Tips & Tricks

Men’s polo shirts are THE classic fashion staple that needs no formal introduction. The iconic men’s summer clothing article originally was donned by tennis players for their matches. In present times, it’s just another go-to easy to style top for men that can work with almost everything for any occasion. If you’re a fan of this comfy classic style of men’s shirts – let’s figure out how to style men’s polo for the colder months without looking like you’re heading straight to a tennis court.

#1 The ‘Formally’ Casual Style
Polo shirts are known to be a summer fashion staple for men, however, they’re versatile enough to be worn throughout the year. Find a slim-fit pair of polo shirt with full sleeves and dress it up a little for an elegant suited modern-day classic look. Suits in checkered prints are in vogue for men for fall/winter 2018-19. Pair a royal blue checkered custom-fit jacket and pants with a white polo. If you want to dress it up a notch, add on a blue silk scarf the classic drape way.

#2 The Contemporary Urban Style
Athleisure fashion is one the biggest men’s fashion trend for the year. And if you like the sound of it, pairing a polo shirt with jogger pants and trainers would be right up your alley. Add a retro-cool vibe to your look with some luxe looking vintage sunglasses such as the classic aviators or double bridge Clubmasters. Add on a light cardigan on top if you need some mild layering for the evening.

#3 The Flamboyant Parisian Style
If you really want a head-turner, bold and fashion forward way to style your polo shirt, do it the Parisian way for the winters. This means, wearing a basic polo shirt with straight trousers and use statement accessories to create the WOW factor. Colored leather jackets are trending for men; pick a color to match your scarf and the color of your sunglasses. A printed cashmere scarf with a Parisian knot would look quite smart and edgy. The sunglasses would add an outdoorsy sporty vibe to complement the polo.
A little dressier than a t-shirt and a little more relaxed than a button-up – a polo is the perfect garment for men to wear at any given day. Owing to its structured fit and form, a polo shirt looks more put together than your average t-shirt but is comfy enough to pull off all day. Now, with the fresh styles we discussed above, you have three new and unique ways to style a polo.

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Servant leadership is a common word used in the discussions of an effective leadership system. Servant leadership is the leadership system whereby leaders meet the needs of their followers by showing compassion and ethics while ignoring any form of ego and personal goal. Servant leadership is a selfless leadership system that was demonstrated by Nelson Mandela as he directed his nation through resolution after many years of tribal or racial apartheid.

James A. Autry, states that servant leadership is the right way of leadership. By becoming an expert servant leadership, one needs to have emotional, psychological, and spiritual fulfillment, not only for oneself alone, but for everyone involved also. Servant Leadership boosts productivity and encourages creativity. James A. Autry teaches that servant leadership can be a guiding light helping one discover how to maintain one’s spiritual focus in order to provide guidance during conflict, training of other managers that are implementing servant leadership, and resolving morale problems.  Another great tool on addressing culture issues can be found here.

The Five Ways of Being Servant leadership as stated by James A. Autry.
As a servant leader, you must:

• Be Authentic: As a servant leader, this simply means; you must be yourself. And for you as a leader to be yourself, you must study yourself closely and know yourself very well. This process requires a lot of silence, prayer or self-exploration and meditation, it is more than just being truthful.

• Be Vulnerable. As a servant leader, you must be honest about the way you feel in the context of work, simply by being transparent and candid about your doubts, you must have concerns about your followers or employee, and your performance. You must possess the courage to say, “I’m sorry” and also mean it with all your heart.

• Be Accepting: As a servant leader, this is very important. You must be able to accept the ideas of your followers or to employees as valid for discussion and review, this does not mean that you blindly accept everyone’s ideas without proper discussion or judgment.  For further information on how to properly listen check out this article.

• Be Present: Be fully available at all times. You must be available in order to access your values and implement them in the job at hand. By doing this, you are empowering your followers to be more confident when taking their own actions.

• Be Useful: Always be at the service of others. Ensure that your employees get enough resources needed to complete the current task by the best possible means.

