Alexa Kimball

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Carefully designing both who will be on the negotiation team, and who will be at the table when, is your negotiation “pre-season.”

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While a busy business is the ultimate goal for many entrepreneurs, too many initiatives can eventually begin to negatively impact the team without intervention. The ability of a business to take on more and more initiatives is a definitive indication that the organization is doing something right. However, between marketing, customer support and product development, to name a few essential business functions, starting too many initiatives without proper protocols, adequate resources and a large enough team can prevent the team from making effective progress on any of them. For business leaders to successfully manage the initiatives they start, it’s essential that they keep a close eye on internal happenings and hone their skills in recognizing when too many projects have been undertaken. Below, 12 Newsweek Expert Forum members each share one sign that a leader has too many projects going on and how they can take steps to dial back and reduce project quantities for the sake of the overall business.

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Creating a workplace environment where all employees feel able to communicate their needs is critical to retaining your team. Every business goes through busy and stressful times. While many organizations are able to navigate and overcome these hurdles, it can result in leaders experiencing burnout. This is especially true for mid-level leaders as they tend to direct many different moving parts and interact with individual team members. Fortunately, with the proactive support of the executive team, there are tactics that can be utilized to mitigate or prevent burnout and reinvigorate mid-level leaders. To help, 20 Newsweek Expert Forum members each share one way the executive team can help mid-level leaders get reenergized when they are feeling burned out.

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Adopting tried-and-true strategies for achieving ongoing success through hard work, smart planning and unwavering dedication can help leaders advance. In the pursuit of success, it can often appear as though some individuals are blessed with luck, stumbling upon triumph by chance. Yet, upon closer examination, it becomes evident that true achievement stems from a combination of unwavering dedication, meticulous planning and strategic execution. This begs the question: What are the powerful strategies that foster consistent and repeatable success?  Below, 19 Newsweek Expert Forum members explore key strategies that pave the way for sustained success and the underlying mechanisms that make them so effective.

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Working together—especially now that many of us are back in offices—can benefit from deliberate design.

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Leaders often have many things and people depending on them. When every decision made can have far-reaching consequences, it’s not uncommon for some leaders to be stressed or apprehensive about making the wrong call. Rather than letting their negative emotions get the best of them, and potentially lead to important decisions being delayed, it’s crucial to determine what processes will produce the best decision possible for a given situation. As leaders themselves, the members of Newsweek Expert Forum are well aware of the importance (and downsides) of decision-making. To make the process easier, 14 members offer advice to help leaders better manage the paralysis and anxiety that can occur while making critical decisions.

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Rather than perpetuating the same old top-down power dynamics, leaders can instead prioritize employees' needs. The role of company culture in many businesses has changed in recent years. This has meant moving away from traditional power structures where leaders decided the business path forward to systems that focus on intentionally giving employees a seat at the decision-making table.  While these efforts have proved fruitful for attracting and retaining employees, fostering a supportive internal culture is an ongoing undertaking that must regularly be assessed. As experts, the members of Newsweek Expert Forum understand the key role that leaders play in maintaining company culture. Below, 15 of them share their best advice on how leaders can create and sustain a supportive internal culture.

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To achieve better health outcomes and ensure the best patient experience possible, physicians need to be in a supportive work environment that allows them to perform at their best.

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  In business, a “leader” is typically defined as the person in charge. This can range from executives at the top down to the managers who preside over individual departments or teams. However, having an official leader position isn’t what makes someone a good–or even an effective leader. Great leaders are those who are able to balance the big picture of the company mission with the finer details of how employees contribute to the achievement of business goals. Developing that balance means leaders need to actively acquire and refine their skills. As experts, Newsweek Expert Forum members know that refining those skills is an ongoing process, so below, they each share one skill every manager needs to effectively lead and coach employees.

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Telehealth’s benefits extend far beyond patient health—to financial health, and even to the health of the planet.

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Feel awkward when you network? Try these tips to make it feel more organic and even fun. Many people network with the intention of trying to sell a business leader on their product or service, whether to get seed money or to try and create a partnership. Because of this, networking events may end up feeling awkward and uncomfortable when it's all about the hard sell. However, networking doesn't have to feel like you're "schmoozing." Business leaders can use these events to make real connections and build solid foundations for future business relations, all without pitching an idea. Below, a panel of Newsweek Expert Forum members offered their best advice for making networking more natural and fun to build long-lasting connections. 

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Each and every challenge brings with it the opportunity to learn and grow as an entrepreneur. When a leader is dealing with an obstacle, thinking of the lasting value of that business challenge isn’t usually what comes to mind in the heat of the moment. However, once a leader has had time to reflect, each and every challenge has the potential to positively impact their organization going forward.  Below, a panel of Newsweek Expert Forum members share specific challenges business owners faced and how leaders can use those experiences as a moment to learn and make lasting changes.

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People need care when they need it — and establishing barriers that decrease access at important moments of time is both costly and dangerous.

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To keep the business running smoothly, leaders have to get to the root cause of employee burnout.  Whether your employees have been working remotely, on a hybrid schedule or have been in-person this entire time, the odds are high that they are likely feeling the strain of the last few years. A leader taking the initiative to look deeper within their organization and at the current culture of the organization is a smart first step.  Making an effort to implement change and offer more support can positively impact employees. To help leaders make changes, a panel of Newsweek Expert Forum members each share one strategy for addressing and reducing employee burnout in the workplace.

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While some may not see the appeal of continuously fixing what isn't broke, intentionally adapting in business can lead to new opportunities. When you've been in business a long time, certain habits just stick. Making adjustments to business strategies that are currently working well enough may seem unnecessary, but continually working on improving the efficiency of business operations is key to staying relevant in any industry. Becoming too complacent with the status quo is dangerous for businesses that want to last long term, but it’s hard to break out of bad habits once they’ve been set in place. To help leaders begin moving in new directions, a panel of Newsweek Expert Forum members each share advice on steps to take to rethink old habits and establish new ones.