The following is a guest post by Joel A. Garfinkle.

Being a good leader — or even a great leader — is just not enough if you want to keep moving up in your career. You must be so remarkable that no one can help but notice you. You must do great things — not once or twice, but continuously — in order to stand out, get noticed, and propel yourself to the top of your company.

Three great ways to stand out are by creating new products, solving difficult problems, and actively seeking out opportunities to do something truly remarkable.

1. Create a new product
You can find ideas for new products all over the place, but one of the best ways is to listen to your customers. What do they want that you don’t sell? Is there already a product on the market that will meet their needs? If not, you may have an opportunity to create a revolutionary new product that will fill this gap and satisfy an existing demand.

There are new products being released constantly, so you need something that is either completely different from what is currently available or a huge improvement. You won’t stand out by making minor changes. You need something that people will get excited about and tell their friends about — something that is different enough to create a stir in the marketplace.

That doesn’t necessarily mean Click here to continue reading »”3 Ways Remarkable Leaders Get Noticed”

If there’s one aspect of business that’s becoming clearer as a consequence of the current challenges present in today’s global economy, it’s that the most valuable resource an organization has are the people found within their workforce.

That’s why one of the most critical tasks businesses face is not only finding talented individuals, but finding those individuals who are the best fit for their organization. Equally important to this task is ensuring that you take the necessary steps to recognize and develop your employees. Otherwise, you risk losing these employees you worked so hard to find as they go elsewhere in search of better opportunities.

Perhaps the best example of this is Zappos, which not only performs additional interviews of potential candidates simply to assess “culture fit”, but which also offers new hires $2 000 to quit their jobs following a four-week training period in order to ensure those who stick around do so for the culture and not just for a regular paycheck.

Of course, we can’t all be like Zappos nor should we even try to be. But what we can learn from them is the importance of having a clarity about what our vision is and which values matter to us in terms of fulfilling our objectives. Armed with this knowledge, organizations will have a better understanding of which candidates will be a good fit for their team, as well as what leaders need to do to retain and develop their employees so that they can provide even greater value to the organization in the years ahead.

In her article “Finding (and Keeping) the Right People for Your Business”, Gina Abudi, co-author of the book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Best Practices for Small Business” shares her insights on how businesses should go about selecting and interviewing potential candidates, and what steps to take to help employees with their professional development so that they can continue to be valued contributors to your team.

Disclaimer: My blog is a part of an online influencer network for Business on Main. I receive monthly incentives to share my views on content I find noteworthy and relevant for my audience.

The following is a guest post by Jon Gordon.

“To build a winning a team and a successful organization you must create a culture of greatness.”

It’s the most important thing a leader can do because culture drives behavior, behavior drives habits and habits create the future. As the leaders at Apple say, “Culture beats strategy all day long.”

When you create a culture of greatness you create a collective mindset in your organization that expects great things to happen—even during challenging times. You expect your people to be their best, you make it a priority to coach them to be their best and most of all you create a work environment that fuels them to be their best.

A culture of greatness creates an expectation that everyone in the organization be committed to excellence. It requires leaders and managers to put Click here to continue reading »”How to Create a Culture of Greatness”

What role does humility play in today’s leadership and how does this trait benefit leaders in facing the challenges present in today’s global market? That’s one of the questions I discuss with my guest Dave Balter in the latest episode of “Leadership Biz Cafe”.

Dave is the CEO and founder of the word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing company, BzzAgent, which has been featured on CBS News, the BBC, and the New York Times Sunday Magazine. His company has also been the focus of two case studies done by Harvard Business School.

Recently, Dave started a new web project titled “100 Days of Humility” in the hopes of drawing more attention to the need for greater humility in today’s leadership. The goal of the project is to encourage people to share their thoughts on humility in leadership, with the community voting for the story or idea which best illustrates the important role humility plays in leading others.

The project has attracted the interest of a number of well known thought-leaders, including Guy Kawasaki and Seth Godin (you can also check out my contribution to this project by visiting this link).

Over the course of our conversation about the importance of humility in leadership, Dave and I discuss the following points:

• The personal experience that lead Dave to recognize why leaders need to embrace humility.
• The tangible benefits or improvements leaders can create by bringing a greater sense of humility to their leadership.
• How the level and type of interactions leaders have with their employees affects their ability to be humble.
• The relationship between how much you trust those you lead and the level of humility you exhibit through your leadership.
• What a sense of humility reveals about your character and ability to lead others.
• How humility can keep leaders grounded in their vision in the face of organizational success.
• Four measures leaders can employ to bring a greater sense of humility to their leadership.

I’d like to thank Dave for reaching out and wanting to share his own experiences as a leader coming to terms with the role humility plays in leadership. The experiences and insights he shares helps to shed some light on how humility is not just a nice trait to have, but a critical component to ensuring the success of your team’s efforts to reach your organization’s goals.

As I mentioned at the end of the show, I’d love to hear what you think about this episode, as well as what other topics you’d be interested in hearing more about in upcoming episodes of my show. You can share your thoughts/ideas by leaving a comment below or by filling out the contact form on my website.

Click on the player below to listen to the podcast:

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Noteworthy links:

• Visit the 100 Days of Humility project website.
• Dave Balter’s Inc. Magazine article on humility in leadership – “The Humility Imperative: CEOs, Keep Your Arrogance in Check”.
• My quote on humility in leadership for the 100 Days of Humility project.