12 Most Standout Ways To Be Likeable

Dave Kerpen 

Featured image courtesy of Thomas Hawk licensed via Creative Commons.

Being likeable will help you in your job, business, relationships, and life. I interviewed dozens of successful business leaders to determine what made them so likeable and their companies so successful. Below are the 12 most important principles to integrate into your work and life to optimize success:

1. Listening Listening is the foundation of any good business. Great

leaders listen to what their customers and prospects want and need, and they listen to the challenges those customers face. They listen to colleagues and are open to new ideas. They listen to shareholders, investors, and competitors.

2. Storytelling After listening, leaders need to tell great stories in order to

sell their products, but more important, in order to sell their ideas. Storytelling is what captivates people and drives them to take action. A likeable leader has a strong vision and purpose and always has stories to sell that vision.

3. Authenticity Great leaders are who they say they are, and they have

integrity beyond compare. Vulnerability and humility are hallmarks of the authentic leader and create a positive, attractive energy. Customers, employees, and media all want to help an authentic person to succeed. There used to be a divide between one’s public self and private self, but the social internet has blurred that line. Likeable leaders are transparent about who they are online, merging their personal and professional lives together.

4. Transparency There is nowhere to hide anymore, and businesspeople who

attempt to keep secrets will eventually be exposed. Openness and honesty lead to happier staff and customers — and a happier you.

5. Team playing No matter how small your organization, you interact with

others every day. Letting others shine, encouraging innovative ideas, and following other rules for working in teams will help you become a more likeable leader. You’ll need a culture of success within your organization, one that includes out-of-the-box thinking.

6. Responsiveness Today’s leaders are responsive to their customers, staff,

investors, and prospects. Every stakeholder is a potential viral sparkplug, for better or for worse, and the winning leader is one who recognizes this and insists upon a culture of responsiveness. Responding shows you care and gives your customers and employees a say, allowing them to make a positive impact on your company.

7. Adaptability There has never been a faster-changing marketplace than

the one we live in today. Leaders must be flexible in managing changing opportunities and challenges and nimble enough to pivot at the right moment. Stubbornness is no longer desirable. Instead, humility and the willingness to adapt mark a great leader.

8. Passion Those who love what they do don’t have to work a day in

their lives. People who are able to bring passion to their business have a remarkable advantage, as that passion is contagious to customers and colleagues alike. Finding and increasing your passion will absolutely affect your bottom line.

9. Surprise and delight Most people like surprises in their day-to-day lives. Likeable

leaders underpromise and overdeliver, assuring that customers and staff are surprised in a positive way. There are a plethora of ways to surprise without spending extra money. We all like to be delighted — surprise and delight create incredible word-of-mouth marketing opportunities.

10. Simplicity The world is more complex than ever before, and yet what

customers often respond to best is simplicity — in design, form, and function. Taking complex projects, challenges, and ideas and distilling them to their simplest components allows customers, staff, and other stakeholders to better understand and buy into your vision. We humans all crave simplicity, and so the likeable leader must be focused and deliver simplicity.

11. Gratefulness Likeable leaders are ever grateful for the people who

contribute to their opportunities and success. Being appreciative and saying thank you to mentors, customers, colleagues, and other stakeholders keeps leaders humble, appreciated, and well received. It also makes you feel great, and karma is always returned to the bottom line.

12. The Golden Rule: Above all else, treat others as you’d like to be treated

By showing others the same courtesy you expect from them, you will gain more respect from coworkers, customers, and business partners. Holding others in high regard demonstrates your company’s likeability and motivates others to work with you. This seems so simple, as do so many of these principles — and yet many people, too concerned with making money or getting by, fail to truly adopt these key concepts.

Which of these principles are most important to you — what makes you likeable?

Paul Spiegelman

10 Leadership Practices to Stop Today

If you want to be the best in your industry, you have to get rid of your outdated management style.

You might not feel it day-to-day, but business management is in a major transition.  The old days of command-and-control leadership are fading in favor of what might be better termed a trust-and-track method, in which people are not just told what to do, but why they are doing it.  More formally, we're moving from what was called "transactional" leadership to "transformative" leadership. And there's no turning back.

Engagement Culture Business owners certainly have a long way to go, especially

in more established companies where old practices die hard.  But you can see increasing evidence that by creating a company with a clear purpose and values, you'll find your employees connect themselves to something bigger, and that increases productivity.  In other words, a culture of engagement leads to greater customer loyalty, and better financial success.

Here's my list of "old school" practices you ought to chuck, and "new school" practices to champion instead:

OUT IN

1. Control

Micro-management the need to control every

aspect of your company

Empowerment the ability to give your

people some rope--even rope to make mistakes without blame.

OUT IN

2. Leadership style

Management by walking around the office it is no longer enough to be

visible.

Leadership by watching and listening,

engaging in conversation, implementing the ideas presented to you, and distributing the results.

OUT IN

3. Breadth of knowledge

Pretending you know everything You don't have all the

answers, so why try to make people think you do?

Knowing your leadership team members and trusting them. Choose great people who

have the right skills and fit the culture.  And get out of the way.

OUT IN

4. Mistake

No mistakes or a "no tolerance policy"

some still think works.

Learning from mistakes or being the first to admit an

error.

OUT IN

5. Drive

The balance sheet drives the business and informs all other

decisions.

People drive the business boosting customer loyalty,

and profit.

OUT IN

6. Competency

Job competency is sufficient. Do the job asked, and you'll

survive.

