you off guard by preparing for your next day ahead. Review any notes, and refresh your memory on what needs to be accomplished tomorrow 

● Optimize Your Schedule: Use time blocking to ensure that you spend your time where it is needed most. Plan your day to complete small tasks in the least amount of time, and make sure to schedule your day for optimized productivity. 

● Connect and Follow Up With Your Team: Make sure to catch up and connect with your team. A well-connected team will be easier to motivate and lead if they are aligned with your goals and mission! 

Implementing routines into your business is a great way to not only keep your team on track but help you be a better leader in your business. 

2. Motivate Your Team 

One of the most effective ways to be a better leader is through motivating. As a leader, it is your goal to ensure your team aligns and connects with the vision and mission of your business. You can easily motivate your team with a positive work environment and communication. 

While it may not be feasible to know everyone on a personal level, you should strive to have a great connection with your immediate team. Additionally, there are ways to cultivate a great work environment for your company that can motivate any employee. 

Tips To Motivate Your Team 

● Pay Your Team Well: Pay employees fair wages and offer incentives for jobs well done. Make sure your company offers competitive wages for task roles. Underpaid employees are extremely hard to motivate. 

● Communicate With Your Team Often: Many workers feel disconnected from their bosses and leaders. An easy way to motivate your employees is through constant communication. From clear expectations, exciting updates, and personal connections, talk with your team and stay in touch. 

● Create A Positive Work Environment: From positive focuses for meetings, positive feedback, or even small gestures to show your team you care about them. Create a workplace your team wants to be a part of and create a company culture. 

● Provide Opportunities and Development: Show your employees you care about them and offer development opportunities. Classes, seminars, book clubs, or even mentorship go a long way to motivate employees to perform better at their jobs and gain new skills. 

Motivating a team can seem like hard work. With members of a team having varying interests and goals, it can be hard to identify the best motivators for your team. Thankfully you can help motivate your team by creating a positive workplace environment, strong personal connections, and growth opportunities. 

3. Avoid Burnout 

Burnout can be a team killer that business leaders don't always consider. Remote and in-office teams can suffer devastating consequences from burnout. If you want to be a successful leader you need to help your team avoid burnout at all costs. 

Burnout is a state of emotional, physical, and mental exhaustion caused by excessive and prolonged stress. It occurs when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demands. Burnout can leave your team unmotivated, and stall productivity. That is why it is essential you help your team avoid burnout. 

Ways To Help Your Team Avoid Burnout 

● Check-In Often: Constant communication (not micro-management) can help you identify when your team members are beginning to feel overwhelmed. You can then help your team by assisting with tasks, deadlines, or other important work. 

● Create Flexible Work Schedules: Remote work can help your team avoid burnout with flexible work options. It may be beneficial to offer hybrid and remote work opportunities for those employees that could benefit from this flexibility. 

● Ensure Work / Life Balance: One of the best ways to ensure your team avoids burnout is by maintaining a good work-life balance. Minimize meetings or work being done on weekends or outside of normal working hours. Encourage your team to pursue or share interests outside of work, and take vacations whenever possible. 

Build a positive company culture where the stress of work does not drain your team. By helping your team avoid burnout you can easily lead them to the finish line! 

Successful Leadership Summary 

Great leaders can guide any team to success. Whether your team is remote or in-person, leadership is an essential skill for any business owner. Use these leadership tips to help motivate your team. 

● Set Up A Routine: Lead your team and manage daily expectations with a routine and time frames to help boost productivity and accountability. 

● Motivate Your Team: Lead your business team by tapping their motivation. Pay well, constant communication and learning opportunities are all great ways to motivate your team. 

● Avoid Burnout: A burnt-out team is near impossible to lead. Use flexible work environments, and ensure ways to make sure to maintain a healthy work-life balance. 

Catherine Way is the Marketing Manager at Prime Plus Mortgages: Mortgage Note Investing a hard money lender and note provider for real estate investors.

Lead The Way In Business Without Burning Out

Business professionals who are focused on their Leadership Development tend to ask: is my Leadership profile good? Which is the best profile for business leaders? Which is the most successful profile? In response to these questions, we would firstly like to make clear that there are no good or bad leader profiles. Everyone has their own Leadership Profile, a natural style, and this natural style makes people enjoy certain roles and tasks, they are motivated by them and therefore have great chances of succeeding when accomplishing them. There is also another list of tasks or activities that people won’t enjoy, they get bored with them, they are afraid of them, they make them uncomfortable or simply don’t generate any interest at all and, thus, they are demotivated. 

