"You get the best out of others when you get the best out of yourself."

-- Harvey Firestone, tire executive

by Jami Petersen

The difference between leadership and management can mean the difference between success and failure. But what is the difference and how does it affect us? Dennis Conforto explains how effective leadership can be the key to understanding effective management. Read more in this week's Business SMART article.

Jami Petersen
newsletters@a-z.com

Email Contact

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Wooky Entertainment

Target New Consumers:

Teenagers with the Paris Hilton Creativity Collection. This new line is for teens from 10 years old and older who are interested by scrapbooking. Following the latest trends and fashion, the Paris Hilton Creativity Collection is adapted for teen girls of 2010!

Visit us online: http://pariscreativity.com/
For more information : info@wookyentertainment.com

by Dennis A. Conforto, A-Z Media Group, Inc.

Nothing can replace the significance of leadership in the workplace. A company with the best ideas and potential that lacks effective leadership will eventually falter and then fail.

Author and leadership expert Warren Bennis puts it bluntly: “A business short of capital can borrow money and one with a poor location can move. But a business short on leadership has no chance for survival”.

Leaders see those in a company not just as employees, but as individual people that form a family. A leader emphasizes the importance of having core values in the workplace and within one’s individual life. Moreover, a leader seeks to foster their own skills in other employees so that they too may one day lead others toward success. Leaders are learning engines not only for their own company but for an industry. They are interested in always learning and teaching others along the way. Getting to the top of a mountain is not just about them but about the team. For them it’s a group photo at the top, not a personal portrait. Leaders are always reaching down and pulling people up to the top of the mountain.

Without effective leadership, teams often experience a breakdown in direction, communication and motivation, which usually leads to failure either within a company or within an industry. This is why so many great leaders have been excellent communicators. A competent leader is never satisfied with the status quo, but repeatedly seeks to re-evaluate team goals and performance with a long-term vision in mind. Without this element of creative passion, a company or an industry often finds itself surpassed by its competitors or other industries.

Leaders are the kind of people you aspire to be like. They are the kind of people you love to listen to and whose opinions you seek,. While they are busy, they always seem to slow down just enough for you and your needs before they somehow change the laws of time and speed off to the next goal they have created for themselves and those they work with.

Leaders avoid words like, “I can’t do that” or “It can’t be done”.. A leader’s passion is addicting. They don’t just talk about their scrapbooking passion; they live it.

Leaders base their opinions and thoughts not just on feelings but on facts. However, they are not afraid to use limited facts and their vast experience to feel their way to a new truth. Leaders don’t dictate, they motivate. They seek input from others either by asking or by reading and studying.

Leaders do not look at failure as failure; they look at not trying as the biggest failure in life. Leaders are not afraid to apologize or admit a mistake. They are not afraid of what others might say about them; they are more fearful of what they have to say about themselves.

Finally, leaders love to give credit to others. They understand that great leaders are made by having and creating great open-minded followers. When a leader moves on they are remembered because they change the lives of those who follow after them.

The success of the scrapbooking industry will be all about great leaders who know that the act of scrapbooking in its own way can not only change the history of a family or a nation but change the world for good. Through the act of scrapbooking we prove that every life has value and every life is a life worth remembering. That is why the scrapbooking industry needs real leaders.

If you would like to comment directly to Dennis about this article or have him address a subject matter in future articles feel free to email him directly at dconforto@a-z.com.

The Memory Tradeshow

The Memory Tradeshow is the premiere market for scrapbooking and related products, family history and digital imaging.

It is the most important gathering of this industry regionally, and it’s attracting executives from all sectors: manufacturers, retailers, distributors, suppliers, sales reps, designers and press. The show’s goal is to provide the highest ROI show within the industry with a greater focus on the business of the memory industry, education and best business practices.

Learn more and save >>

Perfect Digital Wedding Album with Portable 8-Inch Display

Digital Foci, Inc., a leading provider of digital photography accessories for consumers and professional photographers, announced that it’s shipping the new Pearl White “Wedding” Version of its popular Photo Book, a portable digital photo album with an 8-inch 800x600 color digital LCD screen and 4GB of internal memory. Available May 21st (with pre-orders starting now), Photo Book in Pearl White is the perfect digital wedding album, with a sleek design encased in a soft leather-like case for an elegant photo album that makes an attractive first impression, matching perfectly with wedding themes.

Photo Book is an easy and innovative way for people to enjoy and share their wedding photos with friends and family. With Photo Book, users have easy access to their photos in a portable album that can be brought along to enjoy and share anywhere. Ideal for passing around while sitting on the sofa and at family gatherings, Photo Book can run for over 2.5 hours on its internal battery, giving you the convenience to share your photos in any setting. Compared to digital photo frames, the internal battery on Photo Book makes it very easy to handle, eliminating the need to deal with messy AC power cables.

Photo Book Black “Professional” Version is 2009 Holiday Best Seller

Introduced in 2009 as a “Professional” version, the Black Photo Book has been consistently awarded PMA Retailer’s “Hot Pick” (at PMA 2009 in Las Vegas, PMA Canada 2009 and PMA Australia 2009). As predicted by these panels of retail buyers with expertise and knowledge of the photo industry, Photo Book was one of the hottest sellers of the 2009 holiday season.

Easy Album Organization, Realistic Page Turning Effect -- Creates Slideshows with Music

Photo Book lets consumers organize their photos into different album collections and choose a specific album to view. The “Photo Album View” displays each folder as a separate photo album, showing its folder name and a preview image of the first photo in the album. Brides and photographers can easily organize their photos into different albums by event. Creating albums named “Engagement,” “Ceremony,” and “Reception,” will makes it easy select a particular album to view. “Photo Thumbnail View” lets you browse through the thumbnails of the photos in a selected photo album. In addition to running a full screen photo slideshow with adjustable time intervals, you also have the option of running the slideshow with a realistic page-turning effect. It is just like you were flipping through an actual photo album. You can also add music to play in the background along with your slideshow.