Tom Zender

Zzzzzzz. You dozed off in another meeting. Got tired of an unstructured talkathon. Worse, there were too many slides with too much information and obscure graphs. And, the presenter read the information on the slides. No audience interaction. No Q&A time. Burned an hour and left with nothing. Zero. And, there is a real financial cost as well. An example: if an organization holds 8 hour-long meaningless meetings per day with 8 attendees each, the annual cost is about $1.5 million.

Be authentic. It is magnetic and attracts additional authentic people. The kinds of people we want as employees, customers, investors, suppliers and community members. Authenticity inspires like-minded people. Shakespeare knew this when he wrote, "Above all, to your own self be true. And then as night follows day, you cannot be false to anyone." Who are we, really? How do we know when we are being authentic? We exist, think, speak and act from our heart and soul - our true inner self.

Problem: As measured by annual Gallup surveys, over 50% of the U.S. workforce is dissatisfied with their job situation; they are actively disengaged. It is less about pay, the nature of the work, and other employees - and more about a negative culture. Why? Meet the "un-leader" Here is one of the greatest causes of employee dissatisfaction: the "un-leader." After reading the following, are you working for one? Worse, do you want to work for one?