Category Archives: influence

Career Confessions from Gen Z: The 4 Essentials Every Office Should Have!

Posted on by
2

Ever since I was little, I’ve been pretty particular about the spaces that I live in. For my 12th birthday, my parents took me to Ikea and Target and let me “re-do my room” with a New York theme. I can also vividly remember the time when my Mom and I went to tour a college in Upstate New York and we almost left the hotel because we were worried about bed bugs. This particularness caused a lot of stress before going off to college about having to share a room with another teenage boy (a personal nightmare for me).

As I am entering the workforce, I know that this will carry over into the office that I work in. On average, a person will spend about ⅓ of their life at work. That’s longer than most of us will spend at any house we will ever live in! Since I’ve started interning, I’ve noticed some things that have made a big impact on my happiness and productivity at work:

1. Drink Machines: I am drinking water CONSTANTLY and I know that almost everyone sitting around me has a water bottle or cup at their desk. Having a water machine, like a Brita filter attachment or a Bevi machine, is more important to me than having elaborate coffee makers or nice vending machines. (editor’s note – the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – I’m a life-long advocate for a Diet Mt. Dew soda fountain in the office!) 

2. No Cubicles: I didn’t anticipate this making such a difference, but I now do not want to work in a cubicle. At Quicken Loans (where I’m interning!), we have little half walls that make rows and columns, but they are short enough to see and talk to the people around you. This creates a much more open environment so I can ask questions without getting up or I can eavesdrop on other people’s conversations!

3. Bathrooms: Read my last post for more of my feelings about bathrooms at work but basically, just make them nice.

4. Updated Decor: I get that office decor is difficult. You’re never going to please everyone’s tastes, it’s expensive etc. BUT you could at least put in a little bit of effort to put some decor on your walls that is from this century. A good rule of thumb: if your decor is older than some of your employees, you probably should get rid of it! There’s nothing sadder to me than being surrounded by gray all the time. Liven it up a little!

Now, I could go on for a while about what else I look for in an office, but these are just the basics. Just put a little effort to meet your employee’s requests, and you’ll probably be on the right track!

Another Editor’s Note (because apparently, I don’t have my own platform to say anything I want): I’ve been telling HR leaders this for a couple of years now. With Gen Z – Design matters! It matters in your employment brand, it matters in your personal workspaces, it matters for younger generations. Perception of working in a great place is influenced by design. Don’t discount it! 

 

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

7 Things Startups Teach Us That We All Need to Learn!

Posted on by
1

My buddy John Hill works for Techstars as the VP of Network, go connect with him, he’s completely an awesome guy who will sit down and have a beer with you and talk about how to change the world for hours!  Last week he got to meet the latest crop of Techstar startups and came away motivated with some great learnings.

Here are John’s takeaways from the newest Techstar startups:

1. Nothing beats hustle. Nothing.

2. The world is full of good ideas, but only a few will execute on them.

3. Relational capital is vital.

4. Networks matter. Surround yourself with those who can help you.

5. There are some wicked smart people in the world.

6. To build a great company you need help with funding, talent, and connections to business/industry to scale and the understanding of how to navigate each.

7. Suspend disbelief!

I’m drawn to each of the seven for different reasons but #2 jumps out because I witness this on a daily basis. There are two kinds of people in the world: those who execute and those who talk about executing. Hire those who execute. Understand that they are rare and you should overpay for this ‘skill’.

Do you notice nowhere on his list does he talk about failure. John is a motherfucking doer! He gets shit done. Techstars will only take a chance on startups led by people who will execute. John talks about ways to succeed not about just throwing caution to the wind and failing. The reality is most will fail, setting yourself up for success is key.

I love that he ends his list with “Suspend disbelief”. The world is a critic. Those who make it big have that special combination of John’s list. Great idea, ability to execute, the right network to make it happen, super smart, etc. What they also have is true belief! At the end of the day, you have to believe 1000% your idea is going to work. No part of you even questions that it won’t.

If it didn’t work you would be destroyed because your belief was so strong that you never saw it coming when it fails. That’s how most great ideas actually make it. You find a combination of all of these things and you put money and resources behind it.

These 7 learnings aren’t about how to make a startup successful. These are how you make anything successful that you’re working on.

