Beck Bamberger

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As the Great Resignation continues, one in five employees say they are planning to switch jobs in the next year. Experts have cited a few reasons why so many people are making the switch since the start of the pandemic, with one of those reasons being poor management or leadership. If your company has a high turnover rate and you discover bad leadership is to blame, there are steps you can take to mitigate the situation. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council explain the steps you can take to fix a poor leadership problem and the impact this change will have on your company.

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If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur trying to level up your skill set—or even a seasoned entrepreneur looking to learn something new—you’re bound to come across a wealth of information about your industry and business and leadership in general. Whether it’s in the form of books, podcasts, articles, videos or any other medium, it can be a lot to sift through, and determining what content (and what format) to focus on can be challenging for those who are unsure where to start. So how do you determine what’s worth your time and effort to consume in order to keep up with your skills and knowledge in your industry? Below, six members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their tips for how to narrow down the list and determine what content is right for you.

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Everyone struggles with self-doubt at some point in their lives, especially if they own a business. Self-doubt as a business owner can be daunting to overcome and may sometimes derail you from your goals. But part of being an entrepreneur means learning how to grow a thick skin in order to take on the adversity, rejection and low confidence that can often come with the job. To help mitigate these common feelings, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice for becoming more resilient as an entrepreneur and why it's worked for them over the years.

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As your startup grows and you hire more employees, you may find it's time to make your first human resources hire. Founders often take on this role early on in their business journey, but with more employees comes more HR administration and responsibilities, and it's important to find a well-qualified professional. To help you with your hiring process, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council share what they think startup founders should seek out in an HR candidate. From leadership skills to decision-making abilities, here's what these business leaders recommend looking for.

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In the current hiring market, competition is fierce. With so many options available to job seekers, companies must attempt to out-compete others in their industry in order to attract and hire talent, and this has led to many companies struggling to fill roles—and wondering what they can do to make the top of candidates’ lists. In today’s market especially, attracting applicants must be approached differently than in the past, and it’s likely some companies are making a few mistakes along the way. To help, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members discuss a few of the mistakes they’re seeing companies make when it comes to competing for talent and explain what leaders should be doing to fix them.

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Every successful entrepreneur has one special "something" that has made a unique, lasting contribution to their achievements, be it a former mentor, a previous role they held or an event that impacted their life. Our lived experiences help define who we are as individuals and hone our perspectives throughout life. As we advance as professionals, these experiences take shape as new traits, resources and accomplishments that help drive our ongoing maturity and achievement. Whether it’s in their personal or professional lives, Young Entrepreneur Council members have been influenced by many milestone moments and memories. Below, nine of them describe the most important things they've gained as they've advanced in their careers and how these additions benefit them in the roles they play now.

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Many employees are intimidated by salary negotiation, especially if they don’t have any prior experience with it. However, managers are more open to negotiation than you might think. In fact, 75% of managers expect to negotiate when making a job offer; however, workers often don’t take them up on the opportunity. To help professionals who have never done this before, 10 Young Entrepreneur Council members shared salary negotiation insights from an employer’s perspective. They offered tips for successfully asking for a higher salary and shared how these strategies have worked in the real world.

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Many professionals look for meaning and purpose in their work—their "true calling." Passion is a great motivator for business owners, and being intentional with your work will help generate great outcomes. If you have a specific mission and vision in place, you have something to return to any time you feel stuck in your business. However, your purpose doesn't have to be extravagant and grand; it can be as simple as you'd like it to be. Below, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared their own personal career callings and how following those paths has impacted their business journeys.

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In every career, there are things to be thankful for—things like meaningful moments with co-workers, the opportunity to learn and personal growth that can put the challenges and difficulties in perspective and help you find a renewed sense of purpose at work. Reflecting on their careers and business journeys, the members of Young Entrepreneur Council each have their own moments to be thankful for. Below, nine of them shared what they appreciate most about their careers thus far and highlighted the lessons they’ve learned that can help other leaders succeed.

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Performance feedback is an important way for your employees to know how well they are doing in their role, especially in a growing company. While annual reviews help your employees see how they’ve been doing throughout the course of the year, they could also benefit from receiving regular performance feedback.  Continued feedback allows employees to address any changes they should be making in their workflow, rather than finding out later on that they have been underperforming. However, it should be given in a way that employees feel encouraged to improve, rather than micro-managed.  Below, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members offered some creative ways to give regular performance feedback to key team members, even in a growing company.

