How You Can Be a Leader and Break Away From Mediocrity

What makes someone stand out as a leader? Is it their ability to excel under pressure? Do they possess the charm that is needed when you are one on one with clients? Those who find themselves in leadership positions tend to be anything but mediocre. They often have those specific attributes about them that help them to stand apart from their other colleagues. So if you are looking to get into a leadership position how do you make yourself stand out from being what others might consider mediocre

Have the Mentality of a Hero

For a leader to demonstrate excellence, they must think and act as their heroes. Successful leaders have a unique way of doing things. They all have a philosophy that governs them. While it is hard to keep off from all distractions, it is a brilliant way to achieve one’s dreams.

Leaders Should Avoid Being Money Minded

To break from mediocrity, a leader should not prioritize money. Arguably, numerous individuals earn high salaries at their tender ages, yet they are not happy with their lives. One should concentrate on finding and pursuing their passion. Doing what one loves provides a way for money to flow.

A Leader Should Shun Fear

Many business leaders suffer from a fear of failure. Some even lack the confidence to believe that they can register achievements. What they fail to understand is that failure presents a second chance to try once more. History has countless successful individuals that started with a series of disappointments. Accepting disappointments and learning from them provides a way to find leadership success.

A Leader Should Learn to Avoid Unhealthy Relationships.

A wise leader should choose friends that motivate them in actualizing their dreams. Any group of friends that do not add value contributes to making one less productive. Practically, a leader is a product of whatever company they keep.

Leaders Should Discourage Themselves From Being Content

While it is usual to get content, this mindset is one of the chief contributors to laxity, making one stagnate and fail to achieve more. Factors such as vacations, salaries, and an excellent working environment are among those that can make one content.

Breaking out of mediocrity is an excellent starting point for becoming successful. Every leader should aspire to achieve more and work towards attaining those dreams. They should embrace every opportunity that can make them better in their professions.

 

The Top Careers For Women in 2020

Women have made huge strides in breaking the glass ceiling that kept them in a permanent second-tier workplace for hundreds of years. Since the fight for gender equality began in earnest in the early 20th century, pioneering and brave women have muscled their way into leadership positions at the top of several industries.

 

Now, in 2020, women dominate several professions. These are some of them.

 

Early Education

 

While underpaid for the value they produce, teachers are nonetheless a highly respected class of workers. While there are limitations in terms of salary (a conversation for another day), these positions make up for substantial government benefits and stability.

 

The good news is that teachers’ demand will continue to grow as school districts attempt to whittle down the student-to-teacher ratios in their classrooms and populations grow. For example, preschool teacher demand is expected to increase by as much as 7% in the next ten years – amounting to thousands of new positions throughout the US.

 

Speech-Language Pathologists

 

As the scientific understanding behind autism and other conditions affecting child development and adults is improved through research, the demand for specialists who know how to approach these special-needs cases has increased.

 

Careers available to certified speech-language pathologists with a master’s degree vary dramatically, from working in a classroom setting to helping the elderly with cognitive decline issues such as Alzheimer’s.

 

The demand for these speech-language pathologist professionals may climb by nearly 30% in the coming decade.

 

Chief Executive Officers

 

With CEOs at the helm, the top tier of business leadership has traditionally been dominated by males. However, that has started to change as corporations have realized the benefits of bringing a fresh perspective that a woman leader offers.

 

Despite the horrific consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, the exemplary leadership of women in positions of authority (in government) around the globe has done a great deal to sway public opinion in favor of female leadership – both political and economic.

 

The reshaping of the global economy currently underway, while presenting severe challenges, will also likely open the door further for women to break into new career paths previously off-limits.

Aspiring to Grow as a Leader

Growing as a leader calls for sacrifice. You have to give up old ways and be willing to learn new and better ways of doing things. It means admitting you do not know everything and willing to learn even from the people you lead. Leaders at every level should desire for opportunities for growth.

Are you a leader yearning for growth? Here are some valuable insights to guide you.

Listen to feedback. A leader should enable a conducive environment that encourages the sharing of feedback. As a leader, do not mistake feedback for criticism. Sincere feedback provides a leader with valuable information that leads to better decision making.

Cultivate a cocktail of skills. Leaders cannot be one-dimensional. Best leaders have multiple skills. Also, they are always upgrading their existing competencies. Comfort-zone is never their thing.

Find what motivates you. People are motivated by many things. It could be internal or external. As a leader, identify with what motivates you. Self-motivation provides the daily drive that keeps you going even when you face setbacks.

