Chances are you are looking to become a better leader. If that’s true, this article has essential tools that you can use to hone those skills. Read on and learn easy techniques that help you to become an effective leader.

A successful leader needs to maintain a balanced public and private life. Having a good reputation in the community is vital to continued success. Being in a leadership role invites scrutiny, so it is important to maintain humility and exercise moderation. Do not give anyone something to point to that disqualifies you as a leader.

If you are the leader of a group, you have to show the members that you appreciate them. It takes only a minute to write an appreciative note and it could be very meaningful to someone who has been working hard. This tiny gesture goes a long way in improving morale, and it doesn’t cost you a dime.

It is not effective to be a leader if you are not able to set a good example for others. You cannot sit around giving out orders and expecting people to follow then if they don’t have respect for you. The best way to earn respect is being a positive role model to others.

Make a commitment to success. It may sound simplistic, but leadership starts with believing in the company and having a vision for its success. That vision when communicated rubs off on all that work at the company. In this way, your vision of success breeds success among your employees.

Be sure to finish everything you start or you risk losing the respect of the people that work under you. Even if something seems particularly difficult, you should give it your all and see it through to the end. No one will look at you the same if you turn into a quitter.

Learn to take responsibility for things, even those that are not your fault. A great leader understands that when the team fails, everyone fails. Instead of placing blame on individual members of the team, a great leader will know that something about the way he leads the team may be the reason for the failure.

If you are in a leadership role, make it a point to avoid using harsh, or discouraging comments with your team members. Instead of using negative reinforcement, try starting the conversation with a positive comment, then gently easing into your problem or concern. This helps them to let their guard down, and remember that you are on their side.

Converse with your employees in a way that makes them feel important. Everyone needs to be heard. It is always best to lead by example. Don’t yell at your employees, embarrass them in front of their co-workers or belittle their ideas. Opportunities for improvement can come from anywhere so be open to suggestions.

Learn to listen to your team. Giving orders is just a small part of being a leader. Learning to listen is a key to being an effective leader. Listen to your team members’ suggestions or concerns. Your team is more likely to feel respected and return the favor when you listen to what they have to say.

Set some high goals for others to reach, but be sure they’re not impossible. This just sets your team up to fail. Never attaining your set goals is not a sign of an effective leader.

Be a passionate leader. It is easier for other to follow a leader that truly cares about the group’s goals. Great leaders should have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the projects in progress instead of just making sure everyone is finishing their work. Express your passion and let everyone know that you care about their progress. When someone shares with the group, let them know that their contribution is appreciated.

Be open with your communication with your team. Good communication is essential for effective teamwork. Make sure your team feels that any questions are welcome by having a helpful attitude. Your team cannot work for you if they are not sure of what you want. Keep an open-door policy for this reason.

One principle of successful leadership is to consider all points of view. You need to examine situations from the perspective of others. Even though you might not agree with another’s point of views, show respect and attentively listen as this perspective is shared with you. Never be close-minded to new information or new ideas.

Honesty and sincerity whenever you interact with someone is how you should conduct your business. However, do not confuse arrogance for confidence. No one thinks arrogance is a trustworthy trait to have. Being a sincere individual enables others to trust you and want to work for you. Being insincere is obvious to employees, so try to be sincere and honest when you speak to them.

Every good leader should be an expert at delegation. Some leaders make the mistake of thinking they have to do everything important themselves. However, if someone else can handle a task in an efficient manner, delegate it to them. Just be clear about expectations, timelines and understanding of the task.

A good leader should be friendly and accessible to employees. You can run a successful business without using your authority to intimidate people. If your employees are afraid of you, they are unlikely to report honest mistakes making it difficult for you to manage them effectively. Be friendly but don’t try to make friends with your employees.

Anyone can be an effective leader with the right advice on hand. You must work hard to develop those leadership tools, like anything else. Keep these tips in mind and you will soon find yourself becoming a better leader.

Lacking In Your Leadership Skills? Try These Ideas!

Having good leadership skills is important if you are in charge of one person or 500 people. Good communication, people skills and many other things are required of great leaders. If you do not have these skills already, it is time to learn. Use the tips below to become a more effective leader to your team.

