Sustained inflation is a severe threat to the recovery of the US labor market, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said in his confirmation hearing before a Senate committee. Getting more people back to work starts with the economy showing growth over an extended period of time, Powell asserted.

Starbucks said it has made strides toward meeting specific goals for increasing the number of Black, Indigenous and other people of color across the company and that it plans to boost hiring and promotion efforts in its manufacturing operations. The global coffee giant also said it will almost double its spending with suppliers who are women, veterans and people of color to $1.5 billion annually by 2030.

Women who are 65 or older have helped drive the increase in retirements recorded during the pandemic, according to the St. Louis Federal Reserve. Retirements were up 7% in October 2021, compared with January 2020, above the number that would be expected given the aging of the workforce, the data show.

Delta Air Lines no longer will require prospective pilots to have a college degree, which is now a preferred qualification. The move "removes unintentional barriers to those seeking a pilot career at Delta, especially those that have gained an equivalency through other operational and leadership experience," Delta said.

Today's leaders require complex skill sets such as balancing priorities with different timelines, developing emotional intelligence and prioritizing "the ability to develop, motivate and retain employees, Denise Lee Yohn says in this blog post and video. "Instead of choosing between short-term tactics or long-term strategies, for example, you might adopt a planning cycle that allows you to strategically evaluate the allocation of resources more frequently," Yohn says.

I’m fortunate to lead a team of smart, driven and experienced editors. I learn from them constantly. Katie and Paula are masters of juggling multiple projects. James is a walking Wikipedia on systems and process -- the guy can answer any question you have about Google Analytics or how our internal legacy systems work. Katharine is committed to the audiences she serves and it shows in her work -- every story in every brief that she edits gets carefully measured for its relevance to the audience’s needs. Trigie is our eagle eye, the one who ensures we don’t go rogue with commas, style or interpreting a story’s message. And Diane loves the content development process -- from writing to editing. I can always count on her for fresh ideas, witty headlines and careful scrutiny of a draft.

I thought of these guys today when I read the Leadership & Development story about workers who become indispensable to their managers and find themselves stuck. This was a good gut check moment. I don’t want to be that type of manager. I want to be the one who helps the members of her team grow and take on new roles and shine.

What about you? Are you a help or hindrance to your workers’ ambitions? Are they getting better or getting moldy under your leadership? Let me know! And if you enjoy this brief, tell others so they can benefit also.