Leadership Profile

Based on this principle, it is understood that the key to success is not in the person’s Leadership Profile itself. The key to success lies not in the individuals’ profile or natural and own characteristics of their behavioral style; it rather lies in their flexibility and ability to adapt. It is the ability to adapt one’s profile, to adjust it according to the different persons with whom they interact and the situations they live. This characteristic or competence can be referred to as Ability to adapt which, itself, implies three essential and key aspects: 

Openness

The ability to be alert, attentive to perceive; to be sensitive and interpret situations or individuals and which is the more adequate style and profile to display. 

Self-Criticism Or Questioning 

To have the necessary strength to question one’s perspective, a way of interpreting and understanding situations and, thus, question one’s logical way of responding to situations or reacting to others’ attitudes. 

Flexibility

To be able to modify one’s response, adapt one’s profile and display natural tendencies according to what the situation or person requires. It is important to clarify that the Ability to adapt does not mean that people must stop being themselves, it is simply to be alert to one’s environment in order to make certain adjustments, changes that will allow them to adapt and adjust more adequately to situations and other people. We understand this as a social behavior, since it implies, to a large extent, to be more at the disposal of others or of the environment, letting one’s ego aside, in order to moderate some of one’s own natural characteristics and strengthen others, with the simple purpose of achieving a better and more effective interaction, better relationships and, thus, better results. 

Avoid Hustle Culture And Burnout Risk 

How To Start Fixing Hustle Culture 

Let’s talk hustle culture for a second. Hustle culture broadly defined is a culture and movement focused on succeed through working as much as possible. People in it celebrate their accomplishments as well as how much they work, foregoing things like meals and sleep as much as possible. Why is this a problem? Isn’t success what we’re all after, in one form or another? 

It is, but hustle culture comes with some inherent challenges. It tends to create a toxic environment where, if you’re not working insanely hard, you’re perceived as a failure - and you start to perceive yourself as a failure for not working hard enough, making you susceptible to work burnout. The bigger problem with hustle culture is that it’s an single-objective optimization problem. Hustle culture is all about focusing on a single objective, usually financial success. Single-objective optimization problems are very straightforward to solve, which is one of the appeals of hustle culture. You focus relentlessly on a single objective; there’s no need to debate trade-offs because every resource you have is singularly focused. It also rewards the part of our brains that look for success, those dopamine hits when we advance a level in a video game or fit a piece into a jigsaw puzzle. 

Single-objective optimization is also very effective for short periods of time - focusing down a problem until you’ve solved it. So why, if it’s got all these positives, is hustle culture in need of repair? Simple. Our lives are not single-objective optimization problems. Humans are complex and messy. We have lots of needs. Think of the things people typically associate with happiness: Art and self expression Finance and material wealth Loved ones and friends all provide balance in your life help to avoid burning out from work.

Personal Fulfillment And Work-Life Balance 

If you had a stack of 100 coins and had to invest in each of these objectives, you’d have to give some serious thought to how many pennies each category needed. However, very few people, when looking at the big picture, would simply put all their coins onto one objective only - and that’s what hustle culture encourages us to do. Hustle culture optimizes for 1 of the 5 areas outlined above, taking away resources from the other 4, and most people need resources in all 5 to some degree. 

So how do you fix hustle culture? For the people who participate in it, ask them how they’ve allocated their 100 coins, and ask them how important the other areas are to them. More important, ask yourself these questions, and then compare how you live your life to what your allocation of coins looks like. If you say you value health and wellness but allocated no resources to working out and eating well, then you have a disconnect. If you say self expression is important but you never do it, then you have a disconnect. 

Multi-objective optimization is difficult, which is why I emphasize the exercise of allocating coins to each objective. Do this in the real world - write out the five areas, pool a pile of 100 actual coins, and move them around as you think about the areas of your life. 

Simple Goal Setting 

Set some kind of tangible, measurable goal in each of the 5 areas and see how your coin allocations change. You may find a goal so inspiring that you’re willing to move a few more coins from another pile to allocate time and effort towards that goal. To be clear, there’s nothing inherently wrong with pursuing financial success. One of my colleagues once said, “Money doesn’t buy happiness, but it sure as heck helps.” Just ensure that as you pursue it that you’re allocating resources to the other areas as well, optimizing for more than one goal at a time, and avoiding burnout for overly hustling. 

