Make it safe for everyone to speak during meetings

How financially stressed are your people? Twenty-five percent of you expressed having significant amounts of stress related to your personal finances.

More likely than not, you make more money than the members of your team. If that many of you are facing financial challenges, how do you think your lower-paid team members are doing? If they're doing great work, be sure they're getting paid appropriately for it. Fight for raises they deserve. Give them spot bonuses. Create promotion opportunities. Put them in touch with financial resources like counselors you may have available to your associates.

If you can remove some of their financial stress, they'll be healthier, happier and loyal. Take care of the things that are on their mind so they can focus on more important things like their work, their families and their health.

-- Mike Figliuolo is managing director of thoughtLEADERS, which includes TITAN -- the firm's e-learning platform. Previously, he worked at McKinsey & Co., Capital One and Scotts Miracle-Gro. He is a West Point graduate and author of three leadership books: "One Piece of Paper," "Lead Inside the Box" and "The Elegant Pitch."

Ever since actor Reese Witherspoon got her first library card, she's been an advocate for reading, founding Reese's Book Club in 2017 as part of her Hello Sunshine company, and with her 100th book selection coming in September, Witherspoon's company is partnering with Apple for audio versions. "I want people to stop saying, 'I didn't really read it, I just listened,'" Witherspoon said. "Stop that. If you listened, you read it. There's no right way to absorb a book."

Eurasian jays appear to be capable of remembering specific experiences, including seemingly irrelevant details, and changing their behavior accordingly, according to a study in PLOS ONE. Eurasian jays have shown the ability to plan for the future, and researchers found they were able to solve new memory tests 70% of the time using incidental information.

With apologies to William Shakespeare, I have found that some people are born leaders, others achieve leadership and others have leadership thrust upon them. I fall in that last category. I never planned to lead anything, but when you found a spiritual community, suddenly, everyone thinks you're a leader.

I became one of those "lone wolf" leaders that Get Lighthouse CEO Jason Evanish writes about. I tried to do it all myself -- from setting up chairs before the celebration to tearing it all down, to handling the finances, the marketing ... I tried doing everything. It's not that others didn't want to help. It's just that this truly was my first rodeo, and delegating wasn't my strong suit.

I had all the "lone wolf" tendencies of independence (knowing that if I did it, it would be done "right"), results-oriented, self-reliant, anti-authority and socially disengaged. I discovered what Evanish calls the difference between a leader and a lone wolf: "When a leader turns around, there's a group following them. When a lone wolf turns around, they're alone."

It's worth taking stock of your leadership style. Where are you within these characteristics of a lone wolf leader? If you can check off two or more of these traits, it may be time to get some coaching or do some serious self-reflection before you turn around and find that you're alone.

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