The Single Biggest Factor in Finding Your Dream Job!

Posted on by
2

I’ve been given the opportunity to speak to a number of high school and college graduating seniors. The one common question from both groups, I get frequently, is “how can I get my dream job?”  It’s a simple question, with about one million possible answers.  Which makes it a tough question to answer in front of a group.

I think I might have found the perfect answer to this question.  From Penn State football coach, James Franklin, when asked at a conference how does a graduate assistant move up in the college football coaching ranks:

“It comes down to people and opportunities for growth. I always tell people to stay broke for as long as possible.  When you have a car payment and other things like that, it becomes a factor. Keeping money out of it allows you to chase your dreams longer.”

Stay broke as long as possible.

Internet personality, Gary Vaynerchuk (Gary Vee), says basically the same thing when people ask him how they work at something they just love to do. He will tell them you need to then live the lifestyle that affords you the ability to do what you love. If you love to pet puppies all day, you can’t live in a mansion! You’ll probably live in a box.

But, if that’s truly your passion in life, then that’s what you need to do to make it happen. What he finds is people who are willing to lower their lifestyle to do what they love are usually the ones who end up making money doing what they love. The theory being they found a way to live doing what they love, and little by little, they’ll find a way to make money doing what they love. Most people are unwilling to change their lifestyle to do what they love.

I remember back to when I first got out of college and was making $20,000 at my first job.  The reality was, I could have gone almost anywhere and made $20,000.  The money wasn’t the draw of the position, the opportunity was.  If it wasn’t for me, I could go and try something else. I had a crappy car and $400 per month apartment. I didn’t have life obligations that were going to stop me from chasing a dream.

Fast forward five years and now I have a new car, a new house, and a new kid.  Chasing a dream would be much more difficult.

You hear it all the time, chasing dreams is for the young. Not because the young necessarily have better dreams or are better equipped at chasing dreams, it’s because the young can ‘afford’ to chase their dreams.  They, usually, have little holding them back, financially.  The older you get, the more responsibilities you have and the larger tax bracket you’re usually in.

Leaving a $20,000 job to chase my dream wasn’t going to be a problem. Leaving $100,000 job to chase my dream was going to be a problem.

No one really wants to tell you this in their ultra-motivational writings and speakings.  “Go chase your dream! Don’t let anything or anyone stop you!… Just be prepared to have nothing for a while!”

We never get to hear that last part.

Want to be an NFL Referee? It’s a great gig! You just have to put about 15-20 years in at being a referee at every other level where you make peanuts and have to work other jobs to make ends meet. Yes, you can get there.  No, you won’t get rich getting there.

You can definitely go out and work towards getting your dream job.   Being broke will help you with that.  It takes away the fear of failure and losing what you have.  If you have very little, losing it doesn’t seem as bad.  If you have a nice life, giving it all up, seems extremely hard.

Being broke, in a very ironic way, gives you more options, when it comes to a dream job!

Sometimes “Proof” is just another word for letting people suffer!

Posted on by
6

I’m a formally trained and educated human resource professional. I’m a leader in my organization. I understand risk really well.

What I see far too often, and it seems like it’s happening more frequently, not less, in organizations are we (HR pros and leaders) are looking for defining proof before we are willing to do something about something that is wrong.

Malcolm Gladwell on this podcast Revisionist History said this quote:

“Sometimes “Proof” is just another word for letting people suffer.”

Think about that for a moment.

Many times we know something is going on is wrong, but we don’t have ‘proof’. We don’t have real proof of this wrongdoing, but we know with every part of our being that someone is being wronged. So, we do nothing. We let people suffer because we lack proof.

Proof is what most HR pros and leaders will hang their hat on. A great HR pro and leader won’t do anything without proof! We are trained and educated to have proof. Without proof, legally, we put ourselves in a risky position.

Here is my challenge to you.

Stop letting people suffer due to lack of proof. You have employees who are suffering and you are hiding behind lack of proof as a reason and it’s wrong.

Yes, you don’t have proof, and, yes, this might come back and bite you, but at some point, we have a foundational requirement to help others who are suffering, even if it gets us in trouble.