Lead The Way In Business Without Burning Out 

In today's ultra-competitive global economy, you need to lead the way fearlessly. Just make sure you don't do it at the expense of your persona life and health, although some sacrifices are required at least temporarily for achieving success.

Tips For Becoming A Great Tech Leader

Being a tech lead can be stressful due to the pressure to manage projects, communicate with your team, and deliver results. Here are a few tips to help you navigate this constantly evolving role to reach your workplace goals. 

Be Balanced

Being a leader in any industry requires balance, but it is especially important for the tech field because of the variety of work offered within it. Tech leads manage projects, analyze data, and many other tasks in between. 

When taking on a tech leadership role, there are other smaller roles that you must fulfill, too. For example, you must fit into the models of leadership, the developer, and the architect. The leadership role requires you to be a valid communicator. It relies more on your interpersonal relations, working as a team, and ability to manage. The developer role takes on duties like coding and analyzing data. Last is the architect role. This includes the design and long term vision of the project. Marrying these attributes together gets you an unstoppable trifecta in the tech world. 

Have Tenacity

There are going to be times when the going gets tough, but it is vital to stick to it. If anyone knows this, it's the well-known investor, Mark Wiseman. Mark Wiseman is the current chair of Alberta Investment management. He is also the former investment chair of BlackRock Investment Chair and former Chief Executive of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. When investing, you put in copious amounts of time and analysis, but the return is not always immediate. The same goes for your tech leadership. A project may be slow-moving with obstacles galore, but that doesn't mean you should quit before you reach the outcome. 

During unprecedented times, Wiseman's advice is to just keep going. Even when things are not working in your favor, or unexpected financial crises take over, the hard work you continue to put into your job will shine through with time. Wiseman reminds leaders to take charge and trust that it will all work out if you just put your head down and get the work done to effectively reach your goals. It's this sort of perseverance that separates the good from the great. 

Learn New Skills

Many tech leads may already know some common types of coding languages. However, one particularly helpful coding language is python. A beneficial tool that leaders should utilize is python subplots. Python subplots allow you to analyze multiple data sets within one figure for more efficient and effective data visualization. For example, if you have data from four different countries on car crash fatalities from 2010 to 2015, python subplots allow you to combine this data to create one figure of subplots. Analyzing one figure is less time consuming and more efficient than analyzing four different figures. 

For easier access to python subplots, you can import matplotlib. Matplotlib consists of tools that aid coders in more easily generating plots or subplots. If you would like more information on how to begin coding with python subplots, you can always utilize resources from the experts, like Nick McCullum. 

Be Open To Change

Any great leader knows that feedback is necessary for growth. Be open to the process of change if things don't go as planned. If the model that you have created isn't working, don't despair— reach out to other team members for feedback. It's crucial to value those on your team and their voices as well. Yes, you are the leader, but remember that your team plays a vital role in the overall success of your projects, too. You could assign more managerial tasks to members who thrive in that area as well. Overall, just remember to run the line of managing for a goal while also maintaining flexibility and a positive work environment. 

Hustle Habits  

Habit is the key ingredient for progress in leadership. Unless you have goals that can be achieved in a single step, chances are you will need to devote time and energy towards your goals in regular, frequent amounts. And, human nature being what it is, we often lose motivation and drive when the journey before us is arduous. How do we keep going when we don’t want to? Habit. 

Over the past 7 weeks I have been leading a small group of friends on the hundred push-up challenge. The goals are simple: first, to be able to do one hundred pushups at all, within the same day, and then to be able to do one hundred pushups without stopping. The key ingredient to success in this challenge is the habit of doing the required number of pushups every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, without exception. In the beginning, there were some folks who couldn’t manage more than two pushups, period. After 7 weeks, everyone has crossed the line of doing one hundred pushups in a day. I have no doubt we will reach the stretch goal of being able to do one hundred pushups without stopping, too. That is leadership by example!

Accountability, Time Management, And Scheduling

What made this transformation possible was the habit of doing pushups and someone to hold you accountable for doing so. I’ve had to be equal parts helping hand and butt kicker to keep the group moving forward, but we did it - and the reward has been people expressing amazement at their accomplishments, people who never thought they’d be able to do anything like that. Some folks needed to just get into the habit of doing an exercise routine regularly and frequently. Other folks had to make room in their daily lives and even give something up to accommodate the new habit, but they did it - and they’ve achieved goals beyond what they imagined possible. 