In conclusion

Autry states that an organization and its leaders must be loyal and transparent to their employees, and this can be achieved by being honest and trustworthy, treating people not as numbers but as individuals, rapidly responding to special needs appropriately, providing resources needed to perform task, and operating with full integrity with employees.  For more management tips and tricks check out our tribe.

Cryptocurrency or virtual currency, is a digital form of exchange that is designed or created and used by private entities or groups. Because most cryptocurrencies are not regulated by governments, they are yet to be considered as alternative currencies (Mediums of financial exchange which exist outside the bound of government monetary policy). Bitcoin for example is a dominant cryptocurrency and it is the first virtual currency to be used generally.

What Is Cryptocurrency?
Cryptocurrency makes use of cryptographic protocols, or extreme complex encryption systems that holds sensitive data transfers, in order to secure its unit of exchange. The developers of Cryptocurrency created these protocols based on advanced mathematical and computer engineering principles which makes them impossible to decrypted or break virtually, and also impossible to duplicate. These protocols also hide the identities of its users, while making transactions flows difficult to be linked to the individuals or groups.

Brief history of Cryptocurrency
There has been the existence of digital currency systems before cryptocurrency. Previous versions of digital currencies were centralized strictly, while the newer version of cryptocurrency, like Bitcoin and Ethereum, are decentralized. Now, the most interesting facts about cryptocurrency is that, it was were never intended to be created as it is known today. It actually started with Bitcoin and a man called Satoshi Nakamoto. His goal at the start was to create an electronic peer to peer cash system. There has been different effort by different people to create something like an online digital cash system, but had failed due to the different issues with centralization. Nakamoto created Bitcoin in 2008 and its value exploded without any question. When Bitcoin was first created, it valued over a cent. But, the value grew quickly and in late 2009 a single Bitcoin valued $27, and in 2017, a single Bitcoin valued over $7,500. The value of this cryptocurrency rose steeply to monumental levels. Satoshi Nakamoto knew that any other attempt to build an online centralized cash system would also result in more failure, so he decided to come up with a digital cash system that had no centralization authority, and Bitcoin came to life. Satoshi Nakamoto created the Bitcoin, which is the very first decentralized digital cash that had no centralized governing body. Bitcoin was supposed to be the property of the entire Bitcoin community. The problem that Nakamoto faced was the how to stop double spending, which is the act of spending the same money twice by a currency owner. A decentralized digital currency system enables every user or entity to strongly agree on every single transaction and account balance for it to work and if there is any form of disagreement between both parties, the whole thing breaks down. This seems to be all seem very difficult and impossible to implement, but Nakamoto’s invention of Bitcoin has proven all these wrong. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has demonstrated how they can exist without any form of central authority to control transactions as long as there is full agreement between all the parties involved. And since Nakamoto disclosed his amazing invention there have been the existence of other decentralized cryptocurrencies released by several other parties such as Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple, NEM, Litecoin, Dash, Monero, NEO, and many others.

What is Situational Leadership?

Situational leadership simply means “choosing the right leadership style for the right people”. It also depends on the level of competence and maturity that the followers exhibit. It is a time in when leaders will look less like bosses and look more like partners. Situational leadership is when a leader or head of an organization adjusts his or her style of leadership in order to blend with the followers’ level of development that he or she is trying to influence. Situational leadership is a style of leadership that is developed and closely studied by Kenneth Blanchard and Paul Hersey. Situational leadership is leader oriented not follower oriented, it is up to the leader to change his or her style of leadership, not the followers to adapt to the leader’s style. Also, when implementing situational leadership, the style might continuously change in order to meet the needs of others in the organization depending on the situation at hand. The maturity level of the followers can be considered as their readiness to perform the task preferred by the leader. As we all know that Leadership is the process of influencing the activities of an individual or a group of people in effort toward achieving a specific goal, there are 4 different types of leadership style.

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Telling and Directing

This style of leadership is also known as micro-management leadership style, and this is a situation whereby the leader closely supervises the followers during the process of performing a specific task. With this type of leadership style, the employees basically do exactly what they are ordered.