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In the chaos and busyness of the holiday rush, it can be easy to spend so much time focusing on your customers and how you can best meet their needs that you lose track of how your employees are handling the stress. The holidays are one of the most stressful times of year for many companies, and taking time to check in on the mental health and well-being of your employees can ensure you have a thriving workforce to help your business succeed. Below, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss some of the steps you can take to ensure your employees are happy and healthy this holiday season.

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As the holidays quickly approach, it's almost time for you and your team to set your “out of office” auto-replies and get some well-deserved rest and relaxation. However, this is easier said than done when many professionals continually feel the need to be productive. This feeling of not doing enough and needing to be “always on” can lead to guilt about taking time off and will keep you from enjoying a much-needed break. To help your company avoid this issue, eight Young Entrepreneur Council members shared some tips to help you and your team truly unplug and enjoy the holidays.

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Firing an employee for the first time in your career can be a difficult and emotional process. But whether an employee’s performance has been consistently subpar or a difficult downsizing decision has been made, sometimes it has to be done. To help you do it in the most effective, kindest way possible, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) members weighed in on the following question:

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A normal part of running a business is having ideas fail. However, sometimes these circumstances lead to crises within the business. When this happens, employees look to business leaders for guidance on how to respond. To help your company handle crises in a competent manner, you need to have a level mindset. Professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council offer eight ways you can calmly manage a company crisis.

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It’s important for leaders to know that, when it comes to teams, just because the weekly team meetings are quiet or the suggestion box hasn’t seen a valid recommendation or criticism in a while, doesn’t mean no one has anything to say. In fact, more often than not, employees have thoughts, suggestions and criticisms to offer, but they don’t share because they’re not sure how their leaders will respond if they do. Listening to your employees and their ideas is a powerful and important way to help your business grow and progress, so how can you get them to speak up? To help, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council provide tips on how to encourage employees to share their ideas at work.

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When looking for a new job, getting an offer is only half the battle. The most nerve-wracking part of the process may come when it's time to negotiate the offered salary. Many don’t know how to do it and many more are simply too afraid to ask for fear of appearing pushy. However, negotiation doesn’t have to be an intimidating process. To help, seven members of Young Entrepreneur Council share their best pieces of advice for negotiating your salary after receiving a job offer. Here are their recommended strategies and why they believe more job seekers should follow them.

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Being an entrepreneur takes a lot of time, effort and resources, and all that work can sometimes be a major drain on your energy and your happiness. While the overall achievement of being an entrepreneur is fulfilling enough to many, sometimes it can be difficult to look at the big picture when feeling stressed by day-to-day problems. When it comes to feeling happy and fulfilled on a daily basis, there are various measures you can take. Here, eight members of Young Entrepreneur Council offer some tips that have helped them feel happier as entrepreneurs. Try out a few of these “lifestyle hacks” for yourself to overcome the pressures of the daily grind and feel happier and more fulfilled about your accomplishments.

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Most entrepreneurs set daily goals for themselves in order to move their businesses forward. Yet setting those goals and meeting them are two completely different things. Loss of motivation, fatigue, listlessness and a general lack of energy are common barriers to accomplishing goals, but they are also challenging to overcome without the right strategies. Pushing past fatigue and lack of motivation takes a unique investment in yourself in order to see your tasks through to the end. To offer some guidance, nine associates of Young Entrepreneur Council discuss their strategies for accomplishing their daily tasks even when they don’t feel motivated to do so.

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Sometimes an employee just doesn’t work out within an organization and needs to be let go. Firing an employee is a task that needs to be handled with delicacy and care, and the process can be intimidating for someone who has never been responsible for terminating an employee before. If you find yourself in this situation, follow this advice from the members of Young Entrepreneur Council:

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Regardless of how many hours you work in a day, not all of that time is going to be completely productive. Sometimes it's because of procrastination, other times it's because you've been so bogged down in "busy work" that you haven't made progress on important tasks. Whatever the reason, it's important to find ways to optimize your to-do list to maximize your time for important strategy work as well as personal endeavors. Below, 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council discussed strategies busy professionals can use to reclaim up to five hours of their time back each week. Here's what they recommend and how these strategies have worked for them.