Recruit "A" players who will go the extra mile.

They're out there.

OUT IN

7. Where to invest

Invest in technology to increase productivity

Invest in people.

OUT IN

8. Change management

Demand change be very specific about what

you want and when

Nurture change your people can come up

with the best ideas and you can give them credit for it.

OUT IN

9. Atmosphere

Fried food in the cafeteria. Wellness in the workplace.

OUT IN

10. Rewards and incentives

Incentives pay employees more money

and they'll do more.

Rewards being valued matters more

than money.

So ask yourself which of these out-of-date practices you're still using. There's no time like now to try something new.

8 Things Remarkably Successful People Do

The most successful people in business work differently. See what they do--and why it works.

I'm fortunate to know a number of remarkably successful people. I've described howthese people share a set of specific perspectives and beliefs.

They also share a number of habits:

Jeff Haden

1. They don't create back-up plans. Back-up plans can help you sleep easier at night. Back-up

plans can also create an easy out when times get tough. You'll work a lot harder and a lot longer if your primary plan

simply has to work because there is no other option. Total commitment--without a safety net--will spur you to work harder than you ever imagined possible.

If somehow the worst does happen (and the "worst" is never as bad as you think) trust that you will find a way to rebound. As long as you keep working hard and keep learning from your mistakes, you always will.

2. They do the work... You can be good with a little effort. You can be really good

with a little more effort. But you can't be great--at anything--unless you put in an

incredible amount of focused effort. Scratch the surface of any person with rare skills and you'll

find a person who has put thousands of hours of effort into developing those skills.

There are no shortcuts. There are no overnight successes. Everyone has heard about the 10,000 hours principle but no one follows it... except remarkably successful people.

So start doing the work now. Time is wasting.

3.  ...and they work a lot more. Forget the Sheryl Sandberg "I leave every day at 5:30"

 stories. I'm sure she does. But she's not you. Every extremely successful entrepreneur I know (personally)

works more hours than the average person--a lot more. They have long lists of things they want to get done. So they have to put in lots of time.

Better yet, they want to put in lots of time. If you don't embrace a workload others would consider crazy

then your goal doesn't mean that much to you--or it's not particularly difficult to achieve. Either way you won't be remarkably successful.

4. They avoid the crowds. Conventional wisdom yields conventional results. Joining the

crowd--no matter how trendy the crowd or "hot" the opportunity--is a recipe for mediocrity.

Remarkably successful people habitually do what other people won't do. They go where others won't go because there's a lot less competition and a much greater chance for success.

5. They start at the end... Average success is often based on setting average goals. Decide what you really want: to be the best, the fastest, the

cheapest, the biggest, whatever. Aim for the ultimate. Decide where you want to end up. That is your goal.

Then you can work backwards and lay out every step along the way.

Never start small where goals are concerned. You'll make better decisions--and find it much easier to work a lot harder--when your ultimate goal is ultimate success.

6. ... and they don't stop there. Achieving a goal--no matter how huge--isn't the finish line for highly

successful people. Achieving one huge goal just creates a launching pad for achieving another huge goal.

Maybe you want to create a $100 million business; once you do you can leverage your contacts and influence to create a charitable foundation for a cause you believe in. Then your business and humanitarian success can create a platform for speaking, writing, and thought leadership. Then...

The process of becoming remarkably successful in one field will give you the skills and network to be remarkably successful in many other fields.

Remarkably successful people don't try to win just one race. They expect and plan to win a number of subsequent races.

7. They sell. I once asked a number of business owners and CEOs to name the one skill

they felt contributed the most to their success. Each said the ability to sell. Keep in mind selling isn't manipulating, pressuring, or cajoling. Selling is

explaining the logic and benefits of a decision or position. Selling is convincing other people to work with you. Selling is overcoming objections and roadblocks.

Selling is the foundation of business and personal success: knowing how to negotiate, to deal with "no," to maintain confidence and self-esteem in the face of rejection, to communicate effectively with a wide range of people, to build long-term relationships...

When you truly believe in your idea, or your company, or yourself then you don't need to have a huge ego or a huge personality. You don't need to "sell."

You just need to communicate.

8. They are never too proud. To admit they made a mistake. To say they are sorry. To have

big dreams. To admit they owe their success to others. To poke fun at themselves. To ask for help.

To fail. And to try again.

Geoffrey James

9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

Be Happy These minor changes in your daily routine will make a major

difference in your life and career. Happiness is the only true measure of personal success.

Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself.

With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:

1. Start each day with expectation.

If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: "something wonderful is going to happen today." Guess what? You're probably right.

2. Take time to plan and prioritize.

The most common source of stress is the perception that you've got too much work to do.  Rather than obsess about it, pick one thing that, if you get it done today, will move you closer to your highest goal and purpose in life. Then do that first.

3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.

I'm not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. Your gift can be your smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of politeness, even a friendly nod. And never pass beggars without leaving them something. Peace of mind is worth the spare change.

4. Deflect partisan conversations.

Arguments about politics and religion never have a "right" answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can't control. When such topics surface, bow out by saying something like: "Thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt."

5. Assume people have good intentions.

Since you can't read minds, you don't really know the "why" behind the "what" that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people's weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.

6. Eat high quality food slowly.

Sometimes we can't avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. Even so, at least once a day try to eat something really delicious, like a small chunk of fine cheese or an imported chocolate. Focus on it; taste it; savor it.

7. Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

8. Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

9. End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

Thank youChao O.

Have a nice day