Do you remember your first job? If you”re like roughly half of us in today”s workforce (myself included), you were most likely in your teens, and the job was part-time. And if you”re like me, while you earned a little, you learned a lot.

Although participation in the youth labor force has declined steadily since at least 1989 (see this white paper compiled by Patrick J. Holwell, of the Arapahoe-Douglas Workforce Center in Denver), those early part-time after-school and summer jobs do much to build valuable job and personal skills that will be deployed to even greater use later in life. As leaders of very young workers, we mustn’t underestimate the influence of that first job, and our roles in shaping young people”s view of the world of work.

From the ages of 16 to 20, I worked as a “student assistant” at the Regency Square Branch of the Jacksonville Public Library. Yesterday, the branch held a celebration of its 40th anniversary, and someone was thoughtful enough to put my name on the invitation list. The picture accompanying this post shows yours truly, flanked on either side by two of my first bosses (including my first-ever job interviewer), joined by a couple of others from my library days.

What a great job it was. But not so much for the duties we performed, which were less about literature than inventory management. And, at $1.60 an hour, it sure wasn”t the money. So what was it that kept me there, and engaged, for 4 years? It was the same things that keep your employees, of all ages, engaged today. While much – indeed VERY much – has shifted in the workplace since the late ”70”s, the fundamentals of engagement have remained rock-solid.

Good leadership. My bosses probably covered very little about leadership and human motivation in their Master of Library Science programs in graduate school, but somehow, they knew how to treat people.

These professionals also taught me about showing up on time, properly attired; keeping up with my name badge; looking for ways to help others when my work appeared to be caught up; the fact that I was not indispensable, and that my job security depended, in large measure, on my performance; finding creative ways to help customers; and a host of other valuable life lessons.

Meaningful work. There”s nothing particularly exciting about sorting and shelving books (our number one function) and our bosses knew that. So, they were careful to season our days with as much variety as possible – a few hours of shelving, followed by an hour of customer contact at the front desk, a special project, or maybe running the projector for the classic movies we  showed (something the geekier ones of us truly relished.) They were also careful to point out how our work enabled our branch to be the top performer in the library system, and how that affected our budget, which in turn affected the number of part-time hours distributed to our location.

Just rewards.  As city employees, we weren”t eligible for incentive bonuses, and the librarians didn”t exactly go around handing out 5 dollar bills to the student who shelved the most books accurately in an hour, but they did know what motivated us – each of us – individually. In other words, they subscribed to the notion that, when it comes to rewards, one size fits one. Our most effective incentives came in the form of work assignments, both hours and duties. They knew that my least favorite task was sorting incoming books, and that I much preferred working the checkout desk. Some of my friends wanted only enough hours to pay for gas and date money; others wanted to work as much as possible. We quickly learned that the quality of our work seemed to have a direct relationship to our goals. If ever I slacked off, my next week”s hours would be cut, and those hours would be spent – you guessed it – sorting the 800”s down to 6 Dewey Decimal places.

A good “fit”. The library gang was a diverse lot that eventually chose wildly varying career paths, to include: nurse, art appraiser, auto mechanic, two-star general in the US Army, and even a librarian. But, at the time, most of us “fit” the job, and the job fit us. It fit our temperament and our interests. It worked with our school, extracurricular, and social schedules. Of course if provided some income, but also, not insignificantly, given the age group, a great social environment. I”m still in touch with many from those days so long ago; a few remain my best friends today; one introduced me to my wife.

This simple library job, my first job, remains a good demonstration of what we”ve always known about employee engagement. Compensation is secondary to other factors: good leadership, the chance to do meaningful work, rewards that provide a good incentive, and a job that just “fits”.

Those things don”t change.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by virtue of a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He and Bill Catlette are the authors of the popular “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. Their newest book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, published by John Wiley & Sons, is now available. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

One thing that hasn’t changed much in the last few years is the popularity of the topic of change.  Though we don’t list “change management” as one of the topics on which we speak, it often works its way into a keynote or training program, usually by client request, because the ability to lead people through change can often be a make-or-break contribution to a team, business unit, or entire organization.