There is so much right now in the world that isn’t under our control. We have little control over the macro issues of the day, from natural disasters to pandemics and more. But we do have control over our habits, and what we make time and commitment for. What goals are you working towards right now, even with everything going on? What habits do you have that reinforce your progress towards your goals? What habits do you have that are undermining your progress towards your goals? Keep asking yourself these questions if you want to be a top tech startup leader today and tomorrow.

Lead In Technology

With the help of these simple suggestions and expert advice, you can develop new skills and enhance what's already existent to lead your tech team to success.

Prevent Burnout In Teams Through Rafting

In this age of Silicon Valley and start-ups, a lot of people are starting to realize that a work-life balance is not that easy to achieve when you work for at least 70 hours a week. 

Just last year in May 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement stating that burn-out is an occupational phenomenon. While it is not a medical condition, it is still dominant in a lot of companies, especially those that require people to work long hours. Burn-out, as defined by the WHO, refers to a syndrome that is brought by “chronic workplace stress”. 

Today, companies are called upon to help prevent burn-out and create careers that allow a work-life balance. Although this is easier said than done for start-up companies, it is not impossible. One of the ways you can do it is by incorporating a team-building activity that helps take away the stress of work. 

Rafting As A Form Of Therapeutic Activity 

Whitewater rafting has always been considered as an extreme sport or recreational activity by people who want to do something exciting in the outdoors. While not your usual team-building activity, it helps a lot in reducing the risk of burnout. Here are the reasons why. 

1. It Exposes You To Nature

A lot of employees spend the rest of their working lives sitting on a desk. Except for the occasional coffee and restroom breaks, employees are bound to their desks by glue. However, this is not a good way of reducing burn-out. Therapists and psychologists always recommend going out and taking a break when you are experiencing fatigue whether physically or mentally. In the case of rafting, you spend at least 1-2 days away from your desk. Rafting exposes you to the beauty of nature which is a natural stress reliever. 

2. It Takes Your Mind Off Of Work

When you are already rafting down the river, it is impossible to think of work. Why? Because there is no time! There is no time to think of all the documents you have to sign or all the reports you have to make when your teammate is barking instructions and you make sure you paddle the raft to safety while enjoying the sport of it. 

3. It’s A Good Stress Reliever

One of the reasons why burn-out is prevalent among employees is due to the lack of stress relievers that act as a release for all the frustration, disappointment, stress, and all the other ill feelings that you felt at work. Psychologists recommend that you always have an outlet so that you release that stress instead of building it up inside you. 

Rafting is a good outlet because it takes you away from the toxic environment at work and it also serves as a physical activity where you exert power that releases the stress. Plus, rafting serves as a great form of exercise. You’re not only preventing burn-out, but you’re also creating steps towards a healthier body. 

4. Have Tons Of Laughs

“Laughter is the best medicine,” as a lot of people say. While there’s no study to prove whether this is true, people always feel better after having a laugh. When you go rafting, you’ll be communicating, focusing, and even sharing funny moments once you go back to the river bank. It’s an enabler of good memories for your employees. 

5. There’s No Need For Coffee

And finally, you get to steer clear of coffee. Rafting helps you get into focus without needing coffee. The adrenaline and the excitement are natural, so you don’t have to depend on caffeine. Plus, you get to have a good night’s sleep after a physically exhausting day. Because you didn’t overload on caffeine during your rafting session, you don’t have to deal with lack of sleep at night.

How To Exploit Data To Make Well Educated Business Decisions

Historically, the value of a business focused mostly on the health of the most recent balance sheet. Essentially accountants could, at a glance, determine asset strengths and liability weaknesses, then offer an informed viewpoint as to what actions were needed to improve things. As a process of its time, this worked fine. 

But fast forward to the present, and although financial statements retain all their validity, the balance sheet does not declare the value of the business’ data — arguably one of the most important and under-utilized asset. The value of data cannot be understated, as the opportunities it offers are immense. Sitting in the depth and breadth of transaction information, customer activity, purchasing, stocking detail etc, there is value to be found through a variety of applications and interpretations of this data. You just need to have to right tools to extract its gold mine potential in order to make your business greater. Moreover, data is an asset that does not depreciate, but grows day-by-day, almost effortlessly. This is something that is extremely exciting for the future of any business, large or small. 

