Bosses, CEOs, and strong leaders are commonly stereotyped as powerful, soulless and money-driven individuals. But great leadership requires much more than a desire for power and money; you also have to be empathetic, courageous, compassionate, caring and creative. Summed up: You need to be mindful. I recently had the opportunity to meet Jack Canfield, author of the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" books, and pick his brain. He stressed that the best leaders are ones who possess a mindful, big-picture outlook. So how do we find this deeper meaning in our work? And, as leaders, how do we guide our teams down this path of mindfulness? Before we answer these questions, let’s take a closer look at why mindfulness is so important. Being mindful of mindfulness Here are the three main reasons why being a mindful leader is crucial to your professional and personal growth: It broadens your view. Mindfulness changes your perspective on the world. Once you view your personal and professional life through a macro lens, you realize that true success comes from contributing to larger, more universal purposes. Simple acts like donating to charities through company fundraisers or engaging in team-bonding activities provide great reminders that your company isn’t just a revenue generator. It creates peace. Being mindful as a leader not only brings you personal peace, but also encourages your co-workers to search within themselves for peace. A Google engineer created the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, which touts mindfulness, emotional intelligence and an overall positive mindset as crucial and contagious traits. In short: If you chill out, your entire team will chill out. It creates unity. In the working world, it’s easy to feel like you’re a cog in a machine. The broadened view of mindfulness allows you to realize that you’re never alone. Everything you do contributes to a larger cause and affects somebody. This realization will lead to a stronger, deeper camaraderie within your company. These are just three of the many benefits of mindfulness. Now let’s dive into how you can implement this mindset into your leadership. Minding the gap Follow these four strategies when incorporating mindfulness into your leadership strategy. Slow down to speed up. We have the tendency to rush through tasks to get as much work done as possible. A high-quantity output is nice, but the quality often suffers. Try slowing down and giving your tasks the attention they deserve. This has become a regular practice of mine that’s led to some incredibly creative moments. Practice daily. With almost any skill or talent, practice makes perfect. Whether it’s daily prayer, meditation, or deep breathing, make sure you devote time to practicing mindfulness and reflecting on how your actions affect others. Change locations. Sitting in the same spot every day leads to stale inspiration. Get up and move around. Changing your venue will change your mentality. Spread mindfulness. Mindful leaders empower others through sharing. Canfield invited me into his home and shared stories about his business struggles. In doing so, he not only increased his own mindfulness but also bolstered mine. My meeting with Canfield was life-changing. I now begin each day by reading something inspirational and writing a list of things I’m grateful for. This simple change has set a new tone for me as a leader and has had a positive effect on my company and staff. Mindfulness doesn’t happen overnight. But once you find your big-picture view and practice relentlessly, you’ll send yourself and your co-workers down a path of greater meaning. Rick Martinez is the CEO and founder of Project BINK, a community and platform that guides people to purpose-driven happiness. Find out more about how to remove the clutter and distraction in your startup, career and life from the new BINK book. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily career development newsletter. Related Posts: How exam review prepares students for success What would your best boss do today? How effectively do you recruit and hire outstanding talent? Q&A: Kellogg President Wendy Davidson on how women can become leaders in the industry How Team of Leaders helps deal with difficult people What I learned from Jack Canfield originally published by SmartBlogs

You understand the value of referrals. With the goal of attracting new business coming in so high on the list of firms’ marketing priorities, it’s no surprise that the desire to generate more referrals remains a key marketing initiative. But in today’s increasingly competitive marketplace, traditional referrals from clients alone aren’t enough to accelerate growth With this in mind, the Hinge Research Institute set out to rethink referral marketing and determine how successful firms are capitalizing on referrals today. After gathering responses from over 500 professional services firms, we found that 81.5% of service providers have received a referral from someone who wasn’t a former client. This suggests that truly effective referral marketing needs to include strategies for generating referrals from both clients and non-clients. But where do these non-client referrals come from? Well, we discovered that most non-client referrals are a result of your firm’s reputation and expertise. In fact, we found there are actually three types of referrals that firms can utilize to attract more new business: Experience-based referrals are traditional client referrals. They occur as the direct result of your firm’s work