As we point out in Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, much has changed in the workspace, and elsewhere, in just the last dozen years. Two wars, 9/11, a near economic meltdown, an increasingly unworkable healthcare system, high unemployment, corporate shenanigans by those who knew better, unprecedented technological development, the ubiquity of handheld communication, social media, and four generations in the workplace, not to mention having to put shampoo and toothpaste in a Ziploc bag at the airport. These are only a few of the changes that have made much of the world unrecognizable when compared to the way things were even at the beginning of the new century.

But while the context and environment in which we practice leadership has changed in material ways, the fundamentals of leadership have not. And that includes the fundamentals with which we manage change itself.

We hope you draw some comfort from our telling you that you don’t have to like change. But we’re compelled to invoke the words of former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki, who once said, “If you don’t like change, you’re going to like irrelevance even less.”

Witness the case of Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), once the second largest computer company in the world, behind IBM alone. Founded in 1957, this corporate behemoth employed more than 100,000 people at its zenith, years before it succumbed in its final tragic death throes in 1988. Founder and CEO Ken Olson’s resistance to change provides a possible clue to the company’s demise. In 1977, Olson said, from the main stage at the convention of the World Future Society that “There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home.”

Change, per se, isn’t inherently bad. In fact, in many cases, it’s good. It often represents progress, development, success, or the realization of some long sought after goal. Still, the anticipation of change, sometimes just the very mention of the word, more often brings pangs of apprehension than tingles of excitement.

But change presents a particularly difficult obstacle to employee engagement. The diagram above illustrates.

Change breeds uncertainty. Uncertainty causes fear. Fear leads to preoccupation. And therein lies the problem, because preoccupation and engagement are mutually exclusive.  I’ll say that again. Preoccupation and engagement are mutually exclusive. Although I don’t speak from personal experience, I’m told that if you’ve ever been engaged to one person while preoccupied with another, you’ll understand what I mean.

What I can relate to is that when we’re worried, or preoccupied about something at work, we can’t possibly concentrate all our effort on serving customers or beefing up the bottom line. And that portion of effort we’ll hold in reserve is the part that’s called Discretionary Effort, something we’ve written about extensively. Because it’s the most profitable morsel of effort people can offer their employers, it’s the most costly when it’s withheld.

But there’s encouraging news in this model. The one element that’s easiest for leaders to control also happens to be the one that makes the biggest difference with respect to leading change:  Uncertainty. Look at the diagram. We probably can’t do much about the change itself. It’s coming, like it or not. But we can reduce or minimize the uncertainty that accompanies change, even if we can’t eliminate it altogether. How? By sharing and communicating as much information as possible, to mitigate the effects of uncertainty.

When leaders provide information about the change to come, we nip the problem at its source. Uncertainty takes a real hit, cutting off fear’s air supply, and knocking out preoccupation before it has a chance to threaten engagement.

Effective change leaders minimize uncertainty by proactively providing the following information:

* Here’s what we think the change will look like.

* Here’s why it’s happening.

* Here’s how it will affect you.

* Here’s what you can do to make it work better for everyone.

* Here’s what I’ll do to help.

Give this a try. The next time change approaches (you won’t have to wait long), formulate a communication strategy that focuses on these five information needs. Our bet is that you’ll be leading a much more willing group of people toward change that has the potential, if embraced, to take you into an even better future.

In the spirit of full disclosure, mine is a British-American family. My wife was born and raised in Scotland, and I’m the only member of our household who does not hold a British passport. We like the Royals around here and agree with most Britons that the monarchy is a positive force and should remain in place.

I know that many Americans, indeed many others around the world, don’t “get” the monarchy, and therefore don’t value the institution. That’s fine, but if the Brits are happy with the arrangement, then who are the rest of us to bring it down?

Over the years, the Windsors have weathered rough patches, many of their own making. Today, as the U.K. and the rest of the Commonwealth celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee – 60 years on the throne – 80% of Brits polled express approval for the monarchy, Queen Elizabeth, and the royal family. No other head of state, including our own, even comes close.

