Aspiring to Grow as a Leader

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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.

Does Your Astrological Sign Actually Mean That?

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The year 2020 has meant that many things are coming and going out of trends. A big one that seems to have made a comeback are astrological signs. Now depending on whether you go off the old chart with the original twelve symbols or you have crossed over to now recognizing the 13th Sign, many can often wonder, how true does your astrological Sign fit to you and your personality? 

 

The Original Signs 

 

The original signs comprised of: 

 

Capricorn 

Aquarius 

Pisces 

Aries 

Taurus 

Gemini 

Cancer 

Leo 

Virgo 

Libra 

Scorpio 

Sagitarus 

 

All have their traits and personalities. The “newest” signs of Ophiucus (Oh-Fee-U-cus) and Cetus (See-tus) were never actually viewed as part of the astrological calendar due to the Babylonian followed a 12-month calendar and assigned the 12 constellations of zodiac signs. The constellation of Ophiucus is from December 6th to December 31st, while Cetus is from May 12th to June 6th. However, don’t go into a panic, thinking your zodiac is wholly messed up now. Many still follow the standard “old” zodiac chart. 

 

Personalities

 

 Many firmly believe that their zodiac sign plays a huge role in what makes up their personalities. 

 

Sun Sign

 

Your sun sign dictates your personality.

 

Moon Sign 

 

It is believed that your moon sign plays a part in determining your emotions and how you handle things in everyday life. 

 

Ascendant Sign (rising Sign) 

 

Your ascendant sign helps to determine your social personality. This Sign was on the eastern horizon at the date and time that you were born. It also represents your outward style and appearance. 

 

All of these signs combined are supposed to create you as a whole, but do they? A lot of the time, horoscopes and zodiac profiles are made up of entirely vague paragraphs that you may or may not relate to. Whether you believe them or not is entirely up to you. However, this year alone, many have been flocking to see their astrology makeup and determine if that is true to their personalities. 

 

In an article written on The Guardian, writer Jessa Crispin explains how we are living through an astrological boom, where many books are coming out regarding the subject, the craze of celebrity astrologers, and the numerous astrology apps that have come out, and ever major fashion organization has taken to writing a regular horoscope column in their magazines. You can’t even go on social media without feeling attacked by dozens of astrology pages and memes. Whether astrology holds will continue to be a widely debated topic for as long as we still talk about it. 

 

Outfits to Rule the Boardroom

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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.

  

The Amazing Women in Business

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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. 

 

Understanding the Latest Passport Changes

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Passports are a requirement for international and domestic travel. Increased threshold of threats to security, especially terrorism, are prompting most countries across the globe to revolutionize their passport regulations and requirements. The US and other European countries have been on the forefront as far as the introduction of the new passport changes and requirements are concerned. Here is an overview of what has changed or is expected to change in the near future regarding how you apply and use your passport.

 

  1. Passport Makeovers

 

To enhance the speed of processing of passengers in airports, passports are being incorporated with microchips designed to hold passengers’ data. The machine-readable microchip will make it possible for instant changes to be affected across all airports and countries. For instance, the microchip can be instantly updated across all airports, thereby affecting travel restrictions more effectively at the touch of a button.

 

  1. Improved Security Features

 

To make passports more tamper-proof, new security features are expected to be incorporated in order to decrease the prospects of criminals defrauding customs agencies and personnel. The data chip will be virtually impossible to replicate, thereby eliminating prospects of forgery and other forms of malicious tampering.

 

  1. Strict Application Rules

 

In order to curb the increased threat to national security, governments, led by the United States, have revised rules and regulations for applying for passports. For instance, if a passport photograph does not meet a certain requirement of clarity and size, the application will be turned down. Other aspects include the restriction on the use of eyeglasses on passport photographs and the requirement to produce proof of US citizenship, including birth certificates among other requirements which make the application process watertight.

 

  1. Passport Renewal Regulations

 

Governments across the globe have enforced a 6-month validity rule requiring all passport holders to have their passports’ expiry date not less than 6 months from the time of entry to a country. This implies that you will have to renew your passport way in advance before the 6 months travel restriction period. Individuals having passports expiring within 6 months will be denied entry. The entire passport renewal process has been made much simpler in most countries as one can renew online at the click of a button.