with a given organization or individual. Expertise-based referrals are made when an individual or organization (who hasn’t worked with your firm personally) is aware of your firm’s specialty or expertise in solving a particular problem. They may not have detailed knowledge of your reputation, but you’re on their "radar" as an expert. They may have encountered your expertise through hearing you speak at conferences, reading articles you’ve written, or interacting with you on social media. Reputation-based referrals are another type of non-client referral and occur someone knows your firm only by your reputation. They may know someone who has worked with your firm or have simply heard about your reputation in your community or industry. Expertise-based and reputation-based referrals are built on your firm’s brand. In order to generate more non-client referrals, firms need to increase their visibility and reputation in the marketplace. Here are steps you can take to build your brand—and generate more referrals.  Assess where you are now. Are your marketing efforts generating referrals? Who’s currently referring you and are those referrals resulting in new business? Determining where you are now will help inform what your strategy should be moving forward. Understand your target audiences. To build a truly powerful brand, you have to thoroughly understand the audiences you’re trying to reach. By understanding your audiences’ challenges and priorities, you’ll be able to better connect with them. Develop a strategy. Determine which direction you’d like to grow in and figure out which of your services can best address your audiences’ needs. Use these insights to develop a content marketing strategy for how you’ll increase your firm’s visibility and further improve your reputation in your industry. Demonstrate your expertise. Focus on educating your audiences and focus your marketing on techniques that will prove your expertise. These marketing efforts might include speaking engagements, blog posts and articles, email marketing, or writing the go-to book in your industry niche. Build your professional network. Making professional connections is a great way to position your brand as a trusted authority. Utilize social media networks — especially LinkedIn — to connect with other leaders in your industry and build a professional network. Build out your visibility. Think about how easy it is for potential non-client referrers to find your firm online. Use SEO strategies to make your website more visible on search engines and showcase your expertise across the platforms that your audiences are on. With a referral marketing strategy that takes into account both client and non-client referrals, your firm can stay more competitive and attract more new business. Rather than simply relying on current clients to provide the bulk of your referrals, your firm can use your brand to get referrals based on your reputation and expertise. Lee W. Frederiksen, Ph.D., is Managing Partner at Hinge, the leading branding and marketing firm for the professional services. Hinge conducts groundbreaking research into high growth firms and offers a complete suite of services for firms that want to become more visible and grow. Lee can be reached at LFrederiksen@hingemarketing.com or 703-391-8870. Related Posts: Live at #BMA15: Should B2B brands be on Pinterest? 2015 priorities for professional services marketers 7 signs you need a social media audit How to become a thought leader in your industry 5 ways to extend the life of your content Brand building: The path to generating more referrals originally published by SmartBlogs

SmartPulse — our weekly nonscientific reader poll in SmartBrief on Leadership — tracks feedback from more than 190,000 business leaders. We run the poll question each week in our e-newsletter. How effectively do you recruit and hire outstanding talent? Very — we consistently higher top performers: 16.24% Somewhat — we get high performers from time to time: 42.44% Not very — we struggle to find and hire top talent: 30.26% Not at all — it’s rare that we bring on a top performer: 11.07% Good People are Hard to Find. Top talent is difficult to find and even harder to get in the door. Once you’ve got them, it’s also hard to keep them. To increase the amount of top talent you bring in and hold onto, look for them in nontraditional settings. Recruit from sources that aren’t the well known ones. Look for "best athletes" versus someone with a ton of experience in that particular field. And be sure to hire them for their next role in your organization so they have room to grow. If you follow the rules for hiring and retaining top talent, your performance should improve dramatically. Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, author of "Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results" and "One Piece of Paper: The Simple Approach to Powerful, Personal Leadership." Related Posts: How quickly does your organization make decisions? How does your organization deal with "bad behavior"? How well do you differentiate performance in performance reviews? How well do you push your own thinking before involving others? How effectively do content marketing efforts (blogs, white papers, etc.) drive action by your customers? How effectively do you recruit and hire outstanding talent? originally published by SmartBlogs