Honesty is important for a leader. You cannot be an effective leader if you cannot be trusted. Always remain trustworthy and honest. When others know you are able to be trusted, they will give you their respect.

When you’re working on leading effectively, you have to keep your morals in mind. Any decision that you make must be something that you feel good about. If you have an inkling that you will not be happy with the decision you are about to make, stop there. Some may disagree with you, but you should always do what you think is right.

Always remember that a great leader builds up and does not need to tear down. Do not be overly critical of those on your team. Be quick to give commendation, praise and recognition. Even when people fail, commend the effort and inspire them to get up and try again to succeed.

Make things easy for people to understand. If you can take difficult topics and talk about them in a way that everyone can understand, that will be a benefit to you as a leader. People need someone who can explain things, and if you can do that in a way that doesn’t make them feel inferior, they will love you.

Converse with your employees in a way that makes them feel important. Everyone needs to be heard. It is always best to lead by example. Don’t yell at your employees, embarrass them in front of their co-workers or belittle their ideas. Opportunities for improvement can come from anywhere so be open to suggestions.

Make sure that you show genuine appreciation to your employees. Good performance should be acknowledged appropriately. Those leaders that look forward to the future give praise but offer much more. They may offer real rewards like bonuses, raises, promotions, and other tangible tokens of gratitude. This can motivate others to become enthusiastic about work and to stay with your company longer.

A good leader is able to help develop strong leadership skills in others. If you try to micro-manage every detail of your business, you won’t have time to look at the bigger picture. Having trustworthy employees who can lead others will give you the chance to delegate responsibilities as your company continues to grow.

As an effective leader, it is necessary to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. If you’re cocky, you’re bound to fail. Pay attention to areas you need to strengthen.

Be a passionate leader. It is easier for other to follow a leader that truly cares about the group’s goals. Great leaders should have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the projects in progress instead of just making sure everyone is finishing their work. Express your passion and let everyone know that you care about their progress. When someone shares with the group, let them know that their contribution is appreciated.

Learn good delegation skills to master or compensate for your personal weaknesses. No one is perfect, so you know you have them. Leadership isn’t about being the running back that scores every touchdown. Rather, it’s about being the quarterback, who always knows who is right in each play to carry the ball.

Maintain your passion for your work and keep your energy soaring. When you love what you do, it shows and others will respect your leadership. Enthusiasm will build momentum for your company. Being a strong leader requires a great amount of energy. Your energy will infect your employees and keep your company moving forward.

Avoid showing favoritism for certain employee’s ideas and suggestions. Listen to each person with interest, respect, and an open mind. Good leaders treat their team like they wish to be treated. Be fair to all your employees and follow through with any promises that you have made.

Besides recognizing your employees talents, you must also know your own strengths and weaknesses. Evaluate your own abilities often and work to improve on those areas that are weaker. Become a better manager by attending leadership training courses, continuing your formal education and adopting a mentor who is a successful business leader.

You can become an innovative leader by stepping outside the box. Most leaders, and employers, look for problems, and try to find ways to fix them. Instead, try to focus on the strengths of your team, and build on them. You will achieve much more with a strengthened workforce than a few easily-solved issues.

There is one question that is asked a lot by business leaders. Do you think you are comfortable? If you can answer yes, then you need to be taking more risk. It’s good to get outside your comfort zone and take risks. Taking calculated risks can help you avoid getting into a rut, being pessimistic and losing your passion.

If you are only in charge of one person, it is still important to have great leadership skills. Being a good leader requires more from you than you may have expected. Perfect the skills you already have and learn the skills you do not to become a great leader.

A two-part Draft Combine will take place starting later this month, the league told general managers on a conference call Friday.

The idea being floated is players would get medical reviews by a team doctor at a local hospital (info can be shared with other teams), there would be guided on-court work, and the interviews would be virtual. As the process moved forward there would be in-person interviews for teams in the run-up to the draft.

The 2020 NBA Draft is set for Nov. 18. The NBA Draft Lottery already took place, with the Minnesota Timberwolves landing the No. 1 pick.

