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 what to do when an actuary turned in her resignation, but didn't seem excited about the prospective move.

Description: In this video, Anthony Champi discusses the non-linear nature of the leadership journey, emphasizing that it involves both successes and failures, and may not necessarily lead to promotions. He highlights the importance of selflessly committing to the development of others if one chooses to become a leader of people, as well as the challenges and responsibilities that come with that role. He also advises individuals to seek opportunities for skill development and learning from mistakes, as well as the transition to leading larger teams or other managers and leaders.

Description: This article identifies four root causes of poor performance and four remedies to address them that every leader should know.

Description: This article looks at critical points in my life, offers a very brief bio, and then explains how I used the experiences to learn decade by decade. It is motivated by wanting to tell the story of how able I am to contribute to the SOA and other activities at the age of 85. It is motivated by offering this story as a way to motivate others.

Description: In this article, we aim to outline the advantages of smaller programs and gather opinions on the challenges these programs face in their efforts to emphasize these strengths. For our purposes, we define small actuarial programs as those with a relatively low student enrollment count. The following are three key advantages of small programs, which are similar to those of small colleges:(a) Enhanced benefits from small class size; (b) Adaptable curriculum; (c) Increased opportunities for each student. A variety of similar other issues are also discussed with recommendations, challenges, and invitations for further dialogue.

Description: This article is an overview of the SOA Leadership & Development Section Council's current projects, recent accomplishments and some immediate focal points of the Leadership & Development Section Council's efforts.

Description: This article is about the little things that impact your personal brand, and how that personal brand helps you influence others.

Description: Latest installment of a series applying lessons from Buddhist philosophy to the working world of actuaries. This installment focuses on practicing the yogic principle of "ahimsa" or non-harming with ourselves, and the importance of respecting and caring for oneself in order to better serve the needs of others.

Description: The article describes principles for optimal sub-tasking of a project goal. Two experiments each one comparing different approaches are presented. A summary of principles for optimal goal setting presents seven key points: i)levels of outcome goals should be recognizable and lack ambiguity; ii) each subtask should be atomic, i.e. not be capable of being broken up into further subtasks, iii) the subtasks should be uniform, lacking ambiguity, so that any new trainee could master it without the need for further guidance; iv) each subtask should be attainable in a reasonable amount of time; v) mentor feedback should be provided during the initial stages of learning or training; vi) upon mastery of each subtask trainees should be encouraged to maximize their overall score; vii) after mastery of individual subtasks, while attempting to maximize scores, trainees should be provided with a mixture of easy, intermediate, and difficult tasks.

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.