Are you ready to increase creativity, collaboration and independence in the classroom? Incorporating digital tools into your small group instruction can go a long way toward achieving this. In my kindergarten class, I introduce technology during the small group rotations. The day begins with mini lessons for the whole class, introducing new content and reviewing different skills. After this, we break off into small group station work. The small groups enable me to differentiate instruction and better meet the needs of individual students. Devices and apps are incorporated into the activities of these stations. Here’s an example of the station rotations: Rotation 1: Guided teacher instruction. At this station, instruction varies based upon the needs of the group. Example activities include guided reading, intervention/enrichment work and introducing new apps. Rotation 2: Independent peer practice. Students work independently or in pairs/groups to reinforce learning. This may include learning games or collaborating on an iPad activity. Rotation 3: iPads. Students use iPads and different apps including Lexia, MobyMax, Raz-Kids, QR code scanning or other educational apps. I may also have them work on activities where they create projects using Educreations, Book Creator or Knowmia Teach. Rotation 4: iPads- We have two options for this station. I either 1) use a second technology station or 2) have the students use the writing wall, made of Plexiglass. Activities for these stations aim to reinforce writing skills (letters, numbers, sight words, number words/sets, sentence copying/writing). This model has been very effective for my students. They are more engaged with activities and take ownership of their learning. Working alongside peers also strengthens communication and social skills. The mix of teacher instruction and high quality digital content has brought together the best of both worlds. Tracey Dunn is a kindergarten teacher at Hopkins Elementary School in Mentor, Ohio. She has a B.A. from John Carroll University and an M.Ed. from Ashland University. Tracey was listed as one of the National School Board Association’s 20 to Watch in February 2014. She received the Teacher Innovator Award in January 2014 at the Ohio Educational Technology Conference, and was a part of the Ohio Trendsetter Award for Mentor Public Schools’ Catalyst Program.  ***** Tech Tips is a content collaboration between SmartBrief Education and GreyED Solutions. Have a tech tip to share? Contact us at techtips@greyedsolutions.com Miss a Tech Tip? Visit our Tech Tip archive.  ***** Related Posts: No Related Posts Tech Tip: Technology supports differentiated instruction in the elementary classroom originally published by SmartBlogs

If you could bring your best boss into your current team or organization right now, what would she do? What would she change or refine to ensure team members are engaged, serving, producing, and feeling trusted and respected every day? My best boss was Jerry Nutter. I spent 15 years in nonprofit management and enjoyed some good bosses, some lousy bosses and one really amazing great boss: Jerry. He created a work environment that was a joy to operate in. Team members knew exactly what was expected of us — goals were clear, formally defined, and aligned to our team strategy. Values were also clear. Team members knew exactly how we were to treat each other and our customers — those customers inside and outside of our team. Jerry held us accountable, in every interaction, for aligned performance and aligned values. And we thrived. We loved coming to work. We worked hard and were amazingly productive. We trusted each other. We helped each other. We respected our peers even if we disagreed with a decision or approach. This environment did not happen by default. Jerry crafted it, intentionally, and managed it kindly and responsibly. Our ground rules — behaviors that showed we were living our team values — were formalized. Our goals were formalized. Jerry kept us laughing through the hectic times and praised us daily for our efforts as well as our accomplishments. Jerry invested time every day in the quality of our work environment. He didn’t leave it to chance. Aligned, inspiring workplaces never happen by chance. You have, throughout your career, had similar experiences to mine. You had lousy bosses, good bosses, and a few great bosses. Your current team my not have been your creation. You may have inherited that team. You may not be a formal leader of your current team, but you have leadership impact no matter your title. If your best boss came in today and spent a week observing your team’s interactions, performance, service and engagement, what suggestions would she have to increase performance and values alignment? Would you be like most teams that I see across the globe today? If so, your best boss would likely see competing priorities: "I win, you lose" policies and behaviors; uncaring service interactions; hoarding of information, etc. On the surface, things look fine. Below the surface, team members are anxious, distrusting, selfish and cheer others’ difficulties. If your best boss was like Jerry, he’d direct you to make performance expectations clear and act daily to ensure team members deliver on their performance promises. He’d direct you to create values rules, in the form of valued behaviors, so team members would know how they are expected to treat each other and customers. And, he’d direct you to act daily to model those valued behaviors, praise aligned behaviors and redirect misaligned behaviors. We know what works best. We just need a little push from our best bosses to put those liberating rules into practice in our teams and organizations. What do you think? To what extent does your current team have clearly defined performance expectations and values standards defined in behavioral terms? If they do, how well do they deliver on both performance and values? Share your thoughts about this post/podcast in the comments section below. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter. Subscribers enjoy free resources and insights plus details on upcoming events and books. My latest book, "The Culture Engine," helps leaders create workplace inspiration with an organizational constitution. Podcast - Listen to this post now by clicking the podcast link at left. Subscribe via RSS or iTunes. The music heard on these podcasts is from one of my songs, "Heartfelt," copyright © 2005-2015 Chris Edmonds Music (ASCAP). I play all instruments on these recordings. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily career development newsletter. Related Posts: Want front-line leaders and players to make great decisions? Clear the fog The performance-values conundrum Encourage and empower through contribution management The gift of time Leadership tough love: Never judge or budge What would your best boss do today? originally published by SmartBlogs

A middle-school English Language Arts teacher recently lost her job at the private school where she had been teaching for nearly 13 years. The school’s new superintendent had looked into the teacher’s file and discovered she didn’t have a teaching credential. He acknowledged her master’s degree in elementary education - and the considerable successes she’d had over the years, leading the English department and coaching the school’s academic teams - but said that without a credential, her contract would not be renewed. I spoke with this teacher shortly after her meeting with the superintendent. What discouraged her most was the thought of having to return to school - at substantial cost - and go through the motions of a credential program. "I have a master’s degree and more than a decade of classroom experience," she explained, frustrated. "How does that count for nothing? I’m fine going through training but a year? Plus the expense? There has to be a better way." This conversation struck a nerve with me. Her argument made sense. In the age of technology and new forms of education, such as MOOCs and competency-based learning programs, why do teacher training and development programs still seem stuck in the proverbial mud of tradition? Are educators ready for new, more efficient and effective, systems? We posed this question to the SmartBrief on EdTech readers this month to get their take. EdTech readers overwhelmingly support competency-based learning for teacher training and development. Eighty-four percent favor a competency-based system that enables teachers with advanced degrees and experience to fast track their way to a credential. Seventy-nine percent support competency-based learning for teacher professional development. Here’s a look at the full poll results: Is it time for a new system that allows you to earn credentials and certifications through MOOCs, professional learning networks and open educational resources? Yes, provided there are measures in place to ensure rigorous, high-quality instruction and assessment. 69% Traditional credential programs are the best way to train quality educators. 31% Many teachers have advanced degrees and classroom experience but no credential. Should there be a competency-based program that allows these seasoned professionals to fast track their way to a clear credential? Yes: 84% No: 16% Do you favor a personalized, competency-based learning program for teacher professional development? Yes: 79% No: 21% Technology has opened the door for us to create new teacher training programs that are effective and efficient—programs that will produce high-quality educators. And teachers seem ready for new opportunities. What say you? Let us know. Drop us a line or leave a comment in the space below. Related Posts: No Related Posts Pulling teacher training programs out of the mud originally published by SmartBlogs

SmartBlog on Education will highlight summer learning and enrichment for educators during June. In this post, science teacher and technology advocate Shantel Popp shares a model for exam review, including the tech tools she uses to support her efforts. During the last two weeks of the school year, my grade 7 and 8 classes gear up for their final exams. We use exam review in the middle school as a platform to prepare students for exam success before entering high school and beyond. However, in order to succeed on an exam, you need to know how to effectively write an exam. This is where I try and leverage technology tools for exam preparation and review. First, my classes learn about the different sections of their exam in each class. We spend an entire class on multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, true-or-false and short-answer question types. Using my multiple-choice exam review class as an example, I’ll explain what students can do to be effective in their study routine. First, as a class, we record an Explain Everything video that breaks down tips and tricks for how to properly answer multiple-choice questions. This is more than just "re-read the question" advice, it is centered on finding details, looking for answers you know aren’t correct and understanding what "all of the above" means when you circle it! When the Explain Everything video is completed, we post it to Google Drive. This gives the students a chance to review it later when they’re studying at