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The pandemic has made remote and hybrid work arrangements mainstream. But it has also given managers a unique opportunity to bring different talent to their teams from all over the country and the globe. That being said, it's also important to think about how those new hires will work and be managed in a remote setting. It takes a certain skill set to succeed in a remote work environment, so it's vital to identify some key traits that will set a candidate up for success. Below, nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council shared the qualifications they've been looking for in new hires lately, especially those who will be working remotely.

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It’s no secret that having the support of other leaders can make a major difference to a person's entrepreneurial success. When your network contains others who can identify with your struggles, they can then help motivate you from a personal perspective and deliver timely advice when you need it most. For years, women have been making massive strides in the realm of business, reaching further and higher than ever before—and the support of other female entrepreneurs is a great way to boost that growth even further. For tips on how to show your support, eight leaders from Young Entrepreneur Council discuss how female entrepreneurs can better support fellow women in business and create pathways for change.

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Remote work has quickly become the norm across much of the corporate world. Yet, with so many professionals used to in-person interaction, this shift to digital messaging has rapidly and fundamentally changed workplace communication. With increased opportunities for misunderstandings in written text, potential overuse of gifs and emojis, plus a completely different dynamic from in-office communication, professionals need to adjust to the new digital workplace, whether that’s on Slack or communication platforms like it. Here, eight experts from Young Entrepreneur Council offer tips for how individuals can communicate effectively and professionally on these platforms and explain why they’re so key to a productive workplace.

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When you're a busy entrepreneur, there never seems to be enough time in a day. You likely have long lists of tasks that require your full attention, but little time to sit down and focus on them. This can be overwhelming and, in turn, send your productivity levels into a slump. It’s important to find the best ways to prioritize your time so you can accomplish everything you want to do. To help you find what works for you, a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members shared their best time management and prioritization tips.

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Being an entrepreneur and owning your own business is an end goal for most people. It's a thrilling end result -- the fact that you're your own boss, you set your own hours, and remain accountable only to yourself can be a heady mix. Yet, the benefits of the position usually overshadow the more pertinent considerations that would-be entrepreneurs overlook. Although there are significant benefits to being a business owner, there's also a considerable amount of background work that rarely gets highlighted but needs to be done. These 12 members of YEC look at these extraneous factors that new entrepreneurs tend to overlook before embarking on starting their business and explain why these elements are so critical to your success as a business owner.

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The backbone of a company is its employees, but the brain of a business is its leadership. The best leaders inspire and encourage the employees working under them, but even these leaders need positive reinforcement from time to time. While a lot of this reinforcement comes from those above them in the hierarchy, it has special meaning when the employees under them reach out to show their appreciation. So what are some appropriate ways employees can show their appreciation for key leaders and everything they do? Below, eight professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council share ways employees can recognize the positive impact of leaders and give them a much-appreciated "thank you."

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[LONG FORM EMAILED TO KELSEY] 2020 has been a year of challenges on multiple fronts, from the COVID-19 pandemic, to racial injustice protests, to a highly contentious Presidential election. Businesses have had to contend with rapid changes in consumer behaviors and spending patterns, and many have had to adjust their models accordingly. To stay afloat, business leaders have had to learn to market successfully while navigating this strange new environment. We asked a group of entrepreneurs the best marketing tips they've learned this year and why. Read their insights for some valuable lessons to take with you into 2021.

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When you’re young and inexperienced, stepping up to a leadership position can be more difficult than usual. Without a strong standing in their industry, a new entrepreneur may not be able to navigate the terrain as easily as others. However, these leaders can still bring fresh perspectives and ideas to the table. We asked nine Young Entrepreneur Council members how younger founders can demonstrate their thought leadership and novel viewpoints to others in their field. Here's how to step up and show your expertise, even if you haven't been in the industry for long.

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Working for a startup is vastly different than working for an established company. Established companies have steady processes and defined operations, while startups often wade through a constant stream of pivots and unknowns. It makes sense, then, that startup employees require certain skills and attitudes to thrive in this type of workplace. We asked 10 members of Young Entrepreneur Council for one quality they believe all startup hires need to have. Here are the traits they deem essential and why each one helps when working in a startup environment.