The NBA Draft Combine is really about the interviews and the measurements — top prospects rarely workout at the combine. That is certainly not changing this year. No in-person workouts can be conducted at first, which tends to hurt guys trying to move into the first round, or into the daft at all. What moves guys up boards is often the interview portion, or when they post a wingspan or vertical leap that turns heads.

That said, teams used the hiatus to do an incredible amount of film study on players — teams are not going to be surprised on draft night. They just want more information to help them make the right pick.

Now, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed an experimental imaging agent that illuminates the location and the intensity of inflammation. The agent, known as Galuminox, has shown promise in imaging inflammation in the lungs of mice with acute lung injury, the researchers report in Redox Biology.

The agent is designed to detect inflammation via positron-emission tomography (PET) scans. Such scans are not invasive, so they could be performed repeatedly to monitor a patient’s response to anti-inflammatory medication or to track the development of inflammation in chronic diseases.

“Doctors don’t have a good way to image inflammation at earliest stages, which can hamper the diagnosis and treatment of disease. We focused on lung injury in this paper, but in principle, this tracer could be applied to other conditions where you have inflammation: atherosclerosis, cardio- and pulmonary toxicity caused by chemotherapy, transplant rejection, you name it,” said senior author Vijay Sharma, Ph.D., a professor of radiology at the university’s Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology (MIR) and a professor of neurology and of biomedical engineering. “If we had approval today, this tracer could even be used for COVID-19. The kinds of scans doctors can do right now on COVID patients’ lungs tell you whether there is inflammation there but not how bad it is. A tracer like this could give doctors more information to make clinical decisions.”

Inflammation is how the immune system responds to infection or injury. Immune cells become activated, and some produce toxic molecules called reactive oxygen species that destroy bacteria and viruses. Sometimes inflammation does not resolve after the initial threat is eliminated. Such persistent inflammation has been linked to chronic diseases ranging from asthma to cancer, but there are no imaging agents approved by the Food and Drug Administration specifically targeting the molecular signs of inflammation.

To fill this gap, Sharma and colleagues created Galuminox, a chemical compound that detects reactive oxygen species, and linked it to gallium-68, a radioactive metal. The production of reactive oxygen species indicates inflammation and has been associated with the development of many acute and chronic diseases. The resulting imaging agent gives off a radioactive signal in the presence of reactive oxygen species that can be visualized by PET scan.

To assess the potential use of the imaging agent in a disease setting, co-author Andrew Gelman, Ph.D., a professor of surgery, and colleagues modeled acute respiratory distress syndrome, a leading cause of intensive care death that can rapidly develop in patients with little to no warning. To do this, they injected mice with lipopolysaccharide, a molecule that stimulates reactive oxygen species production and is a component of many types of bacteria known to cause this disease.

PET scans revealed that the imaging agent was concentrated in the lungs of mice that had received lipopolysaccharide, and higher retention in lungs correlated with measurements of poor pulmonary function associated with this disease.

“Visualizing reactive oxygen species generation should us allow us to better define patterns of tissue damage easily,” Gelman said. “This tracer could help us assess changes in reactive oxygen species generation over the course of a disease progression, which would provide clinicians better information on when it’s best to start and suspend therapy. Until now, we haven’t had a tool to do that.”

All PET tracers include a radioactive component that decays quickly, so the radioactive part must be made on site just before use. In general, this means that a hospital or research center that wants to do PET scanning needs to have access to a multimillion-dollar cyclotron to produce the radioactive components on demand. As a metal, however, gallium-68 can be produced with only a generator, which costs closer to $50,000, making it potentially affordable for sites with limited imaging budgets.

The researchers are now studying whether Galuminox can be used to study diseases characterized by chronic inflammation, such as lung transplant failure.

“Almost everyone who gets a lung transplant eventually ends up with transplant rejection, and we think it has to do with reactive oxygen species,” Gelman said. “The typical lung transplant only lasts about five to six years. We think that a lot of the irreversible changes in the lungs occur before the patient has symptoms. By the time they start having difficulty breathing, it may be too late for effective treatment. If we could detect signs of inflammation early, we might be able to intervene at an earlier stage and extend the life span of the transplant. That’s what we’re looking at now.”

The sale puts a vital supplier to Apple Inc and others across the industry under the control of a single player and faces likely pushback from regulators and rivals to Nvidia, the biggest U.S. chip company by market capitalisation.