home. The next thing we do is very student-centered. Students break into groups, and we use large white boards to create a variety of different multiple-choice questions based on the content of the units we studied during the year. Once these questions are completed, students go around and take pictures using their iPads of all the other groups’ questions. Then, they return to their original groups and use Notability to annotate correct answers onto all the multiple-choice questions. This same routine is continued for the other aspects of the exam, so students not only understand how to write an exam, but also are reviewing what to study at the same time. Quizlet is another app worth sharing. It is free from the App store and students can generate matching, flash cards or fill-in-the-blank questions using content from their lessons all year. The students can then add their classmates to their Quizlet, and they can practice on each other’s quizzes. It is a bit of "game theory" where I allow my students to exam review in a way that feels like a game and is inclusive and fun for all. Shantel Popp (@MsPoppScience) is a science teacher and technology advocate in Ontario, Canada. She has been a teacher at Holy Trinity School in Richmond Hill since 2012. With an avid interest in teaching with technology, Shantel continues to take courses, work with teaching partners and share ideas with other faculty. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about education. We offer newsletters covering educational leadership, special education and more. Related Posts: Grow like the grass Summer is a great time for self-paced learning How libraries can support summer-reading programs Retreat to advance 4 R’s of summer school: Keeping the momentum going How exam review prepares students for success originally published by SmartBlogs

Photo: Flickr user Joi Ito Increasingly adventurous restaurant guests aren’t settling for plain grilled cheese or the same-old Swiss on a sandwich, chefs say. Foodies and their ever-more sophisticated palates are in search of new flavors, and eateries are answering the call with innovative dishes that meld flavors from around the world. Rob and Karen Lawlor left restaurant careers when they bought Denver-based The Truffle Cheese Shop eight years ago and, in addition to selling retail and teaching cheesemaking classes, the shop sells its cheese to a long and growing list of local eateries. In recent years, Denver’s restaurants have gotten more innovative with their menus to feed the increasingly sophisticated palates of their guests, Karen Lawlor said. "The restaurants in Denver are more sophisticated than they were even five years ago, and they’re looking for European products as well as local," she said. These days, the shop stocks cheeses from a growing list of countries and regions including France, Italy, Spain, Croatia, Switzerland and Denmark. "There are some we sell as a seasonal product," said Karen Lawlor. "Right now it’s a lot of fresh cheeses, mozzarella, ricotta, fresca. Those are seasonal for us, the fresh milk cheese because animals eat grass and when the grass is in season and fresh, that’s when they are most likely to have fresh milk." Andrea Frizzi, chef and owner of Il Posto in Denver is a Truffle Cheese Shop customer. Frizzi grew up in Milan, the son of a sommelier who learned the culinary trade, first in school and then in a series of restaurant gigs that brought him to Washington, D.C. and eventually Denver. He worked as a consultant on the openings of scores of eateries before opening Il Posto in 2007. He’s all for local sourcing when it makes sense, but the Italian menu at his upscale restaurant requires imported Italian cheeses. "I’ve got to use Parmigiano Reggiano, I can’t use a cheese from Wisconsin or California." That authenticity is even more important as the foodie culture continues to grow, he said. "Before it was always the sames things, grilled cheese, cheese sauces or steak and a sharp cheese. Now the cheese course is a lot more complicated." The menu at Il Posto reflects the more sophisticated tastes, with dishes including Bufala mozzarella Affumicata made with imported burrata, and ricotta gnocchi with imported Grana Padano. "In Italy, there are a lot of small producers doing a lot of stuff that’s really cool. My job is to take whatever we have and be an ambassador for these beautiful cheeses," he said. Frizzi says he loves dairy cheese too much to ever give it up. Increasingly, though, guests who eschew dairy cheeses for health or ethical reasons have increasingly tasty plant-based options. The menu at Veganized Foods in New Brunswick, N.J., includes 14 items that have some type of house-made, cashew-based vegan cheese, said General Manager El Rachmani. The menu at Veganized includes a raw beet ravioli with herbed nut cheese and saffron cream, a tempeh reuben with cashew cheese and a vanilla cheesecake, all made with different versions of the cultured cashew cheese he said. "We’ve pretty much been using the same recipe since day one," he said. "My brother, the chef, has been making this kind of food for a very long time. We started in Brooklyn, were the more advanced vegan chefs have been doing it all over the city." __________________________________________________ If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s email list for more stories about the food and beverage industry. We offer 14 newsletters covering the industry from restaurants to food manufacturing. Related Posts: Cool beer, wine and cocktail trends to quench summer thirsts Prepared foods report: New consumer behaviors hone in on fresh, healthy and sustainable Beverage trends: Consumers gulp down coffee, natural, seasonal and premium How Newk’s Eatery sees fast-casual 2.0 Q-and-A: Fast-casual pioneer Aaron Kennedy What’s new on the cheese plates in restaurants? originally published by SmartBlogs