The reason it works? The Queen herself. Here are a few Elizabethan traits that I think we as leaders could all do well to emulate:

• The Queen knows when to keep her mouth shut. She’s well aware that she was endowed with one royal mouth and two royal ears, and she uses them in proper proportion. She’s met every week, since 1952, with one of her 12 Prime Ministers, and by all accounts, she’s the one who does most of the listening, and less of the talking.
• She represents constancy and consistency of purpose. In an age when too many leaders change their “mission” more often than they do their socks, the Queen’s purpose has always been, as she said on her 21st birthday,  “service”.
• While anchored in constancy of purpose, she’s not been afraid to change with the times. The monarchy has morphed. Rules and policies have been reviewed, and when deemed archaic and no longer useful, they’ve been abolished. Charles married Camilla. The Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned. And in October of 2011, a centuries-old rule was scrapped, giving royal males and females equal succession rights to the throne. When was the last time you asked what rules and policies of yours need to be scrutinized and possibly scrapped? And the monarchy hasn’t let social media pass it by. You can like the monarchy on Facebook, and follow it on Twitter.
• The Queen is 100% devoted to service. At age 86, she still attends more than 400 functions a year and supports more than 600 charities. She’s one of the hardest working CEO’s I know of, and she shows no signs of slowing down.
• She knows how to correct her mistakes. The Queen’s not perfect, and she knows it. When she famously misjudged the people’s reaction to the death of Princess Diana, she appeared on worldwide TV in an honest appeal for understanding. People will forgive a host of flaws in their leaders, especially when those leaders take time to explain and understand the needs of those they lead. The institution recovered, indeed rebounded from the misstep, if today’s popularity is any indication. The Queen never forgot the lessons associated with Diana’s death, and it shows in how the monarchy conducts itself today. The next time you get it wrong (if you’re like me, you won’t have to wait long), take quick action to get it right again.
• She has a sense of humor. All those who know her talk about it. The Archbishop of Canterbury was quoted as saying, ” “I found in the Queen someone who can be friendly…informal… extremely funny in private – and not everybody appreciates just how funny she can be…I think we’ve been enormously fortunate in this country to have, as our head of state, a person who has a real personality.”
• Finally, she knows what her job is – and what it is not. She said in her Christmas broadcast of 1957, “I cannot lead you into battle. I do not give you laws or administer justice but I can do something else – I can give my heart and my devotion to these old islands and to all the peoples of our brotherhood of nations.” The best leaders know what to do – lead – and not to interfere where they can’t bring value.

What Queen Elizabeth II has done, and done so well, in her 60 years on the throne, is to hold a diverse group of people together, through good times and bad, people with a wide range of political views and perspectives, to imbue them with a sense of identity, of imperfect unity, that somehow works, with varying degrees of success. That, I think, is what a leader does.

She must be doing something right. On Sunday, more than a million people braved a cold London rain to stand outside for hours to honor Elizabeth and her 60 years of service. What other CEO’s might hope for a similar tribute?

Long live the Queen.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by virtue of a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He and Bill Catlette are the authors of the popular “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. Their newest book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, is due to be released by John Wiley & Sons on July 3, but is available for pre-sale now. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

On Friday, CNBC’s Becky Quick reported that multibillionaire oracle and investor Warren Buffett did not have plans to invest in Facebook, which is set for an initial public stock offering later this month. Oh, it’s not because he doesn’t like Facebook, nor does he think the social media platform is a bunch of hype. In fact, he said he thinks that what’s happening at Facebook is “extraordinary”. “People get excited when a company does that well,” he said, “And they should.”

No – the reason he’s decided not to invest in Facebook, or similar companies is because, as he admits, he doesn’t understand the social media sector of technology. No dummy, he’d no doubt understand it perfectly well if he’d studied it, but he’s just chosen to become an expert in other kinds of businesses. And Warren Buffett didn’t become one of the wealthiest people in the world by investing in things he didn’t fully understand.

His comments echo those of former Fidelity Magellan Fund manager Peter Lynch, who wrote in his book Beating the Street that investors ought not put their money into anything they can’t explain with a crayon. Literally. We think that’s excellent advice.