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Every professional knows that an eight-hour workday rarely means eight straight productive hours of “real” work. Sometimes there are distractions and emergency situations to attend to throughout the day; other times, your calendar is so booked with meetings that it’s hard to find time in between to concentrate on your to-do list. When you only get a few hours per day to tackle your most important tasks, it’s critical to find ways to keep your focus. To help you, we asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council for their advice. Below they shared nine strategies for stretching your productivity and why each is so effective.

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No other feeling comes close to hitting the ball out of the park for your investor pitch meeting. Unfortunately, many business owners see these small wins as overcoming the largest hurdle. The truth is that nailing the investor pitch is only the first significant hurdle. Once you get the right eyes on your project and have them interested in what you're doing, you need to follow up and keep the momentum. But what is the first thing an entrepreneur should do after landing the pitch to a potential investor? We asked seven contributors to Young Entrepreneur Council what their first step after landing their pitch is, and why they take that road. Here's what they told us.

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For many growing teams, in-person leadership conferences have been the go-to method for training and developing the organization's future leaders. In today's world, though, there's a lot of uncertainty around when these types of conferences might return. In the meantime, business leaders are finding other ways to encourage virtual or self-led leadership development among their staff members. We asked a panel of Young Entrepreneur Council members to recommend their most effective strategies for training leaders, even without in-person conferences. Here's what they had to say.

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Building your brand is an important part of running a business. To truly connect with your audience, you must define and express who you are and your goals as a business. Often, the best way to do this is by telling your story. Your brand story encompasses your journey to and reason for starting your company, and the way you tell it can greatly impact the way consumers view your brand. We asked members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share some strategies for communicating your chosen brand story to your audience. Here’s what they had to say.

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When launching a startup, business owners often receive a lot of advice from everyone around them. As a new entrepreneur, it can be difficult to parse through it all and determine what truly applies to your business.  With all the noise around you, you might be left feeling more overwhelmed and confused than before. To help you identify the right (and wrong) tips, we talked to members of Young Entrepreneur Council about common pieces of startup advice they disagree with. Here’s what they flagged as unhelpful insights you don’t need to follow when launching your company.

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Business advisers have the potential to be instrumental to a company's success. Unfortunately, not all business advisers make a positive impact, and it's up to the entrepreneur to decide which adviser they want to work with. The selection process should be as rigorous as staff selection, but should mostly focus on the adviser's previous successes. Who were their past clients? How did those partnerships turn out? These questions set the stage for expectations and temper out personal feelings toward the adviser. Here, eight associates of Young Entrepreneur Council offer their best advice for choosing an adviser that would benefit one’s business.

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Every company has both the need and the potential to grow over time. Whether a business must adapt to new trends or is simply looking to improve its internal processes, high-level change is simply part of a company's journey. While a good idea can come from anywhere in the organization, it must have the full support of the leadership team for it to be sustainable. This notion can be discouraging for some entry- and mid-level employees who might feel there's too much "red tape" to have their ideas heard, validated and implemented. However, you don’t have to necessarily be at the top of the totem pole to enact lasting change -- there are plenty of ways you can present your ideas to the right people and convince them of the need to change. We asked the members of Young Entrepreneur Council to share their best tips for making a high-level impact, regardless of your place in the organization. Follow their advice to start making a difference today.

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When you spend time in the business leadership world, you start to hear a lot of cliché phrases and vague terms that other managers frequently use. Sometimes they use them sound smart; other times they're not sure of a better alternative. Either way, these overused words begin to sound like jargon over time, and may lose their meaning when you're communicating with your staff. We asked nine members of Young Entrepreneur Council to each share one word leaders often use, but shouldn't. Here are some key words and phrases to avoid as a manager, along with a few suggested terms to use instead.

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Over the years, multiple studies have shown that employee happiness is a crucial factor in developing a successful business. Employees who are happier tend to be more productive and also stay with the company long term. Unfortunately, like all forms of feedback, pinning down employee happiness depends on asking them the right questions. Many workers may be uncomfortable sharing their real opinions on the business, for fear of reprisal or displeasing other employees. Thus, companies need to be more proactive about sourcing feedback from their employees about their happiness. These six professionals from Young Entrepreneur Council share their insight into how businesses should gauge employee happiness to determine whether any changes are needed to promote employees' physical and mental well-being.

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