I’m willing to be fired for trying to do the right thing. I’m not willing to work in a career that allows people to suffer because I can’t ‘prove’ something. Hundreds of athletes get molested by a doctor because we don’t have proof. A hiring manager is racist but we don’t have proof. A co-worker is harassing another employee but we don’t have proof. Your CEO is a misogynist but you don’t have proof.

Sometimes “proof” is just another word for letting people suffer…

Who is suffering in your organization today?

Career Confessions of Gen Z: Is Humor Generational?

Posted on by
2

Growing up, I had to deal with many instances of embarrassment. Not only was I a normal awkward pre-teen that had braces and didn’t know how to talk to people, I also had Tim Sackett as my father. As many of you know, my Dad has a very interesting sense of humor. My Mom likes to explain it like this: when you’re making a joke, there’s a line and if you cross that line, you enter a place where you can offend someone. My Father has no regard for this line whatsoever and is constantly crossing it. Many people (me included) think my Dad is hilarious, but I always was constantly worried that my Dad was going to embarrass me in some way or offend someone.

Recently, there seems to be a gap between certain generations and what they find funny. We are seeing more and more instances of people getting offended or feeling uncomfortable from a joke made by someone from a different generation. While this type of thing isn’t uncommon, it can be particularly tricky in an era where being more culturally aware or politically correct is more of a concern. There are two types of situations to watch out for when thinking about humor in a workplace: instances of potential insulting or instances of a lack of understanding.

When it comes to offensive jokes, the bottom line is just don’t be a dick. My best advice is to follow the age-old Golden Rule: if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. If you avoid making negative jokes about a certain group, then you most likely are avoiding any potential harm.

There is some gray area with this and I would say to avoid anything that might be slightly perceived as negative in situations where you are new or you might not know the receivers of your joke super well. In these instances, a good general guideline is to not say anything you wouldn’t want your Mom hearing you say. If you’re more comfortable with the people around, then go for it. Also, I am not a woman but I will do my best to speak for them, so please don’t say anything creepy. It’s just gross (I’m looking at you old men).

The other category of humor problems is a lack of understanding. In certain circumstances, there is an obvious age gap and this can lead to a difference in humor. One of my favorite recent examples of this is the obsession with Tide Pods. Personally, I hate Tide Pods because on multiple occasions, they have stained my clothes but that’s beside the point. Gen-Zer’s love to claim that Tide Pods looked good enough to eat and every parent in the world lost their mind. My generation thought that the countless memes about Tide Pods were hilarious, but Moms everywhere thought that the teens of the world were really stupid and wanted to eat laundry detergent.

While some idiot probably did try one, this wasn’t a generational movement to kill ourselves by ingesting harmful chemicals. In these cases, maybe just let it be. If you don’t understand something from a generation, then try to avoid making a joke about it. And if you really don’t understand something, just ask! For the most part, people are nice and more than willing to explain something.

Growing up with my Father, I have gained a pretty good tolerance for offensive jokes but my overall point is don’t be an asshole. My Dad may have made some pretty vulgar and raunchy things in the day, but he’s only done them with good intentions; he wasn’t actively trying to piss anyone off (Editor/Dad note: Yes I was!). If you approach your jokes in this same way, then you more than likely will be fine.

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a Gen Z? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions from Gen Z: The Spiral of Silence is Strong With This One!

Posted on by
4

A hot topic of discussion this week was Kayne West. It seems as if Kayne or other members of his family are always infiltrating our lives, but this news was bigger than most. Kayne sparked some controversy when he publicly announced his support for President Trump on Twitter. Many people had a hay-day, calling him out for his support, while others supported him for sharing his opinion regardless of its unpopularity.

His tweets and the following responses got me thinking about unpopular opinions. We all have them. For instance, I don’t like Mac n Cheese. You may not like Beyoncé, which is just wrong, but that’s beside the point. Everyone likes or dislikes something that is in opposition to the norm.

I want to clarify something about my definition of the word ‘unpopular’. The word is defined as “not liked or popular”. There are two sides to this definition. One side speaks to the majority opinion or whether something is liked or not liked by the majority. The ‘popular’ part is interesting because something that is popular may not be liked by the majority.