Learn from your past. People say experience is the best teacher. The mindset of good leadership is to view every experience as an opportunity to learn. To grow as a leader, you must take lessons from previous experiences and apply them in current situations.

Let the sky be the limit. To grow as a leader, do not settle for mediocrity. Stretch your limits. Hold yourself accountable to nothing short of excellence. Constantly exceed expectations.

Do not shy from asking questions. Seek clarity when things are not clear. Leaders are not all-knowing. Growth involves asking the right questions to make informed decisions.

Accept failure as part of leadership. Man is to error, and so are leaders. Growing as a leader entails holding yourself accountable for your failures. However, this does not mean failures should hold you back. Learn from them and respond appropriately.

Listen to those above you. To grow, embrace mentorship from people with more experience. They could be internal or external. The more you walk with those with experience, the more the leadership shoes will grow into you.

Growth as a leader is a personal challenge. It calls for a lot of self-motivation. However, the tips highlighted above can go a long way into helping you grow to become a great leader. Put them into practice. If you fail, dust yourself up and try again until you become what you aspire to be.

Outfits to Rule the Boardroom

So you have graduated from college and you are getting ready for your first job in the corporate world. Congratulations first off! But now you need to know what you should wear to make you look like the fierce businesswoman that you are set on being. What can you wear that still reflects your personality but is proper for a business board room? Take a look at these fashion tips that will not only make you look smart but give you the confidence to rule the boardroom or rock an interview. 

 

Boardroom Formal 

 

If you are just getting out of the world of college and stepping into the world of professionalism you are going to hear the words boardroom formal quite a bit. Be aware of the dress code especially if you are still going out on interviews. If they don’t mention it in the interview email don’t be afraid to ask what the attire is for the interview. Most professional offices the dress code is formal or business professional. Most times this means a blazer, dress slacks, or a dressier skirt, and a blouse is appropriate for this case. Make sure when you are going for an interview you look clean and polished to promote a professionalism vibe. Your outfit can convey a lot about you, and having that perfect matching pantsuit can often make the hiring professional view you as detail-oriented and organized. 

 

Dress for the job you want 

 

Dressing for the job you want is probably the most heard phrase when job hunting. If you are in a job where they let you have a bit of free-range with the fashion, it is ok to still have the mentality of, yeah I am in this job and I can wear what I want, but I am still going to put together a look that makes me look a little bit better than the person next to me. This may show those above you that you put effort into yourself and how you present yourself. When you dress well it shows that you want to make a positive impression on those that are around you. 

 

Say the CEO of your company comes into your office once a week, they see you in passing, maybe it’s in the elevator or potentially in the break room, but they see you and without knowing you they are able to gain an impression of you just by the way you dress. 

 

But my office allows us to wear jeans? 

 

If your office allows you to wear jeans you can still dress them up or give the jeans look an added flair. Try adding colored denim to your wardrobe, this will allow you to still be able to wear your jeans but have some added style to them. If colored jeans are not your forte try a more high waisted fit with a white button-down top slightly tucked into the front. This is a classic look that you can’t go wrong with but with the right accessories, you can easily dress this lookup and give it more appeal. 

 

If you are allowed to have fun with your outfits, if you have an office with a more lax dress code this can easily give you tons of room to play and experiment with your style. Try new things but remember to keep them in a professional range. While they may say they have a lax dress code there is still a dress code.

  

Business Tips For Female Entrepreneurs

Women are still actually quite new to the world of business. We are not far from the time where it was accustom for the women to stay at home with the kids while the husband went off to work. We have now evolved into the breadwinners just like the men. But that does not mean we do not have our fair share of challenges when it comes to being apart of the business world. Women have to work twice as hard as the men do, we also have to put in the extra footwork when it comes to owning our own business. So what are some tips that will help us climb that uphill battle when in the world of business?

 

Get Social 

 

Social media has quickly climbed the ladder as one of the bused and most important strategies for business marketing. Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, even Pinterest are great ways to promote your business, generate sales leads, create third party endorsements, and even conduct sales. If you are unfamiliar with using social media for marketing there are tons of online courses that you can take to help you learn the best ways to use it. 

 

Networking

 

Networking is one of the most important tools when owning a business. Making sure that you have a reliable support system will help you to navigate through the tricky world that is business. Having a mentor who also understands what struggles you are dealing with is also important. When you join groups in your industry it allows you to create a reliable web of contacts who can help to support you and give you great advice about how to navigate possible problems that may come along down the road. If you don’t have a lot of time to do this in person there are lots of apps that can help you in this area. 

