Altermedicine.org

Here are some words of advice about leadership from someone who served on the Board of a 400 member organization for 3 years -- the last year as the Board President.

Manage Up, Mentor Down

When you are someone’s manager, team leader or boss, your job is to enable that person to be successful. When your employees are successful, they make you shine. As a manager, it is your responsibility to provide the tools, resources, and direction needed by your employees.

Share Ownership

When employees, customers, and other stakeholders engage in solutions, ownership shifts from the few to all. When everyone owns the organization, everyone feels responsible.

Pay Attention To What Is Shown AND What Is Said

Only 7 percent of verbal communication comes from our words. The rest of it comes from voice inflection and body language. When listening to someone, it is important to listen behind the words so that you can understand what they truly intend to communicate.

Live in Limbo

As a leader, it’s not your responsibility to fix everything. In fact, the less you are personally responsible for fixing, the better off your organization. While you are waiting to match the problem with the people, you will need to sit with the situation without fixing it.

Be An Example

Whatever you expect from your team, you must be willing to exemplify. If you want a team that’s punctual, you have to show up before everyone.

Teach, Don’t Talk

When you tell your team what to do without giving them reason or context, they can follow the instructions and complete the task. However, when they need to do the same thing again, you will need to tell them again. On the other hand, if your provide for them the context for the directions, the next time the situation arises they can execute without your presence.

Praise Publicly, Punish Privately

When you chastise your staff publicly, you are alienating yourself from them and making your job as a leader infinitely difficult.  You shine as a leader when you empower and enable every individual on your team to shine.

A study links thyroid disease with human exposure to perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA). PFOA is a persistent organic chemical used in industrial and consumer goods including nonstick cookware and stain- and water-resistant coatings for carpets and fabrics.

The study included nearly 4000 adults aged 20 and older whose blood serum was sampled between 1999 and 2006 for PFOA. The researchers found that the individuals with the highest PFOA concentrations were more than twice as likely to report current thyroid disease.

Previous animal studies carried out by other scientists have shown that the compounds can affect the function of the mammalian thyroid hormone system. This system is essential for maintaining heart rate, regulating body temperature and supporting many other body functions, including metabolism, reproduction, digestion and mental health.

The invention of plastics in the mid-1800’s changed human civilization. Unfortunately, the environmental and health effects of plastic are a significant downside.

Now, scientists at the University of Tokyo, Japan, have developed a clay-based hydrogel that they hope will perform the same functions as plastic, but do so without endangering people or the planet.

Scientists have been using hydrogels in medical technology since the 1980’s, but their lack of rigidity and durability limited their use. But by adding a small amount of clay to the mixture, the researchers succeeding in imbuing the hydrogels with the stiffness needed to make the material more versatile.

Because the material is mostly water and clay, with only a little bit of polymer, the material has none of the toxic qualities of plastic.

Scientists have claimed people should remove old copper pipes from their homes, or else install special filters, because the metal has been shown to build up in your body and cause serious health problems.

Tiny traces of copper from pipes mix with tap water and are then consumed. Over a long period of time this leads to a build-up of copper in your body, which in turn leads to Alzheimer's disease, heart disease and diabetes because your body cannot process the metal.

People over 50 should also avoid vitamin and mineral pills that contain cooper and iron. They should also donate blood regularly to reduce iron levels.

U.S. newborns are arriving a little smaller, according to puzzling new research that can't explain why. The overall proportion of babies small for their gestational age increased slightly, by 1 percent.

Fatter mothers tend to produce heavier babies, and obesity is soaring. Yet the study of nearly 37 million births also shows that newborns were on average lighter in 2005 than in 1990, ending a half-century of rising birth weights.

Babies born too small may require intensive care right away and also be at risk for later chronic diseases.

A bitterly divided Supreme Court has ruled that the government may not ban political spending by corporations in candidate elections, overruling two important precedents about the First Amendment rights of corporations.

The 5-to-4 decision represents a sharp doctrinal shift, and it will have major political and practical consequences. Specialists in campaign finance law said they expected the decision to reshape the way elections are conducted.

The decision effectively means that a lobbyist can now tell any elected official: if you vote wrong, my company or interest group will spend unlimited sums explicitly advertising against your re-election.