There is a common phenomenon called the “spiral of silence”, where people who hold unpopular opinions are a lot less likely to share these opinions because they fear social isolation. It makes sense; why would anyone want to share their feelings and then get hated on for them?

In a world where everyone is sharing everything at all times, it’s hard to conceal these opinions. Often when they are brought up, we find ourselves lying to others or staying quiet, but this isn’t always beneficial. While it may be okay to keep your opinions on Trump’s tax plan to yourself and save everyone from a heated argument, it may be helpful to share your feelings on a team decision even if it contradicts everyone else.

Although the concealing of unpopular opinions is done in all groups and at all ages, it is especially found amongst young people. Adolescents are inherently more insecure because duh and thus, they are much more unlikely to speak up and share their not popular feelings.

This serves as a love letter to my generation and a warning to my elders. To my fellow Gen-Zer’s, don’t be afraid to speak up and don’t be afraid to disagree with everyone else! To the millennials and Gen-Xer’s and whoever else is reading this, be on the lookout for your agreeing Gen-Z employees. Encourage them to speak their opinion in a comfortable scenario. And try to be sympathetic if you find them agreeing with the majority because we were all self-conscious young people once.

Also, I’d like to point out that I learned about the “spiral of silence” in one of my classes this semester and I’m out here applying it to real-world scenarios! (@my professors and @my parents).

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Career Confessions from Gen-Z: What is Gen-Z looking for in a Mentorship Program?

Posted on by
Reply

Hey everyone, I’m back! I took a week hiatus (finals week man) and more Gen-Z posts are coming your way! (Dad editor’s note: I didn’t give him a week off for finals! Buck up, son! Welcome to the show! It’s called multi-tasking! Sure I’m paying you nothing, but I still expect a post each week!) 

For my freshman year of college, I wanted to get away from Michigan and the Mid West. So, I decided to move to New York and attend a school called Marist College. At Marist, I was on the swim team and was immediately overwhelmed. Swim was hard, being away from my Mom was hard, having no friends was hard. It was a rough time.

Before I had gone to college, I had signed up to be apart of a student-athlete mentorship program, where upperclassmen athletes at Marist got paired with freshman athletes of different sports. I got paired up with a guy from the cross country team and I immediately knew that I didn’t want to be apart of the program. The purpose of the program was to meet up, maybe get lunch or coffee, and talk through any problems you’re having at school and in your sport. After a few forced hangout sessions, we stopped talking altogether and went our separate ways.

Now, I think that mentorship programs are a great idea. Having gone through a program myself, and not getting much out of it, I have gathered my own list of how to make a successful mentor program and what I would like to get from a mentor:

  1. Be Relatable: A key characteristic of having a good mentor relationship is being able to relate to them. The mentor needs to be able to relate to their “mentee” and vice versa, or there won’t be any necessary help given or received. This is the main reason that my mentor relationship wasn’t successful. We had absolutely nothing in common and neither of us could relate to the other. 
  2. Be a Role Model: As a mentee, I would like to be able to look up to my mentor. I want my mentor to have some quality that makes me want to be like them. Although it would be nice, it isn’t vital for a mentee to want the same exact position as their mentor but is vital that the mentor possesses some qualities that the mentee aspires to have.
  3. Share Advice: This feels like a no-brainer, but it relates back to the type of mentor/mentee relationship you have. In order to give worthwhile and helpful advice, you need to be able to relate to your mentor/mentee AND the mentor needs to be a role model figure. In my mentor relationship, I received a lot of advice but none of it was necessary to my experience. The things that I needed advice on, like how to choose a major or how to handle being far from home, weren’t areas that my mentor had any advice to give.

****Bonus factor! Experience: This is my extra little bonus factor to making a mentor program top notch. Any experience that a mentee can directly gain with their mentor by their side will not only be the best form of “advice” they can get, but it will help to strengthen the relationship. Something that a mentor/mentee duo can do together to gain experience is a group project in whatever field the mentee is interested in. This may feel a little intern-y but most of your Gen-Z employees will be interns anyways!

You can follow as much or as little advice as you want from this but the bottom line for a successful mentor program is effort. If both sides are willing to try and get something positive out of the experience, then they probably will! Not every mentor you have can be like Yoda (I know very little about Star Wars but hopefully this analogy works), but just be willing to try and make it a worthwhile experience!

