We Need To Talk About Mental Health in Your Workplace

This is a contributed post to JMLalonde.com. For more information on contributing a post, please see our contributing policies.

As a small business owner, you pride yourself on delivering the personal touch to your customers. You know most of them very well, and when a new customer comes into the fold, you make an effort to get to know their needs, their preferences and what they value most. Your business’ growth is built on your relationship with them, and your ability to understand and preempt their needs. But, of course, the personal touch doesn’t just extend to your customers. It also extends to your employees. You take an active interest in their professional development, ensuring that each gets the training and support they need to meet their career goals. 

Quotes And Leadership Lessons From Flight Of The Navigator

A Reel Leadership Article

I recently posited a question on Facebook. I wanted to see what everyone’s top ten 1980’s movies were. The list was long, clocking in at over 75 movies and counting.

One movie mentioned a couple of times was Disney’s Flight Of The Navigator (you can buy it on Amazon).

Joey Cramer in Flight Of The Navigator

It has everything that a classic ’80s movie needs. It had

  • A young protagonist
  • Aliens
  • A quick story
  • Crazy scientists
  • A naive girl who works for the scientists at NASA

I really enjoyed spending the hour and a half watching Flight Of The Navigator again. It had been way too long since I viewed this classic movie.

Today, we’re going to take a look at the leadership lessons in Flight Of The Navigator. I hope you’re ready to enjoy what we can take from this aging movie.

How To Have Real Conversations

Knowing how to have real conversations has value beyond the corporate world. While knowing how to have real conversations as a leader is important, you also need to know how to bring this skill to your everyday life. Without the ability to carry on conversations, your world will be a much smaller place.

Man and woman sitting, having a conversation

Photo by Mael Balland

The problem is most people don’t know how to carry on a conversation well. They’ll bring up small talk like the weather or what they do for a living (the boring jist of it).

Small talk can derail conversations real quick.

People use small talk to get the conversation going. Too often, people will get stuck in the small talk and not branch out to more important matters.

If you can get conversations down, you will go far. In leadership… and in life.

Getting Your New Business Off the Ground

This is a contributed post to JMLalonde.com. For more information on contributing a post, please see our contributing policies.

2020 has seen many of our career paths change drastically. At the start of the year, many of us were in stable nine to five jobs. We’d commute in the mornings and after work. We’d engage with colleagues on a face to face basis. We’d have a set routine that we stuck to most days. But the coronavirus and Covid-19 pandemic has changed all sorts of things. Right now, many of us have found ourselves out of work. Whether that’s because the company we worked for has gone under, we have been made redundant, or we simply realised that we wanted a change of career path when we had more time to think during lockdown. If you’ve found yourself in this situation, and you’ve decided to become your own boss by setting up your own business, you need to know the basics to get your business up and off the ground. Here are a few areas of focus that should really help you along the way.

Rethinking What You Believe

I began my leadership journey due to bad leadership. I had watched bad leader after bad leader continue to do things that harmed the organization and the people who worked for the organization.

It was bad.

I remember seeing one manager hiding away in a warehouse to catch a few minutes of sleep. In another instance, I remember seeing and hearing the owner of an organization berate a team member for something he had no control over.

Man looking at reflection in window

Photo by Laurenz Kleinheider

These are the moments that made me realize things needed to change in leadership. I began a journey to change the way I viewed leadership. I also began a journey to help others change the way they see leadership.

Ideas Evolve Over Time

When I started to learn about leadership, I was green behind the ears. I hadn’t had any true leadership experience. I just knew something had to change.