When faced with a choice between saying something to make a person aware of a problem, or not saying anything and simply hoping for some change, Nina Simosko believes that there’s no contest. Say what you need to say and say it as clearly as possible.

There are many joys in the journey through life, but plenty of pitfalls too. Sometimes the most difficult blockages to overcome are the ones inside your own head. The way you think, and what you tell yourself about events and people, can stop you cold on the journey towards happiness.

Nina Simosko looks at loyalty and how leadership effectiveness either creates or destroys this fragile and essential part of corporate success. Inspiring loyalty isn’t difficult, she writes, though it does require awareness and commitment.

Trust is the foundation for creating a civilized working environment. W. Edwards Deming, mostly remembered as the father of the Total Quality Movement, said that the primary duty of every leader is to remove fear from the workplace. Yet today fear seems more present, and more powerful, than ever. Where fear and mistrust rule, there can be no happiness, enjoyment, creativity, or sense of meaning in working life. Surely it’s time to wake up?

How many times have you regretted an impulsive action — but realized the error too late? How often have you found that, after jumping in like that, you maybe didn’t get the whole story or see the complete picture? Are you obsessed with the feeling that you need to do something, so you shut down collecting information in favor of acting on the little you already know — or think you do. Peter Vajda has some important questions to ask anyone with a knee-jerk, reactive response to engage in some way, rather than take enough time to listen first.

Buddhists and Taoists have long claimed that a false belief in the ego is a principle cause of human suffering. Carmine Coyote traces the ‘mysterious’ sources of true leadership and exposes the perversions that egotism too often inflicts on us all. Let go of your ego. It’s a burden neither you nor those around you need.

John Fletcher muses on the true value of a job, and why losing consciousness of yourself and of your ego in your single-minded application to the task in hand counts for more than you may imagine in making any job worthwhile.