Follow this 4-step process to implement change

Wise leaders can subvert their ego in the office by learning active listening skills, modeling accountability to their team, giving others their full attention and allowing them to speak without interruption, writes Aytekin Tank, the founder and CEO of Jotform. "Showing up for others can be a grounding force for your ego and can foster a more empathetic, collaborative work environment," Tank notes.

Put it into practice: The most difficult ego-taming practice for leaders may be learning how to commit to the ideas of others, even if you disagree, Tank notes. "Even if the idea fails, the learning experience benefits everyone involved."

To be an effective leader, you must be able to diagnose any problems within your organization, identify opportunities to improve, communicate those ideas clearly then devise strategies to implement them, writes leadership expert Paul Thornton, who outlines areas where this process can go wrong if you misdiagnosed the problem or your strategy isn't well thought out. In that case, Thornton suggests staying curious, getting more feedback and being willing to adjust your plans as needed.

Put it into practice: Any miscalculations in your change strategy usually come from blind spots, Thornton suggests. In those cases, it's best to seek more advice to ensure you've correctly identified the challenges you face and whether the solutions you've proposed are valid.

"Anticipatory gratitude," or thanking someone in advance for doing something for you or excusing your mistake, can improve employee resilience and persistence, says Mandy O'Neill, an associate professor of management at the Donald G. Costello College of Business at George Mason University. "Gratitude can't be a substitute for fair pay and decent work conditions, for example. But our findings are clear: anticipatory gratitude works; it is effective," O'Neill says.

Put it into practice: Even though anticipatory gratitude is powerful, leaders should not use it in a manipulative way, O'Neill notes. "In all organizations, you need people to stick with difficult or thankless or boring tasks. The challenge, of course, is how to do so ethically."

Founders and CEOs should walk that fine line between being friendly with their staff and being their friends, says Chobani founder and CEO Hamdi Ulukaya, who says many entrepreneurs think they have to be social with their staff, but that can complicate things when those colleagues need to move on. "If anybody can tell you could do everything from the beginning to all the way to the top with the same people, it's not reality," says Ulukaya.

An AI-assisted study of fashion trends based on 14.5 million high school yearbooks from 1930 to 2010 suggests that men became more individualistic in their fashion choices over time, while women were more likely to dress like their mothers by the 2010s. Regional differences emerged, too, with Northern high school seniors showing more fashion innovation than their Southern counterparts.

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The power of gratitude can increase our mental health, especially if we keep a journal of things we're thankful for. So, it's fascinating that gratitude, given before a task --  something researchers call "anticipatory gratitude" -- can have the same effect on others.

The backstory of George Mason University's research by Mandy O'Neill is also fascinating. She and her fellow researcher stumbled upon a listserv group shared by health care workers who preemptively thanked others for understanding if they needed some time off and thanking them for the outstanding work they do every day.

Expressing gratitude up front, O'Neill says, creates an "emotional buffer" that "helps with the inevitable distress of the task that's going to happen later. It makes those negative emotions less salient, less powerful, and less insidious."

It can also be abused, O'Neill points out. Managers who see the power of anticipatory gratitude may begin to use it in a manipulative way. Still, O'Neill stresses an ethical use of this superpower because, she notes, people will see through it when it's fake.

Have you used anticipatory gratitude? If not, try it out and let me know how it goes.

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