We’ve all heard (or said) the phrase, “it’s not what you know but who you know.” And, entrepreneurs really shouldn’t take that casually. Because, your connections really can make a difference in whether your company just gets by or truly thrives.

This may still be a new concept for some, so take note. While financial and human capital continue to be important for your company, social capital can potentially gain your business the most benefits of all.

In this article, Chris Cancialosi shares four reasons why social capital is the most important for entrepreneurial success, and reveals how to make social capital work for you.

When Microsoft announced it was laying off 12,500 employees in a 1,100-word email, it inadvertently sparked a discussion on company communication. How can business leaders effectively communicate company changes to their staff? What is the protocol?

Big or small, changes are changes, and they need to be reported to employees accordingly. By approaching discussions with factors like timeliness in mind, leaders can have more success in talking with their teams.

In this article, and with added insight from Jenny Dervin, the former Vice President of Corporate Communications for JetBlue, Chris Cancialosi outlines three lessons to be learned from Microsoft’s recent layoff.

Free donuts can only accomplish so much. Sure, they’re tasty, and the sugar rush can help you make it through the next 30 minutes, but are they really boosting company culture or just your blood sugar?

If you want to see a real difference in your company, you don’t have to wait for your CEO or department head to introduce the next great idea. You have the power to initiate changes to boost your fellow employees’ motivation and your company’s bottom line.

Leading at the top of the organization is lonely. According to a recent study called by The School for CEOs, 93% of top leaders require intensive preparation to take over an organization. Technical skill gaps that a leader faces as they take on positions of greater responsibility, such as making decisions about organizational structure and managing various stakeholder groups, often times receive more attention than some of the emotional and psychological hurdles they face. Impostor syndrome, for example, a major phenomenon that many leaders experience as they navigate a more complex landscape often causes people feeling ill-equipped to do the job. This has real performance implications both at a personal level and for the organization.

Leaders that experience impostor syndrome generally feel like a fraud. Often times, the story that replays in their minds is that they are going to be “found out”. In fact they often attribute their success to other factors – “ I was in the right place at the right time” or “I ended up here because I got lucky”. It’s also common to see executives that suffer from impostor syndrome not taking credit for their accomplishments. And if they do, they are usually pretty convinced that they won’t be successful the second time around.

It turns out that execs with impostor syndrome, tend not be vulnerable and this lack of vulnerability inevitably leads to a lack of self-awareness and development . To overcome this, creating a peer support system that can become a trusted network of advisors and serve as a go-to resource can be helpful. Working with an executive coach to look at some of the underlying beliefs and assumptions that are driving certain behaviors and then creating strategies to overcome them can also be of tremendous value. So if you or someone you know is feeling like an impostor, it’s normal and there are things that can be done to address it.

It’s been a long couple of weeks for New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie. With numerous political scandals coming to light and the Governor continuing to insist that he knew nothing of the alleged strong-arming of local politicians with opposing views, one must wonder- how do such cultures devolve to the point where staff members feel that it is acceptable to behave in such ways.

When scandals erupt, once publicly confident leaders who seem to have complete control of their organizations suddenly claim ignorance and rush to divert attention away from themselves. This happens more commonly than one might expect.

If unethical organizational behavior is known to leaders and tolerated, for whatever reason, the clear message to employees is that it is okay to behave in such ways. If the behavior occurs unbeknownst to the leader than the leader is not doing an effective job of supervising the people that work for him. Either way, the leader is at the root of the culture issue.

Four Signs Your Culture May be Toxic-

1. Employees feel they can behave in unethical or unprofessional ways with little or no repercussion from their leadership.
2. Leaders hold themselves to a different standard than they hold their people.
3. When the going gets rough, leaders quickly look to blame someone or something else for the mishap rather than take responsibility.
4. Employees are fearful that they cannot speak up in fear of retribution from leadership.

The buck really does stop with the leaders. And, they must intentionally cultivate employees’ beliefs about acceptable and unacceptable behaviors and the guidelines for behavior in the organization. With so many stakeholders looking more closely at the brands and companies they engage with these days, it pays to create an organizational dynamic where team members know exactly what’s expected of them. Otherwise, toxic cultures will kill themselves.