This post was written by Cameron Sackett (not Tim) – you can probably tell because it lacks grammatical errors!

HR and TA Pros – have a question you would like to ask directly to a GenZ? Ask us in the comments and I’ll respond in an upcoming blog post right here on the project. Have some feedback for me? Again, please share in the comments and/or connect with me on LinkedIn.

Amazon’s Jeff Bezos Just Showed Every Leader How to Manage Performance!

Posted on by
2

Amazon’s founder Jeff Bezos writes famous annual shareholder letters! His shareholder letter for 2018 was another gem of insight into the fascinating leadership culture of Amazon and it’s success.

You might not agree with Amazon’s culture. It is well known and documented that Amazon is a hard-charging, burn you out, take no prisoners type of work culture. They look to hire people that fit that kind of employee. An employee who doesn’t even think about working 70 hours a week, or coming in on a Saturday and Sunday.

Bezos claims the way Amazon stays ahead of the ever-rising customer expectations is to have ‘high standards’.

That term ‘high standards’ becomes the foundational piece of how Amazon expects their leaders to performance manage their teams. Having high standards is a tricky thing. I think most people if asked, would tell you, “of course, I have high standards”! Bezos is masterful in that he knows this, so he goes into great detail to define what “high standards” means to him.

High Standards are…

– Intristic or Teachable? – “I believe high standards are teachable. In fact, people are pretty good at learning high standards simply through exposure. High standards are contagious. Bring a new person onto a high standards team, and they’ll quickly adapt. The opposite is also true. If low standards prevail, those too will quickly spread. And though exposure works well to teach high standards, I believe you can accelerate that rate of learning by articulating a few core principles of high standards…”

– Universal or Domain Specific? – “Another important question is whether high standards are universal or domain specific. In other words, if you have high standards in one area, do you automatically have high standards elsewhere? I believe high standards are domain specific, and that you have to learn high standards separately in every arena of interest…Understanding this point is important because it keeps you humble. You can consider yourself a person of high standards in general and still have debilitating blind spots. There can be whole arenas of endeavor where you may not even know that your standards are low or non-existent, and certainly not world class.”

– Recognition and Scope – “What do you need to achieve high standards in a particular domain area? First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain. Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be (how much work it will take) to achieve that result – the scope.”

High standards have four elements – they are teachable, they are domain specific, you must recognize them, and you must explicitly coach realistic scope.

Benefits of High Standards

“Building a culture of high standards is well worth the effort, and there are many benefits. Naturally and most obviously, you’re going to build better products and services for customers – this would be reason enough! Perhaps a little less obvious: people are drawn to high standards – they help with recruiting and retention.”

Powerful stuff, right!?

The one part that Bezos gets that almost no other leader understands when it comes to performance management is the importance of the role that recognition of what high standards look like.

This is the difference between what is expected of a role, to what does truly being ‘great’ look like in a role. We hired you to do a job, that is expected, that is not great. If you want to be great, here’s what ‘great’ actually looks like. Those are two different things, but almost every leader screws this up.

We all want to believe we have high standards. In fact, it’s an afront to our character if you believe I don’t have high standards. The problem is we all define ‘high standards’ differently, and Bezos, as a visionary leader, is ensuring that definition in his organization is one definition.

Go read the full letter because he gives examples and it is awesome! I don’t know if I could or would ever want to work in that culture, but he lays out a model that any leader can use to help raise the bar in their organization.

What Does Being a “Partner” Mean in Business?

Posted on by
Reply

I work in a world where most of the time I’m working for free.

I run a staffing firm. By its nature, staffing is working for free until someone thinks you have something valuable enough to pay for (a great candidate). The trick to being really good at staffing is to try and work for free as little as possible.

I also write and speak in the TA and HR space. I don’t call myself an “Analyst”, maybe I should because all my analyst friends do a lot less free work than I do! I partner with some vendors to do some work and most of those vendors make sure it’s equally beneficial for both of us. I’m pretty open to how something can be beneficial to me.

Many times I’ll get asked for a “favor”. Favor is another name for “free work”.