Given all of the pronouncements regarding the failing health of organic social media, we’re reminded of the peasant in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," who cries, "I’m not dead yet!" only to be clubbed on the head shortly thereafter. Though the reach of organic social media has continued its downward spiral, there are glimmers of hope among best-in-class practitioners who are cleverly avoiding the death knell. 1. Celebrity engagement At the recent Social Media Shake-up, John Yembrick of NASA dazzled the crowd with myriad examples of opportunistic engagement. One involved Justin Bieber, who happened to mention on Twitter that he was interested in doing a concert in space. \NASA not only responded, "Maybe we can help you with that," but also added a clever wink to Biebers song "All Around the World." Needless to say, the "Beliebers" went crazy over this reply, which ended up generating millions of impressions among a young audience that NASA very much wants to inspire. 2. Real-time hijacking Yembrick also talked about how social media has helped generate broad-based interest in NASA activities by inserting NASA into other topical conversations. For example, NASA turned the biggest shopping day of the year into Black (Hole) Friday and the biggest football game into Super (Nova) Sunday. In both cases, NASA "hijacked" popular conversations in a fun and relevant way and delivered amazing photos from various spacecraft, thus encouraging further content exploration. 3. Extending content Former The Weather Channel CMO Scot Safon offered numerous examples of how organic social still works for TWC during a Shake-up panel discussion led by yours truly. "People love to share videos and pictures of weather," explained Safon, and social was particular effective at driving "people to severe storm coverage." Media companies like The Weather Channel, however, have a clear advantage when it comes to getting value out of organic social, Safon conceded given the fact that consumers seek out their content. 4. Boosting goodness Even brands with a large content-creation staff like The Weather Channel still rely on paid "boosts" to get the conversation started. Prior to making these investments, however, Safon and his team often conducted A/B tests to see which content encouraged the most sharing and drove the most traffic back to TWC site. Creating lots of content for testing was "not daunting," given their sizeable in-house production team, Safon reported. These paid boosts, with the right content, fueled significant increases in organic reach. 5. Embed social into the product Among the holy grails for organic social media is getting users to create content that references the brand. For Katharine Mobley, CMO at WeCareCard (also on my panel with Safon) this started by embedding social activity into the product itself. Describing itself as "cause funding meets prepaid MasterCard," WeCardCard encourages customers to develop their own fundraising campaigns via good storytelling and extensive use of their personal social networks. Concludes Mobley, "Social plays an enormous role in our company; it is the very being of web-based cause funding." 6. Event amplification At the recent Cvent Connect conference in Las Vegas, a confab that brought together thousands of event marketers from around the globe, the tables turned as I joined a panel on getting the most out of social media at events. Fellow panelist Joe Meehan of the Milken Institute shared how the strategic use of hashtags for each of their conferences dramatically increased awareness of these programs. Meehan encouraged fellow event marketers to seek hashtags that were as short as possible, relevant to the event and vetted in advance to make sure they weren’t in use or had alternative meanings. Drew Neisser is the founder and CEO of Renegade, a leading-edge social media & content marketing agency in NYC. For his complete interviews with Scot Safon and Katharine Mobley among others, be sure to visit TheDrewBlog.com. Related Posts: How to respond to Facebook’s declining organic reach 7 signs you need a social media audit How to create the 1% of branded content that engages The normalization of deviance: When saying "We’ve never had problems before" becomes a problem Create less content and drive more engagement with Facebook ads 6 ways to pump life into organic social media originally published by SmartBlogs

