Recognize the most significant component of our June celebration of Professional Wellness Month? Work-life balance. It is a major recruiting and retention factor for younger employees.

No longer willing to dedicate their lives to work, as many perceive their parents did, professional wellness has taken on a new meaning that encompasses time for all of life's activities for these, especially Gen Y or millennial employees. Products of structured lives, every minute of which was filled with scheduled activities, these employees will only thrive when work balances life.

Employers will ignore this at their peril. In one major computer company, 55% of employees telecommute from home offices. Increasing numbers of employers allow flexible work schedules. With the right policies and expectations in place, these work relationships are successful. They promote success for employers and employees. I'll continue to explore these options with you. Their importance is increasing and creates a tidal wave of new expectations for employers.

More About Work-Life Balance

• Work-Life Balance Books: read any good books lately? Comment.
• Work-Life Strategies for Optimal Performance and Life Balance: what's your strategy?
• Life and Family Challenges With Flexible Work Schedules?

Leadership is taking center stage as a topic in organizations as many seek leaders and seek to grow their current employees into leaders. In the economic turmoil of the past couple of years, leadership took second place to skills such as cost savings, employee layoffs, performance improvement, and doing more with less.

Just as employee retention is emerging as an issue, leadership success is currently emerging as an issue in organizations. Just the other day, I posted results from an Indeed.com study that pinpointed leadership as the trait most sought after by employers. Let's start with several leadership tips, my clients have found helpful over the years.

Your leadership style is situational. Your leadership style depends on the task, the team or individual's capabilities and knowledge, the time and tools available and the results desired. Here is the tell, sell, consult, join and delegate leadership style model that many of my groups have found useful. The situation dictates your leadership style.

AmyK Hutchens of AmyK International, Inc. (pictured), says, "Leaders are suffering from their own business hangover. During our recent political in-fighting and economic uncertainty, businesses have had their nose to the grindstone striving to do more with less. Everyone was so focused on surviving and cutting, they're just now looking up and realizing they have no clear next steps, limited vision and no energy."

"As a result, 70 percent or more of organizations are now coming to us asking for leadership training over sales and other more tactical topics - the focus has flip flopped - and even for those that are coming to us for sales, we're discovering leadership and communication challenges at the root of their business development issues."

AmyK offers these three quick and easy tips for executive development that any business leader can practice to immediately improve his/her leadership performance.

• "Focus on energy, not time. Time is a constant; energy is a manageable, renewable resource. What's sucking out your energy and what refuels it? Your answers will influence your strategy for energy management within the constraints of time.


• "Leadership happens one conversation at a time. Slow down and ask better questions. Focus on thought-provoking questions over reports. In meetings prep, devote at least five minutes to think of three to five questions that will lead to a more productive, more thought-provoking meeting. These five minutes will save you hours down the road.


• "Create internal alignment. Step back and ask yourself: What am I resisting? What am I judging? What am I attached to? Answer these three questions and you'll gain clarity, insight and a foundation for momentum."

Effective leadership skills and practices warrant development time and energy. Use these resources to further develop your leader within and your leadership skills organizationally.

_{Image Copyright AmyK Hutchens}

It is hard for me to imagine doing work I hated every single day. Or, going to a workplace that hurt my self-esteem or made me participate in constantly negative self talk with coworkers. Yet, many people do this every day. Henry David Thoreau is a favorite of mine and today's quote seemed particularly apt for this season.

Are you miserable at work? Do you never feel good about getting up and heading to work on Monday? Do you feel unchallenged, unhappy, or not in control? Is your boss the worst? Do your coworkers engage in unjustifiable complaining all day long? Is no contribution ever good enough?

If you continue to participate in any of these situations, you will ensure that you will continue to hate your job. And, hating your job is the centerpiece for a miserable life. Why go there? You don't have to be miserable at work.

Transition Story

Once upon a time, I had worked in a position for 16 years. Work that I had traditionally loved no longer challenged me; I was bored and making myself physically ill despite my great relationships with coworkers and the company. I could have worked out the rest of my career in this position, but I would never have been satisfied with my choice or my contribution.

So, I started my own business, before starting a business was the thing to do, despite the admonitions of friends and family that I had lost my mind. Why, they asked, leave your lovely public sector employment with its great pension and many perks? Because the thought of doing the same work for the next thirty years scared me more. And, life has never been quite the same since that fateful fall.

As a result, my work has illuminated my life beyond any presupposed expectation. What could have been a spectacular failure has allowed me to achieve my goals and dreams. Take a look at the possibility that exists for each of us in choosing the road less traveled. "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood and sorry I could not travel both"... (Robert Frost) How about you?

I also recognize that these are trying times economically and that good jobs and opportunities may be hard to find, but employers are hiring and following your dreams never goes out of style. Keep your resume and network constantly updated if you are unhappy long-term at work. You can stop being miserable at work - you can.

• Top Ten Reasons to Quit Your Job
• 5 More Reasons to Quit Your Job
• Create Your Own Path: Career Promotion Tips
• Achieve Your Dreams: Six Steps Accomplish Your Goals and Resolutions

_{Image ©iStockphoto.com / Richard McGuirk}

Favorite Quote - More Quotes

"I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he had imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours."

--Henry David Thoreau - Walden, or Life in the Woods

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In our work world, people as young as age 40 can experience age discrimination. How you appear to your coworkers and bosses can date you or project your desired image as a vital, contributing professional. Yes, I know it's not right, and few people are guilty of overt discrimination. That, however, constitutes the problem - and the challenge.

Age discrimination is often so subtle that the employees practicing it would deny that it existed. (Hmmm, do you think that candidate Bob would fit well in the work culture on the development team? Bob is 50 and the average team member is 30.) But, unconsciously or subconsciously, each of us has images that come to mind when we think about people in different roles at work.

Because of this, employees over age 40 need to take responsibility for the image that they project at work. (So do people under age 40, but that is a different topic for a different blog post.) Consciously or unconsciously, coworkers and potential employers do judge you by the image you display.

Even in a business casual work environment, some business casual looks enhance your image and perceived competence - and some do not. Here are my thoughts, and a few facts from a recent study, that tell you how to project a dynamic, vigorous professional image, no matter your age.

You can maintain the image of professional relevance at any age.

On a new topic, do you believe that employers need to establish dress codes? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

_{Image ©iStockphoto.com / Josh Webb}