Description: This article covers the importance of letting teams lead you as a leader, that it's okay to admit you're not okay even at work, and that it's important to find informal ways for virtual teams to connect.

Description: Relationship management is your ability to use your awareness of your own emotions and those of others to manage interactions successfully. Given enough time and quality exchanges, we can form a relationship with any person we encounter. We should strive to develop positive relationships with people we like, and even with those we don’t like as much. Once established, both parties will understand each other better and benefit from the connection. Relationships can be challenging, especially at work or under stress. Skillfully managing them will help you initiate direct and productive conversations to alleviate misunderstandings, solve conflicts and achieve desired goals. This article explores strategies to develop the skill of relationship management.

Description: This is the third in a four-part series dedicated to strategies for improving EQ, based on the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 written by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves. In previous issues of The Stepping Stone, I discussed the skills of self-awareness and self-management. In this article, I will share a few more of the book’s strategies and provide examples and personal insights to illustrate how to develop the third skill of social awareness in personal, social, and business situations.

Description: This is a conversation with two critical staff members of the Society of Actuaries (SOA) about their experience there. Jane Lesch is a non-actuary who has been working at the SOA for over 20 years, and is an engagement specialist. Mike Boot is an actuary who retired at the end of February after 15 years at the SOA, most recently as managing director. We spoke to both Jane and Mike to get their take on what leadership is about, and how working at the SOA impacted them.

Description: With increasing demand for quality new-hires, it is increasingly important to hire the most impactful employees. Actuaries who think creatively can have a disproportionately positive effect on their employers. In this article, we discuss how to identify this type of person during the interview process.

Description: It is well established that empowerment of staff is a critical leadership trait. But what are the metrics to recognize that you have achieved it? What steps enable this achievement? Which psychological attributes explain its efficacy?This article proposes to answer these questions through a multi-disciplinary examination of empowerment in the context of three leadership domains.

Description: The latest installment in a series that applies Buddhist philosophy to the everyday working world of actuaries. This installment chronicles the author's career transition from corporate actuary to academia, relating the challenges faced to those periodically encountered by all actuaries during their career journeys.

Description: Investing in and taking care of employees can result in many-faceted positive results, for your team and for your firm. We first state the case for "taking care of employees," then exhibit several practical methods for showing you care for your employees.

Description: Discussion of peer mentoring: what it is, how it is different than traditional mentoring, and different forms that it can take. Some forms are 1 on 1, informal, formal, talking partners, groups, Lean In Circles, SOA Community Engagement. Includes a list of potential discussion topics for use in peer mentor conversations.

Description: A compilation of reader responses is presented to a real life situation posed involving a management, leadership, or other business decision. This issue’s case study involved a very new actuarial manager trying to deal with a disruptive employee.