Description: The best managers make a point of catching employees doing a good job, and being sure to praise them on the spot. Management training classes teach us to document what our employees have done, good and bad, and to save those notes in our files to be well-prepared at performance appraisal time. From The Stepping Stone, April 2005, Issue No. 18.

Description: This article discusses the lessons the author learned from the book The Advantage by Patrick Lencioni on the value of organizational health.

Description: The authors discuss best practices in building, retaining, and growing diverse actuarial teams and evidence that points to the benefits to companies of doing so.

Description: Based on a decades-long study, honesty is the most important quality in a leader. This article addresses ways to establish trust with their co-workers.

Description: This article explains why leaders should care about the culture at their organization.

Description: In the Leadership & Development Section’s Leadership Inspiration Contest, entrants were asked to tell us what inspired them to be a better actuarial leader. Here is the winning entry from the “Defining Moment / Event” category.

Description: Three ways to ask for more support at work if you have ever found yourself overwhelmed by your to-do list at work and know you’re capable of doing the things on the list but wonder whether you SHOULD be doing some of them.

Description: Cassie He and Linda Liu, two actuarial students, invite Mark Freedman, the President-Elect of SOA to share with us his experience as an actuary, the challenges and opportunities facing actuaries and the outlook for the profession as SOA president.

Description: This article discusses the key leaders in the Smaller Insurance Company Section, the key initiatives for 2014, the fun that one can have as a participant, and some success stories.