Those who asked for a favor are always very appreciative of the “Partnership”.

I don’t think of this as a partnership. A partnership is where both sides feel valued. Me giving you something for free isn’t a partnership. It’s me giving you something for free, and you giving me nothing in return.

I get the game. Many times I’m giving something away for free in hopes that my “partnership” will lead to something that is beneficial to me. It’s a type of “loss-leader”. I give you something now, and maybe in the future, you’ll want to give me something in return.

This works about 20% of the time in my world. Not very good odds, but I’m a sucker for someone asking me for help. It’s actually a great sales strategy that can be used by every profession. By nature, we are suckers for anyone asking for help. Most people want to help people who ask for help.

(Sidetrack note) – This works really well in recruiting. When you reach out to an employee for a referral, don’t ask for a referral. Ask for “help”! “Hey, Mary, it’s Tim in TA, I need your help!” “Tim! For sure, what can I help you with!?” Then you go into actually asking for a referral! You’ll be amazed at how this works, because they’ve already said they’ll help you!

In the real world of work, a partnership might not be that different from what my “partnerships” look like.

The biggest difference is while you also don’t want to “work for free”, doing something for nothing. Many times we are getting paid to do a job where we’ll do something for a lot of people, and we feel we won’t get anything in return. But that is the wrong way to think about it. Because you should be getting something in every partnership!

If you’re a partner with a hiring manager that manager should be giving you stuff back in return. Timely feedback, return calls, help reaching out to their network, providing praise and feedback up the chain that will help you, etc. If you are getting nothing, you are not in a partnership, you’re in a one-way relationship. Don’t kid yourself about being a partner!

Partners in business help each other, support each other, and respect each other. Don’t call yourself a partner if you’re aren’t willing or able to help out the other side of that partnership.

 

 

 

5 Crippling HR Behaviors That Keep Employees From Becoming Leaders!

Posted on by
1

In HR (OD, Training, etc. – pick your title) we like to believe we develop our employees constantly and ongoing to become the next generation of leaders.  But many times our actions tell a very different story.  We (HR and our Leadership teams) do and say things daily that keep people from truly reaching their full potential.  Self-awareness of these behaviors is the key to making sure you are the roadblock to creating great leaders in your organization.

Here are 5 things you are doing to stop leadership development in your organization:

1. We try to mitigate 100% of risk.  Leaders need to understand and experience risk.  It’s part of the growth process of becoming a leader.  If we never allow our future leaders to experience risk, they’ll fail when they finally face it or will be unwilling to face it, thus missing out on huge opportunities for your organization.

2. We don’t allow our employees to fail.  There are two parts to this. First, we get personal gratification by saving the day.  Second, we have this false sense that ‘great’ leaders won’t allow their employees to fail, so we step in quickly when we see things going south.   We tell ourselves that we need to let our people fail, and failure is good, etc. But we can’t stop ourselves from stepping in when failure is about to happen or is happening.

3. We mistake what is expected with great.  Words are so powerful.  It’s so easy to say “You’re doing Great!”, when in actuality the correct phrase is probably closer to “You’re doing the exact job you’re paid to do!”  That’s not great. That’s is expected.  You can’t blow hot air up everyone’s butt and think they’re going to get great.  They have to know what great is, and then get rewarded with praise when great is reached.

4. We mistake high performance for the ability to lead.  Just because you’re great at ‘the’ job, doesn’t mean you’ll be great at leading people who do ‘the’ job.  This might be the one behavior that is hardest to change.  All of our lives we tell people the way to ‘move up’ is through having great performance.  But it isn’t.  The way to move up into leadership is to do those things that great leaders do – which does include high performance, but it also includes so much more than just being good at ‘the’ job you’re doing.

5. We are not honest about our own failures.  Developing leaders will learn more about leadership from you if they know and understand your own failures at leadership.  We all have major failures in our lives, and many of those are hard to share because they are embarrassing, they show weakness, they might still be a weakness, etc. Developing leaders will learn more from your failures about being a great leader, than from any of your successes.

Developing future leaders has always been a critical part of HR in organizations, but we are quickly approaching a time in our history where your ability to develop leaders might be the most valuable skill you can provide to your organization.