Cultivating executive talent in yourself and your team
I believe executive talent is the most important aspect to look for when hiring or promoting leaders. A company’s leadership affects an entire organization and can either motivate teammates and provide them with purpose and direction or cause them to leave. Having a leadership team full of people with executive talent can help bring your company to new heights, but only if you nurture that talent in both yourself and in others.
Not everyone may know executive talent when they see it, but there are some common traits that anyone can easily identify. I believe good executives have no ego. They understand the value of constant learning and always seek out new ways for continuous improvement. Someone with too big of an ego may be unable to realize what it takes to be a great mentor or be mentored. If they think they know everything, they leave no room for others to teach them. And if they view teaching as a waste of time, they’re unlikely to offer their guidance to others. A culture of teaching and mentoring within a company can create an environment that nourishes executive skills and leadership, which is the key to exploiting that talent on a team.
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How Outside Board Members Can Shift Your Company
CEOs and founders need to be very good at what they do to succeed, but no one alone can be an expert in every subject, nor in every area of a company. With the combined insights of a carefully curated board, however, maybe we can. A board offers additional perspectives and the wisdom of having gone through diverse experiences of success and failure. When done right, a board drives a company’s growth and innovation with tried and tested strategies, and it guides better, more holistic decision making.
While some of a company’s leadership might be well-suited to sit on its board, looking within to fill all board positions will severely limit its potential. Outside board members can help the company’s leadership see objectives and obstacles from different angles and paint a more complete picture.
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The Time for Outside Board Members is Now
Outside board members are the x-factor that will propel your company out of times of crisis.
Outside board members have always been a necessity, but today they are more important than ever. When a company can turn to a board with a broad diversity of insights and with members from outside the company, they receive guidance that can be the advantage they need to survive tough times. Nowadays, it seems like times are only getting tougher.
As problems increasingly have global repercussions, every decision we make could make or break a business. Outside board insights have always been a necessary consideration for staying agile and strengthening decision-making power, but now, those insights are becoming indispensable. To be more in an uncertain future, bring on outside board members for a broader selection of expertise to fill a company’s gaps and the best chance of coming through anything on top.
Related: Why E-Commerce Businesses Need to Rethink Their Channel Strategy
Look outside your company for the best fit
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Your personal brand for your board opportunity
When companies look for board members, they look for leaders with the right experience, education, and qualifications. And since board diversity drives stronger company performance, board member hopefuls should take care to highlight any applicable areas of diversity—like gender, ethnicity, experience levels, or economic background, for example. But otherwise, how do people get noticed and recruited by boards?
CULTIVATE A BRAND
Cultivating a personal brand establishes you as an expert in your field and should start long before even seeking board membership.
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How Your Board Should Guide Your Hiring Practices
“The Great Resignation” does not seem to be letting up any time soon, so take advice from your board in order to revamp your hiring practices to retain and recruit strong employees.
Just as the remote work trend brought on by the pandemic never seemed to go away, “The Great Resignation” is starting to seem like a permanent shift in today’s business landscape. People left in masses and moved on to better pay, more perks and greater flexibility — and are unlikely to give this trend up any time soon.
For a company to keep up with the changing face of business, its leaders need to be frequently evaluating their company hiring practices to recruit, attract and retain the right employees for the job. This can take a lot of time strategizing that CEOs may not always have to spare while running a business. For support in uncovering otherwise overlooked areas to maximize advantages in hiring, leaders should turn to their boards to guide them.
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How To Build A Board Of Advisors For Company Success
As an entrepreneur, it’s hard to see past your own issues or your own company, let alone think outside of your own creative box. People often turn to counselors or advisors for an outside perspective, support and advice when they need to get out of their own heads. For a company, a board of advisors can provide those insights and outlets. If you prioritize building a board based on the qualities you need to achieve new heights, your company has a better chance of performing well at those levels.
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The Great Resignation: What board members need to know
In early 2021, experts predicted the “Great Resignation” was coming. After hitting record highs of 4.4 million resignations in September 2021, the wave of people leaving their jobs has since shown little sign of slowing down. That rate maintained near stability through January 2022, when another 4.3 million people quit.
These 4 Elements Are Key to Branding Your Business
In today’s world of rapid startup growth, branding your company is essential to stand out from your competitors and find success.
Competition in business today is tough, yet more and more businesses are entering the arena than ever before. While many companies never make it through their first five years, some hit it big overnight. There’s a treasure trove of wealth to be made for those of us who know how to unlock it, but times have changed, and these are unprecedented business waters.
With more avenues to reach consumers than ever before and more businesses starting up every day, all brands know they have competitors out there, but they can still take steps to stand out.
To rise above the rest, a clearly articulated and targeted brand identity is key. Here’s how to do it right:
1. Brand everything
Remember that just as important as branding your particular product or service is branding everything that goes along with it. Think about how your brand can define every aspect of your company’s identity. On your website, make sure your call to action is appropriately branded. Make sure your blog posts or social media branding all flows in line with the same branding inspiration. Especially when you put money into your company, make sure that every investment is going to be worth it for your brand identity in the long run.
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The Best Employees Display These 6 Characteristics
Good employees are rare and valuable. Here’s how to identify them.
When I sat for a panel discussion to go over my expertise in the board space recently, one of the main topics revolved around identifying a quality outside board member. To me, this is an easy answer: The qualities that make a great board member are the same ones that would make a great employee.
Like a great board member, a great employee has expertise and education, which are easily identified through the accumulation of credentials over time. But even without experience, good employees exist — people with untapped potential and the drive to work harder and excel at what they do — with a strength of character that’s challenging to build in someone when it doesn’t come naturally. To avoid letting these good employees slip through your company’s proverbial fingers, here are six traits to look for to identify them:
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The No. 1 Predictor Of Company Success Is Your Board
Putting a board together is more than bringing on members and assigning them the title “board of directors.” The structure of a board should be set up to see you succeed, and they should have access to all the necessary resources to guide them to that success.
When choosing board members, be diligent, take your time and pay attention to the specific ways each one can help grow your business. Create a board that does exactly what a board is meant to do: Bring your company success.
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