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.

Image Courtesy of FastCompany.com

Recently, the good folks at Fast Company Magazine posted an excerpt from our new book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk on their FastCompany.com site. As the excerpt they chose is particularly representative of the book’s general thrust, we wanted to share it with you. Click here to take a look for yourself.

We note with sadness the passing this week of Andy Griffith, who though he earned his living in Hollywood, never seemed to forget where he was from.

A visit to a Hollywood film lot (we highly recommend the Warner Brothers tour) comes with the admonition from tour guides, with evidence aplenty, that nothing there is at it seems. In many respects, that has become the norm throughout much of society, such that in so many respects, form, image, illusion, branding, the avatar, the lipstick on the pig takes precedence over reality.

Earlier this week I engaged in a brief (140 character) online joust with a recruiter buddy who was bemoaning what he considered undue focus on authenticity, and not enough on hard accomplishments. I replied to the effect that, whereas I, too have a healthy respect for results, I’d also like to see fewer people (and organizations) trying to appear authentic, and more actually being that way.

It called to mind a very fine presentation by Chick-fil-A’s Andy Lorenzen (Director, Talent Strategy & Systems) at the recent SHRM global conference in Atlanta. Mr. Lorenzen was refreshingly candid in the Q&A portion of his presentation, especially when responding to three different audience members who, each in their own way, asked if the devout Christian beliefs of the company’s founder and owners didn’t in some way (legal, ethical, or operational) cause workplace problems.

Each time, he patiently but persistently noted that Chick-fil-A is a privately held company whose owners do hold certain beliefs dear, and have a prescribed set of values for their business, but that they do not foist their religious beliefs on others. That said, he added, with equal emphasis, that people who are uncomfortable working in an environment where those beliefs shape the operating culture and norms would likely find that Chick-fil-A is not for them. Then, with a smile on his face but dead certainty in his voice, he added that one thing they do foist on people is that if you work for Chick-fil-A, you better be down with “sellin chicken” or chikin, as their billboards playfully put it.

Our work with high performance organizations and leaders of choice (they can usually be found in the same place) suggests in the strongest possible terms that these organizations, Chick-fil-A being but one example, have a very strong sense of who they are, where they’re going, and what they stand for. They aren’t bashful about it, and it doesn’t change overnight with their socks.

With help from John Wiley & Sons Publishing, we released last week the latest in our Contented Cows series of leadership books. Written largely at the request of those who wanted an update of our 1^st work, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk offers fresh examples, a new and even more compelling business case, and some largely unheralded exemplars that we can all take lessons from. Indeed, one of those lessons is that our authenticity, at both personal and organizational levels represents the greatest key to bridging the trust gap which is perhaps the biggest problem that every business leader faces today.

We hope that you will purchase a copy from your favorite bookseller (it’s available in all popular formats), read it, and then be among the first to review it online at BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com.

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A pathfinder in the arena of leadership and employee engagement, Bill Catlette is a seminar leader, keynote speaker, and executive coach. He helps individuals and organizations improve business outcomes by having a focused, engaged, capably led workforce. He is co-author of the Contented Cows leadership book series, and Rebooting Leadership. For more information about Bill, his partner Richard Hadden, and their work, please visit their website, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ContentedCows

Felicidades are in order for our good friends at Plamex, the Mexican division of headset maker Plantronics. For the 2nd year in a row, the company, which employs more than 2,000 people at its manufacturing facility in Tijuana, has been named by the Great Place to Work Institute as the Best Place to Work in Mexico. It’s one thing to make a list like this once. Showing up consistently means a lot more, in our view. Plamex has been a perennial entry on the list for the last several years, but this year became the first company to make it a ‘two-fer” in the top spot on the Mexican list, and they’re already working toward a three-peat.

This past February, I spent a day touring the Plamex plant, meeting some of the people behind the magic there, and learning why the accolades are so well-deserved. We blogged, on February 17 of this year, about their practice of employee mass weddings. The company is featured prominently in our new book, Contented Cows STILL Give Better Milk, which is coming out in July. Here’s an excerpt from part of what we wrote about Plamex:

When Alejandro Bustamante assumed the role of President of Plamex, the Mexican division of headset maker Plantronics, in the mid-1990’s, he encountered a largely disaffected workforce in a factory struggling to meet the demands of a growing market fueled by rapidly changing technology. Quickly assessing the situation he’d walked into, Bustamante determined that he couldn’t fundamentally change anyone, but what he could do, was to institute a culture in which everyone – everyone – was treated with respect. He soon restored respect and a real sense of dignity in the plant, and as a result, he and his team have pulled off a business turnaround of gigantic proportion. The company’s output, quality, profitability, and reputation as the place to work in Mexico have all soared.

“The job of a leader,” he told me, while standing in the entrance to the Tijuana facility’s large main factory, “is to create the atmosphere to get the results we want. It’s as simple as that. It’s not always easy to do, but it’s not complicated.”

When I asked Bustamante to explain how Plamex had gone from its 1995 state to being named the number one Best Place to Work in all of Mexico, by the Great Place to Work Institute in 2011, the Tijuana native had a ready answer.

“There are three things we want for every one of our 2,286 associates here. First, we want to give everyone the respect they deserve. Second, we want to develop each one of them, to let them do as much as they want and go as far as they want. And third – and this is probably the most important – we want to improve the quality of their lives, and the lives of their families. When you do those things, you get their very best. And that’s what we need – their very best.”

This is the company that solved its recruiting problem by giving every associate their own business cards, as a show of respect. It’s the same company that brings the Baja California Division of Motor Vehicles to the plant once a month so that associates can renew their driver’s licenses. And it’s the same company that has a robust career development plan that’s available to every associate who wants to develop within the company.

If you read Spanish, click here for a full article on Plamex in the Mexican press.

So, we take our hats off to the leadership and associates at Plantronics in Tijuana, Mexico, and wish them another great and profitable year of proving what we’ve always said – that Contented Cows Give Better Milk.

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.