 

Home Life 

 

A lot of business professionals will tell you to not bring your home life into your work life, however, this can be a useful tool that you can use to your advantage. Many women have their own responsibilities at home to take care of, things like kids, and daycare can be stressful especially while you are in the beginning stages of trying to open a business. A lot of women use this to their advantage by taking a sense of inspiration to things that they deal with at home. Women are the CEO of the household. When you translate something that already comes naturally to a lot of women this allows you to create a seamless transition to balance everything all at once. 

 

Knowing Your Worth

While the world of business may for now be run by men, women business owners should know that they are worth it. Did you know that the approval rates for women to get a business loan approval are between 15 to 20% lower than it is for a man to get approval for a business loan? Most would think that would tear women business owners down, but for many this makes women strive harder to be successful.

The Amazing Women in Business

For years the business industry has been solely male-dominated. Recently, women have started to take over the business industry, with women entrepreneurs making their names known and fighting back against the stereotypes, with an “anything you can do, I can do too.” attitude. With this, their mission does not seem to be slowing any time soon. Women around the world are becoming CEOs and setting Fortune 500 records; these are some of those women. 

Dr. Celeste Fralick – Data Perseverance

Dr. Fralick is both an author and the Senior Principal Engineer and Cheif Data Scientist for McAfee. She helps to create a technical, analytic strategy that is used to integrate into McAfee consumer and enterprise products along with internal Business Intelligence. With almost 40 years of experience, Dr. Fralick has developed things like Machine learning and Deep Learning for analytics for eight different market types. She also holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Arizona State University, with a concentration in predictive analytics and neuroscience she is currently working on authoring Springer’s text on “Intelligent Analytics.”

Marina Tognetti – Entrepreneur 

Marina Tognetti is both the founder and CEO of the website mYngle.com. While originally from Italy, Tognetti has managed to learn six languages and has lived in numerous countries. After spending almost 18 years working in a corporate career for Procter & Gamble, she decided to take the leap into becoming an entrepreneur and launched her website called mYngle in 2007. The site is a live language education system offering custom language learnings through video conferencing. With this program, you can learn 45 different languages from anywhere in the world. 

Mina Jeong – Business 

Mina Jeong helps to advise different companies who want to find the right customer audience, building a reputation, and getting them in the right markets. As a B2B/B2C Tech and Consumer PR specialist, she has over 20 years of experience under her belt. She is also the current president of the Kora Public Relations Consultancy Association (KPRCA). 

Radhika Jones – editor in chief of Vanity Fair Magazine

The successor after Gradon Carter, the first editor and chief of Vanity fair, Radhika Jones, has made the magazine hers by driving it towards articles that are a bit more relevant. More articles today are based on what’s currently going on in the world rather than who wore Dior last week. She has pushed for less stylized and glamorized style to promote the magazine towards more modern times and embracing the everyday. 

Ursula Burns – Chairman and Executive Officer of Xerox Corporation

Ursula Burns served as the CEO and chairman of the Xerox corporation from 2009 – 2016. She was the first African American woman to hold this position at the Fortune 500 company. She was the first woman to gain to the position of the CEO of such a company after the progression of another female. Raised in low-income housing in the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Burns was one of three children raised by a single mother. Throughout her life, she excelled in math and earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Polytech Institute of New York University in Brooklyn. The same year Burns earned her degree, she went on to gain a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University and then joined Xerox that summer as a mechanical engineering intern. In 2007 she was named the CEO, and in 2010 she went on to become chairman of the board. 

 

With the world around us continually changing, more and more women are taking on prestigious positions. These inspiring women help the younger generation know that with hard work, they too can become successful and possibly be world leaders or the head of a significant fortune 500 company. 

 

Q & A with Alexandra Arrivillaga

Alexandra Arrivillaga is a successful entrepreneur and businesswoman. She is no stranger to hard work having created a number of companies, including Owl Management Consulting and Lock It Up, LLC. Business ownership was all around Alexandra during her childhood, so it was no surprise that she followed in her family’s entrepreneurial footsteps. Alexandra’s family also stressed the importance of getting an education. The desire to learn led Alexandra to earn a Bachelor’s of Science in Business Management from Lesley College, a Master’s in Management from Cambridge University and a PhD in Business in Organizational Behavior at North Central University. Alexandra’s pursuit of higher education and sharp business acumen has helped her to build successful companies. Ms. Arrivillaga’s newest endeavor is LatinTouch Agency, which focuses on strategy and diversity consulting to ensure Latinos are positively represented in all businesses.

 

Here, Alexandra answers several questions pertaining to her business career and her personal interests.

 

What’s the most important thing we should know about you?

 Success means making meaningful work that promotes inclusivity and community.