Businesses must decide how best to work the data and bring home the spoils. Right now, you may be thinking about whether your current systems are up to the mark. Are they already maxed out in terms of harnessing the power of your data? Do you have absolute confidence in the quality of information you have available? Perhaps it’s time to take a step back and look at the bigger picture and the impact on your business model. A review such as this can highlight weaker areas of your business model that, once addressed, can push your company up to larger successes. 

Buying, stocking and distributing goods, in a trade, wholesale or even retail sector has moved on considerably since the dawn of the internet. Customer service expectations have been transformed to an on-demand model — a business that cannot fulfill an order quickly will be abandoned by a customer more than happy to shop elsewhere. Customers not only want to know your stock position, but they want and expect you to be looking after them pro-actively. Pro-active customer service requires quality communications to suit their needs. These processes are vital in order to make them feel important. But in order to achieve this, your systems need new levels of capability. Without it, you may find customers heading over to your competition instead. 

In the same way that systems have become more sophisticated, more capable and more functionally rich, there is also an expectation to see greater ease of use and more flexibility. If applications are not intuitive then they simply won’t get used. Browser-based deployment and fully mobile-enabled capabilities are must-haves. At no point should a user be required to re-key data. Every application should be seamlessly integrated with one another. 

Using data to make decisions is about having the relevant information you need available in an instant. More than that, you want the data to be presented ‘dashboard style’ for easy, timely decision-making and be able to highlight the opportunities within the complete picture, risk-free. Whether the task at hand is to spot gaps in buying patterns and sales trends, or to create effective new campaigns, being able to have your finger on the pulse has become mission critical. Those empowered and duly authorized to make the right informed decisions at the right time will be able to enjoy increased job satisfaction. At the same time, the business will be able to operate with renewed and profitable vigor. 

Warehouse management specialists, Kerridge Commercial Systems have been at the forefront of developing fully-integrated solutions to the manufacturing and distribution sectors for over 40 years. The company’s latest generation of advanced applications incorporate all the requirements for efficient trading with comprehensive CRM, data analysis, and decision-making capabilities. Tony Pey, Head of Product Marketing, says: “Our solutions have been finely developed in partnership with our customers over many years. Right at the forefront now in terms of applications that can help businesses make timely, well-informed decisions, our Vecta sales analytics and CRM solution is immensely capable. It enables the user to stay in the driving seat and run the business their way. Implementation is straightforward — Vecta is easy and intuitive to use and results can start to kick in within days of going live.” 

What does the future of data management hold then? In short, the bar is likely to go up even further as competitive pressures grow. It is particularly exciting that businesses are employing young, enthusiastic, IT-savvy staff, who have a greater awareness of the potential of technology. Particularly, this generation of staff know how to make the most from the applications and tools available. Bringing this to the forefront means that any business can not only improve decision- making processes but have the implicit trust and confidence that the information before them is accurate and reliable. Together with the need to serve customers to the levels now demanded, this is what it’s all about — with a stronger balance sheet and healthier P&L to show for it.

The Best Motivational Business Quotes

Hard work, ingenuity, resiliency, an innovation all come to mind. There are countless factors (including some luck) that come into play when it comes to success in business. But motivation is also key to continued growth and success with your entrepreneurial exploits. Inspiration is essential when living the lean startup life. 

It is challenging to try and just pick a few of the greatest inspirational quotes. It really depends on who you are trying to inspire, and quote meaning can evolve over time. My personal favorite biz quote is Disney CEO Bob Iger saying “The riskiest thing we can do is just maintain the status quo”.

For young entrepreneurs and students, it can be especially important to stay motivated. Keeping students motivated is crucial to helping them tap into their potential. Being motivated in school can help carry over into being motivated in their personal and professional lives years later. 

It is hard to pick a single motivational quote or even several of the best ones because different messages appeal to different people. Pick an entrepreneur or leader that appeals to you and your personal story to learn from and be inspired by.

Keep refilling the tank of motivation by reading books about business success, perusing quality quotes, listening to inspiring podcasts, meditating, praying, or whatever works for you. 

Now Read:  Jeff Bezos Humble Beginnings (Inspirational!)


I hope you enjoyed this blog post about lean startup living and motivational business quotes to keep you inspired.

Interested in more articles or inspiring quotes from Lean Startup Life?

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• How To Keep Company Culture Consistent 

• Positions You Need To Fill To Have A Successful Startup

• The Importance Of A Company Recycling Program

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