Selling and Coaching

This style typically works well with the series of followers who are inexpert and still learners. With this style of leadership, employees will be supervised in the process of performing the task but it will be in a coaching manner rather than just a management manner. It also involves direct approval in order to increase their self-esteem and confidence.

Participating and Supporting

This style of leadership passes more responsibility to the followers. The leader is there to provide feedback in order to increase the direct reports confidence. Those who work well under this style of leadership have all the necessary skills needed but they lack the motivation or confidence needed to achieve them.

Delegating to Employees

Delegating is a style of leadership whereby the employees or followers are responsible for choosing the type of tasks they will perform and the approach they will make use of. Although the leader might still be involved in terms of direction or feedback minimally. The employees know the task to be carried out and how perform it with little or no supervision required.

Consider Development Level

The followers’ development level determines the type of leadership style to be used by the leader. For the followers with high needs and little experience, the directing style will best fit, and for the followers with low needs and high competence, the delegating style of leadership will be perfect. In order to determine the leadership style to use, the leader needs to understand the ability of the team and their readiness to perform tasks. As the abilities and motivations of the team changes, the leadership style used will also change. For more business tips and tricks review our form, Au.

The first-known use of the word S.M.A.R.T transpires in the November 1981 issue of Management Review by George T. Doran. The major advantage of SMART goals is that they are very easy to understand and very easy to identify when they have been executed. SMART principles are generally linked to Peter Drucker’s management by goals and objectives concept. The November 1981 issue of Management Review content written by George T. Doran which is titled “There is a S.M.A.R.T way to write management’s goals and objectives. It discoursed the importance of goals and the difficulty experienced in setting them.

SMART is a reminder acronym. It is a given criteria designed solely to guide the setting of goal e.g. In the department project management, personal development and employee-performance management.
Now that the meaning of SMART is disclosed, it is very important to know what every letter stands for and why each of the elements in the acronym are very important to goal setting.

• S stands for Specific.
And this means setting real numbers with real targets or deadlines. E.g. “When someone want more visitors to his/her website” this isn’t precise or specific enough to be traced. How will the person determine when him/her have hit the goal without a specific number to track?

• M stands for Measurable.
Making sure that the goal been set is assessable. Avoiding unclear terms like “brand engagement” or “social influence”, is advice. These are things to think about in general but not things on which to base the goals on. Because how will you determine when the goal is reached if you are unable to measure things like “brand engagement?”

• A stands for Attainable.
This is to make sure that the goal been set is challenging but achievable. A multi-million-dollar company can’t be built overnight, do not set an unattainable goal.

• R stands for Realistic.
This is about been honest and self-trust. You know what your company and team is capable of; set a goal that fits within that boundary. Set a goal that fits your boundary, since you know your capability.

• T stands for Time-bound.
This is all about having or setting a goal-oriented deadline. Every goal you set must have a deadline, this will enhance your concentration ability.

Setting SMART goals will ensure that you are determining something doable for a particular project or task, it will also give access to the measurement of your achievement and determine if you are reaching them, or you are not.

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Why S.M.A.R.T Goals is important for a proper goal setting strategy for business operators.
Goal setting is the strength of any form of business operation. Goals help us know the level of our effectiveness and also keep us fully focused and drive us to succeed. While we know how important goals determines our success, over 80% of small business owners have failed to keep track on the goals of their business, perhaps this is due to the fact that goal setting is a difficult thing to do as marketers. And while we hope that we understand our accomplishment in our businesses, it is not enough because we also have to be sure that all our goals are implemented in reality and this is where S.M.A.R.T goals come into play. S.M.A.R.T Goals is important for a proper goal setting strategy for business operators because it helps increases the level productivity and engagement. When most employees set goals maybe to sell 50 products or test a new shopping feature, research shows that they are most likely to achieve them. Most Individuals that write down their goals, share them, and send consistent updates about their level of progress this also tends to boost their chances of success in business.

“Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” — Socrates

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