 

Name the most impactful lesson you learned from failure.

To keep pushing forward.

 

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

The integrity and passion I have for volunteering to help people in my community.

 

What did you waste the most time on when you were first starting your career?

 Trying to fit the status quo when I am an innovative person.

 

Name a tool you use for work that you can’t live without.

 Coffee! 

 

What is your favorite hobby and why?

Salsa dancing because I love rhythm and self expression. 

 

What excites you the most about your industry right now?

The progressive and innovative changes in it. 

 

What concerns you most about your industry right now?

Latinos need to catch up with the latest technologies.

 

What’s the greatest risk you’ve ever taken?

I am an entrepreneur, so everything I do is risky. 

 

Name one small habit that positively impacts your productivity.

I look for change and I embrace it.  

 

What tip(s) do you have for getting a seat at the table?

Walk and talk like you deserve to be at the table — because you do.

 

What book has made the biggest impact on your life?

Proverbs in the Bible 

 

Do you value intelligence or common sense more? Why?

A balance of both is needed because everything in life needs balance. 

 

What would you consider to be the perfect day?

Coffee, positive vibes, meditation, a morning workout and an innovative, progressive day!

Understanding Risk Management

Everything we do involves a degree of risk, but, without taking on those risks, we would never achieve anything. This is where risk management comes in. It’s a process of analyzing a situation to determine the risks of taking on a particular project. In some cases, those risks may be minimized, so the chances of success are made more likely. This process of managing risks helps us to move forward more efficiently, so we can evolve as a society.

A Deeper Look at Risk Management

The larger the project you’re undertaking, the more in-depth your risk analysis must be. For instance, a corporation taking on a new project will have to look into how the risks will affect the entire organization. A failure may affect every department within the organization, so it’s important to understand and prepare for these risks. ERM, or enterprise risk management, is a system that analyzes the risks for every department within the organization. This type of risk management process will even explore what risks the organization’s outlets will face.

In doing their jobs, risk management professionals must also determine ways for minimizing risks. This may involve recommending more insurance for the business, which will allow the business to continue operating. Risk managers may also have to consider how the health and safety of the business’ employees will be affected by the venture. Everything from ensuring the continued management of the company to addressing the possible financial fallout must be considered.

Businesses aren’t left to try to analyze these risks on their own. Today, there are many organizations that create and publish risk management standards. These companies will come out to audit your business or help you analyze how a proposed project will affect your company. These standards are often followed uniformly by many businesses within a given industry to ensure every company is following similar guidelines. This helps keep risks somewhat level among every business, which may make the playing field more even. Adhering to a set list of standards helps organizations better understand the risks of operating in a highly competitive environment.

While every endeavor includes some degree of risk, it’s important to separate good risk from unnecessary risk. This process of analysis can help you achieve success more often by limiting your exposure to bad risk. Regardless of what type of project you’re pursuing, thorough risk management can help you develop a more successful strategy.

3 Ways Entrepreneurs Can Lower their Stress Levels

 

 

Being an entrepreneur can be extremely stressful. Just like everyone else, entrepreneurs still have bills to pay and in some cases even a family to support. As their business grows, more and more people become dependent on them for their livelihood as well. This can place an incredible amount of pressure on entrepreneurs. The higher your stress rises, however, the less capable you are of making calm, rational decisions which can actually jeopardize your business. For both business and health reasons, it is important to keep stress levels in check. Here are three ways entrepreneurs can lower their stress levels.

 

  1. Unplug

 

It is vitally important for entrepreneurs to take some time every day and every week to simply let the world run without them for a while. While this can in and of itself be stressful for an entrepreneur, it is important. If you don’t, you will eventually burn out. Vacation is also critical, so don’t put it off “until you get your business up and running.” Without taking time for self-care, you won’t make it that far.

 

  1. Delegate

 

For an entrepreneur, delegation is similar to a new parent hiring a babysitter. It is just as nerve-wracking and just as important. While your business may be “your baby” it’s going to take a village to make it a viable proposition – just like raising a child.

 

  1. Take good care of your health

 

Exercise, eating a healthy diet and getting a good night’s sleep might be some of the hardest challenges for busy entrepreneurs, but they are also the most important. Building a business is a marathon, not a sprint. If you put managing your own health on a back burner while you are building your business, there is a good chance you won’t be around to enjoy it once it is viable – if it ever even makes it that far. In addition, all three of these activities work together to help you reduce stress. 30 minutes of brisk exercise can help burn off adrenaline and even help you get a better night’s sleep. A good, healthy diet can give you energy to make it through the long days and even get a good workout in at the end.