Within hours of the announcement, critics questioned how Arm would maintain its open approach under U.S. ownership and at a time of friction with China.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang emphasised that Arm would retain its neutral licensing model and expand it by licensing out Nvidia intellectual property for the first time.

“We want to grow Arm and make it become even greater,” he told analysts on a conference call.

For Softbank, the sale marks an early exit from Arm, which it acquired for $32 billion. Chief Executive Masayoshi Son has lionised the potential of Arm but is slashing his stakes in major assets to raise cash.

The move comes as SoftBank executives, frustrated at the group’s share performance, have held early stage talks about taking the Japanese technology group private, a source said. Those talks could gain momentum following the Arm sale. SoftBank’s shares soared 10% in Tokyo.

Nvidia will pay SoftBank $21.5 billion in shares and $12 billion in cash, including $2 billion on signing. The deal will see SoftBank and its $100 billion Vision Fund, which has a 25% stake in Arm, take a stake in Nvidia of between 6.7% and 8.1%.

Nvidia will license its flagship graphical processor unit through Arm’s network of silicon partners. It will build chips for devices like self-driving cars but also make its technology available for others.

Taiwan-born Huang has promised to site a new artificial intelligence research centre – equipped with its own supercomputer – at Arm’s base in the university city of Cambridge and said the company was ready to talk to the British government about expanding Arm’s research efforts.

He stopped short of offering fresh job guarantees, however.

CHINA SCRUTINY
Arm does not make chips but has created an instruction set architecture – the most fundamental intellectual property that underpins computing chips – on which it bases designs for computing cores.

Arm licenses its chip designs and technology to customers like Qualcomm Inc, Apple and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. Apple’s forthcoming Mac computers will use Arm-based chips.

Arm will not become subject to U.S. export controls under the deal, said Huang.

The purchase, which is subject to regulatory approvals including in Britain, the United States and China, is likely to come under close scrutiny in China, where thousands of companies from Huawei to small startups use Arm technology.

Nvidia will take control of the minority stake in joint venture Arm China. Arm is in dispute with the venture, which licenses chip architecture to local companies, over its management.

Co-founded by Huang, who has a penchant for leather jackets and a Nvidia arm tattoo, the firm began as a graphics chip designer but has expanded aggressively into products for areas including artificial intelligence and data centers.

The Arm acquisition will put Nvidia into even more intense competition with rivals in the data center chip market such as Intel and Advanced Micro Devices Inc because Arm has been developing technology to compete with their chips.

In what would amount to a direct challenge to those rivals, Huang said it is “possible” Nvidia will build its own server chips based on Arm designs.

Nvidia is buying up technologies in parts of the booming data center business where it does not currently play.

In April it completed the purchase of Israel-based Mellanox Inc, which makes high-speed networking technology that is used in data centers and supercomputers.

The Arm deal is expected to close by March 2022.

SoftBank could be paid an additional $5 billion in cash or shares depending on the chip designer’s business performance, with Arm employees to be paid $1.5 billion in Nvidia shares.

Fortnite is preinstalled on the Switch, and the package includes 2,000 V-bucks plus some exclusive cosmetic items. It appears only to have been announced for launch in PAL regions, however — NintendoLife reports an October 30th release date for Europe and 6th November for Australia and New Zealand.

There’s no word yet on a release for the US or other regions. This could be a popular holiday item, though — particularly for Fortnite obsessives who can’t play the iOS version on the go any more.

Mark Jones, 51, pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault against a young girl earlier this year.

The LiverpoolEcho revealed that the man hit at Halewood station in Merseyside early on Monday morning was due in court hours later.

This afternoon the British Transport Police say the death is not being treated as suspicious.

Jones, of Widnes, Cheshire, indecently assaulted a young girl in the late 1980s, when he was a teenager.

He admitted these charges on the basis he touched the girl’s genitalia and also made her perform a sex act on him.

But he denied two counts of raping the child and eight further counts of indecent assault, which were alleged to involve more serious sexual activity.

He was due to go on trial at Liverpool Crown Court on Monday morning.

Police and paramedics were called to the station at 7.41am after receiving reports of a casualty on the tracks.