The same holds true for the willingness of people to “invest” themselves in your organization. If people don’t understand what we’re all about well enough to be able to describe it with a crayon, literally – a crayon – then they can’t, and therefore won’t put themselves into their work with the kind of Commitment we need.

Here’s an assignment: Go out and get a box crayons. Then, in your next staff or team meeting, give everyone a plain sheet of white paper, and one of the wax implements, and ask them to portray, using only that crayon, what your organization (or team) is all about. Use the results as a springboard for a meaningful discussion about what your organization is, in fact, all about. If your team struggles a bit more than you’d like, or if you’re not particularly happy with what you see, strive to solidify that understanding of what you’re all about over a reasonable time, say, six months or so. Then come back and revisit the discussion with your team.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by virtue of a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He and Bill Catlette are the authors of the popular “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. Their newest book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, is due to be released by John Wiley & Sons on July 3, but is available for pre-sale now. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.

In our line of work, we deal with lots of lists. Fortune’s annual list of the 100 Best Places to Work; their Most Admired List; Glassdoor’s Best Places to Launch a Career, and the like. We’ve even got a few lists of our own, including our latest list of “Contented Cow” companies, highlighted in our upcoming new book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk.

But perhaps the most perplexing (to me) list to come out lately is Time’s list of 100 Most Influential People in the World. No harm to Time, but I think their definition of “influential” and mine differ. In my book, someone who’s influential is someone who has a substantial effect on the behavior and thinking of others, for good or ill. By that standard, the Time list largely misses the mark.

Topping the list is New York Knicks basketball player Jeremy Lin.  Immensely talented and uber-famous, he has a great story, and by all accounts is a great and admirable guy. I like him a lot, and I think much of the world admires and respects him. But I question “worldwide influence.” I just don’t know that he’s substantially changed the world’s behavior or way of thinking.

I was surprised that, of the 100 people on the list, this news junkie and reasonably “world-aware” writer has never heard of 74 of them. Sure, there are some really good picks on the list. Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose swing vote has often determined the law of the land in the U.S.; world leaders Obama, Merkel, and Netanyahu; the mega-wealthy Alice Walton and Warren Buffet. But Kristen Wiig? Please. She makes me laugh on Saturday Night Live, and I think she’s really good at her job, so I respect and admire her. But influence? One of the most influential people in the world? I could be wrong, but I don’t think so.

Maybe influence is easier to relate to at the personal level than on a worldwide scale. If that’s the case, I can think of four groups that are among the real “Most Influential People” in the world: Parents, Teachers, Mentors, and Bosses. The first two are so obvious that I won’t take up blogspace elaborating.

Lots of you are probably “mentors unaware”. Your mentee has never called you a mentor, but you’re a mentor nonetheless. He or she looks up to you, watches what you do, and emulates you to a degree. That’s influence. Others have entered into formal mentoring relationships at work, and still others have volunteered to serve as a mentor to a young person, perhaps through the school system or a community organization. THAT’s influence.

But think about it. If you’re somebody’s boss at work, their leader, manager, supervisor, whatever term you want to use, you have, like it or not, tremendous potential to exert influence over the people you lead, if for no other reason than the fact that they spend a huge proportion of their waking hours under your leadership. You can affect their behavior, their thinking, indeed the entire trajectory of their professional life. That’s a daunting responsibility by any measure, and I fear that too many bosses fail to recognize the influence they have over the people who call them “boss”.

If you’re somebody’s boss, stop and think, soon, about how you affect the behavior and thinking of those you lead. If you want to sleep well at night, make a conscious decision to be an influence for good on the people you lead.

You may not be much of a basketball player, or lead great industrial nations, but you could very well be the “Most Influential Person” in someone’s life. Make the best of it.

Richard Hadden is a leadership speaker, author, and consultant who helps organizations improve their business results by virtue of a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He and Bill Catlette are the authors of the popular “Contented Cows” leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. Their newest book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, is due to be released by John Wiley & Sons on July 3, but is available for pre-sale now. Learn more about them and their work at ContentedCows.com.