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You wouldn't know it from our current crook- er - commander-in-chief but it pays to be humble , new research is showing. It’s good to be humble when you’re the boss – as long as that’s what your employees expect, according to newswise.com. Researchers studying workplaces in China found that some real-life teams showed more creativity if the employees rated their bosses as showing more humility. “Whether leader humility is a good thing really depends on the team members’ expectations,” says  Jia (Jasmine) Hu , lead author of the study and associate professor of  management and human resources  at The Ohio State University’s  Fisher College of Business . Humble leaders are most effective when team members expect a low degree of distance between the leaders and followers, Hu explains. When there is "low power distance" (I assume, this means when the boss is humble), employees share power with their boss in a collaborative way. But humility may be seen as a we...

Having trouble getting your team to work well together?  Maybe, call a friend. A new study has found that teams work better with a little help from your friends, according to newswise.com. Workplace teams are better when they include your friends.  Researchers analyzed the results of 26 different studies and found that teams composed of friends performed better on some tasks than groups of acquaintances or strangers. Teams with friends were particularly effective when the groups were larger and when their focus was on maximizing output. “Working with friends is not just something that makes us feel good – it can actually produce better results,” says  Robert Lount , co-author of the study and associate professor of  management and human resources  at The Ohio State University’s  Fisher College of Business , at newswise.com. The researchers analyzed studies about teams that used participants with established friendships and that included teams ...

Does your daughter expect a D on the algebra test?  No matter the amount of studying, she will probably get it. Not because she's dumb.  Because somehow kids' expectations of how they will do in a class actually affect the outcome, according to a new study. Research has shown that what a student expects to learn and how they expect to do in a class actually has an impact on their learning, professor Angela King has found. For example, she says at newswise.com, a student might take a divisional class and assume they will get an A because it’s viewed as their “easy” class. “They are already calculating their GPA based on that A and will do whatever it takes to get that A, while a student who takes a class perceived as more difficult, like an organic chemistry course, just wants to pass the class.” And sometimes that means they settle for a C, she added, when a little more effort or an alternative study method could help them improve their learning, and their grade...