Jones was pronounced dead at the scene.

British Transport Police added that a file would be prepared for the coroner.

His victim had already endured the trauma of reliving her ordeal, when she was cross-examined by defence lawyers in a pre-recorded video hearing.

Matthew Corbett-Jones, prosecuting, informed Judge David Swinnerton that Jones had died in a short hearing this morning.

The case has now been relisted for September 28, when the indictment against Jones will be marked stayed and the proceedings terminated.

A British Transport Police spokeswoman said: “Officers were called to Halewood station at 7.41am this morning following reports of a casualty on the tracks.

“Paramedics also attended, however sadly a person has been pronounced dead at the scene.”

She added: “The incident is not being treated as suspicious and a file will be prepared for the coroner.”

Kobe Bryant at age 21 (in the 2000 comeback win vs. Portland that included the legendary alley-oop to Shaq).

Who is the second youngest?

Boston’s Jayson Tatum, 22, after his performance leading the Celtics’ to a Game 7 win over the defending champion Raptors Friday night.

Tatum grew up idolizing Kobe — he even got the chance to work out with him for a summer, where Kobe told him to shoot more — and Ernie Johnson asked him about that connection after the game.

“Anytime you mention somebody like that, it means you’re doing something good.”

Tatum has evolved into a superstar player, a cornerstone that the Celtics can build around and be contenders — just like his idol, Kobe.

Tatum takes the next step on that journey starting Tuesday when the Celtics face the Heat in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals.

In a study published in the Journal of Gastroenterology and Digestive Systems, researchers from Florida Atlantic University’s Schmidt College of Medicine analyzed data over a period of four years from 2013 to 2017 to explore the knowledge of these high-risk patients. They analyzed data from structured interviews on 84 subjects between ages 40 to 91 years old with biopsy proven advanced colorectal polyps.

Results showed that 28.6 percent were unaware of either the need for a repeat colonoscopy or the proper surveillance interval. Of these, 16.6 percent were unaware of the proper three-year interval to obtain a follow-up surveillance colonoscopy. In addition, 12 percent were not even aware that they required a follow-up surveillance colonoscopy.

Screening modalities for colorectal cancer include fecal immune testing, multi-targeted stool DNA testing, flexible sigmoidoscopy and colonoscopy.

“Our data demonstrate a lack of knowledge of patients with biopsy proven advanced colorectal polyps about their need for repeat colonoscopy as well as the proper surveillance interval,” said Lawrence Fiedler, M.D., co-author, a gastroenterologist and an affiliate associate professor in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “For patients with biopsy proven advanced colorectal polyps, the interval for colonoscopy is about three years. Our data raise a challenge for us to rely on more objective data than self-reports. Clinicians should have the ability and willingness to share their objective findings with all clinical colleagues involved in the care of the patient. These efforts should also include younger patients such as Chadwick Boseman who recently died of colon cancer at age 43.”

The incidence of colorectal cancer is increasing in younger people. According to the American Cancer Society, from 2007 to 2016, incidence rates of colorectal cancer in people 55 years or older dropped by 3.6 percent each year, but increased by 2 percent each year in those younger than 55.

“Data from our study pose clinical and public health challenges to reduce the rates of recurrences of colorectal polyps as well as subsequent risks of colorectal cancer in these high-risk patients,” said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.P.H., senior author, first Sir Richard Doll Professor and senior academic advisor in FAU’s Schmidt College of Medicine. “More than 90 percent of patients diagnosed with colorectal cancer are 50 years or older. The major risk factors for colorectal cancer are similar to those for heart attacks and stroke and include overweight and obesity, type 2 diabetes, as well as physical inactivity.”

The researchers say that if such strategies were adopted for all patients it would have major clinical and public health implications. Specifically, it also would avoid the overutilization of colonoscopies for lower risk patients and increase both the benefit-to-risk and benefit-to-cost ratio from a public health perspective.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, additional risk factors include inflammatory bowel disease such as Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis; a personal or family history of colorectal cancer or colorectal polyps; and a genetic syndrome such as familial adenomatous polyposis or hereditary non-polyposis colorectal cancer (Lynch syndrome).

The deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals including in Britain, the United States and China, will be putting a long-neutral technology vendor to Apple Inc and others under the control of a single player.

It could face potential pushback from regulators, as the ongoing U.S.-China tech spats have put any global deal in the semiconductor sector under much tighter scrutiny.

Below are a list of prominent global deals that collapsed due to regulators’ rejection in the last five years:

• U.S. President Donald Trump in March, 2018, blocked microchip maker Broadcom Ltd’s proposed takeover of Qualcomm Inc on national security grounds.
• Qualcomm Inc walked away from a $44 billion deal to buy NXP Semiconductors after failing to secure Chinese regulatory approval in July, 2018 amidst China-U.S. trade talks. China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR), the antitrust regulator reviewing the deal, did not respond to the companies after the deadline for the deal to expire passed.
• Semiconductor equipment maker Lam Research Corp in 2016 terminated its $10.6 billion deal to buy rival KLA-Tencor Corp after the U.S. Department of Justice told the companies it had serious concerns that the deal would harm competition.

Some global deals were able to get China’s approval after making some changes or concessions:

• China approved Google’s $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola in 2012 on the condition that Google keep Android free and available without discriminating against any particular device maker for five years.
• China cleared Japanese trading house Marubeni Corp’s $5.6 billion purchase of U.S. grain merchant Gavilon in 2013 with stiff conditions such as demanding the two keep separate, independent trading units when selling soybeans to the country.
• Glencore in 2014 sold a $5.2 billion mining project in order to win China’s approval for its $30 billion takeover of miner Xstrata.
• Nokia in 2015 had to combine its China business with former Alcatel-Lucent’s in the country for its 15.6 billion euro merger with the French company to be approved by China. Beijing also stipulated that local telecoms groups could renegotiate rates on mobile technology patents borrowed from Nokia and Alcatel if they were ever sold on to a third party.
• China in 2017 conditionally approved chipmaker Broadcom Ltd’s $5.5 billion acquisition of Brocade Communications Systems.
• China approved HP Inc’s $1.1 billion purchase of Samsung Electronics’ printer business with certain restrictions in 2017, citing concerns about the U.S. firm’s dominance of the domestic laser printer market.
• Bayer secured conditional approval from China’s commerce ministry for its $65 billion acquisition of the world No. 1 seed company Monsanto in 2018 after agreeing to offload certain assets.

Each of the drones can fly at speeds of 32 mph, travel distances of 6.2 miles in a round trip, and carry up to 6.6 pounds (that’s roughly “6-8 hamburgers,” according to converted units offered on Flytrex’s own website). A demo video of the drone shows how it lowers packages to the ground from 80 feet in the air rather than having to land itself. Flytrex received approval from the FAA to test food deliveries in North Carolina last year, with caveats that its drones only fly predetermined routes in the daytime over unpopulated areas.

Walmart has offered few details on the program, including how many drones are involved in the pilot and what checks (if any) customers need to make before receiving a delivery.

“We know that it will be some time before we see millions of packages delivered via drone,” said Walmart senior vice president Tom Ward, in a news post. “That still feels like a bit of science fiction, but we’re at a point where we’re learning more and more about the technology that is available and how we can use it to make our customers’ lives easier.”

Walmart has been looking into drone delivery for many years, making its first tests back in 2015 and experimenting with using drones to check inventory in its warehouses in 2016. Moving from internal tests to customer deliveries is a big step, though. Although delivery drones have been on the horizon for many years, a number of challenges, like safety regulations and high costs compared to traditional delivery, have slowed adoption.

Walmart, though, no doubt has one eye on its biggest rival, Amazon, which last month received approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to operate as a drone airline in the United States, paving the way for larger commercial operations. Walmart seems to be avoiding the need for direct certification by contracting its drone operations to Flytrex, which is already part of the FAA’s UAS Integration Pilot Program. Walmart also recently launched a new subscription service, Walmart+, to compete with Amazon Prime.

Drone deliveries look especially attractive during a pandemic, when many customers and business are keen to avoid in-person interactions. But don’t expect to see drones from Walmart (or any other retailer) buzzing over city streets any time soon. As Flytrex boasts on its website, its aircraft are “designed for the suburbs.”