I remember once sitting around the table with my faculty advisory committee. The committee consisted of four teachers from different grade levels and disciplines within the school and was designed to offer me feedback on various programs and change initiatives as well as be my ears on the ground. At one point the conversation moved to hand written thank you notes that I had penned for each staff member over the summer and left for them on the first day of teacher meetings. The text was largely the same for each note, with one unique line for every staff member that highlighted a personal quality. It read: "I really appreciate the way that you…" and would focus on something like a teacher’s passion, creativity, contribution to the team, etc. One committee member commented on how much the note that she received meant to her. She had posted it on the wall above her desk and looked at it often for inspiration. It is not a secret that job satisfaction in this country is not where it should be. A 2014 Conference Board report says that the majority of Americans (52.3%) are unhappy at work. What makes our workers happiest? The CB report says that "interest in work" provides satisfaction to 59% of the workplace. Even more fulfilling was "people at work," which 60.6% said they liked. Similarly, an expansive study by Boston Consulting Group found that the No. 1 factor for employee happiness on the job is getting appreciated for work. (There are many other factors that contribute to workplace happiness, such as strong alignment between skills, passion and job description, as well as fair, if not robust, compensation.) The question for me is this: If interpersonal relationships and the expression of appreciation are so important to employees, why aren’t leaders spending more time doing it (as evidenced by the high rate of employment-related unhappiness)? It would appear that the following factors and mindsets are to blame: It takes too much time. Leaders are busy people with many responsibilities. Their days are filled with meetings, tasks to complete, and employees to oversee and evaluate. There simply isn’t the time to share praise and appreciation, particularly to craft words that are sincere and personal. I really need to get to know my people. It’s really hard to express such feelings to people that you don’t know all that well, particularly on a personal level. Getting to know people takes time, effort, and a genuine desire to connect with others. Easier said than done. If I praise one person, I need to do so for everyone else. So often, we get stuck in the mindset of equality leadership, meaning to say that if we demonstrate approval of one employee we must do so for all. We fear that it may come across as preferential treatment to only acknowledge some of our colleagues. And, as we noted above, who has the time to praise ‘em all? I don’t need it, why should they? Leaders are typically hard working folks who earned their posts in part because of their deep levels of commitment and self-motivation. They think that their people should be similarly motivated, and that praise and other external influences are to be avoided. I don’t want to create smugness and complacency. Perhaps some leaders worry that excessive praise will lead to slacking and other adverse effects. People who think that they are succeeding often take their foot off of the gas pedal, and fail to achieve to previous levels. Is it really such a big deal? While research clearly demonstrates the connection between recognition and job satisfaction, it may not be clear that satisfaction at the workplace really matters. Who cares if they’re happy, so long as the work gets done? Without question, such thinking is both narrow and counterproductive. Logic dictates that satisfied, appreciated employees make for happy, productive workplaces. They are likelier to be engaged in their work, to convey positivity to others, and to remain focused and determined when things get tough, because they know that their efforts aren’t going unnoticed or appreciated. They will also likely stick around when other opportunities present themselves, cutting down on recruitment and training costs, not to mention the impact of losing a key player in the middle of an important project. And, to those leaders who think that they did not ever need some support and appreciation to get the job done, I ask how much more they could have achieved with more fuel to fire their engines. The implication for leaders is that appreciation has to be expressed, even if it means taking from something else or delegating some current responsibilities. Donald Peterson, former chairman of Ford Motor Co., said the most important 10 minutes of his day were spent boosting the people around him. He understood that his people needed to be stroked, and used a few minutes each day to get his employees charged up for success. So take the time to get to know everyone well. This way you can offer targeted, meaningful, personal feedback to everyone in your employ. If you do not oversee someone, ask their supervisor about their performance and special qualities. And then find ways to express them. Orally is good. In writing is even better, because they can show it off and refer back during tough moments. Don’t worry about smugness or complacency. Continue to set goals with them and hold them accountable. That will keep the honest, focused and growth-oriented. Mark Twain famously said that he could go for two months on one strong compliment. If Twain, with all of his success, notoriety, and acclaim, was so dependent on others’ opinions, think about how much your well-delivered and considerate comments can do for the people who you are paying to help you grow and advance your business. Naphtali Hoff (@impactfulcoach) became an executive coach and consultant following a 15-year career as an educator and school administrator. Read his e-book "Core Essentials of Leadership" and his blog at impactfulcoaching.com/blog. If you enjoyed this article, join SmartBrief’s e-mail list for our daily newsletter on being a better, smarter leader. Related Posts: What would your best boss do today? Are you the wrong type of "engaged" leader? The new one-minute manager The performance-values conundrum What’s the best performance advice you’ve received from an employee? Make your feedback personal originally published by SmartBlogs