In a recent interview on the Today show, the musician Jon Bon Jovi told Matt Lauer how much he enjoyed working as an actor with Matthew McConaughey on the movie U-571. As an inexperienced actor, Bon Jovi looked to McConaughey as a leader and wasn’t disappointed. Bon Jovi said that it wasn’t what McConaughey said but what he did that helped him. Leaders teach by example whether they know they’re doing it or not. Do you remember the first time an adult said to you, “Do as I say, not as I do”? Did it strike you as ridiculous at the time? If it didn’t then, it certainly should now. Your development as a leader won’t go very far if you don’t learn this lesson. People inside and outside of your organization will learn more from you about leadership, for good or ill, from what you do than from what you say.

Learning about learning is a hot topic in many workplaces. Businesses in general have reached the conclusion that if they’re not learning about their customers, themselves, and their future on a daily basis they’re losing the race. I’ve observed many management team meetings where leaders have discussed learning strategies and opportunities for their people to get smarter. I haven’t listened in on conversations where they’ve challenged each other and reported on their personal earning goals. And that’s a problem. People will believe that learning is part of their job in your organization by watching whether or not you’re learning.

So, let’s talk about what you’re learning. I hope you can answer this question with two things in mind. First is that you’d be excited to share the skill you’re learning that will make you better at doing your job. It would be great if you could also share how you’re learning. Is it a formal process or a self-study situation? You would tell how you were taking what you’ve learned and practiced and applied it in a real-life situation. You would be willing to share how you might have failed as you tried new skills and how you appreciated the feedback you got from others as you practiced. You would look and sound excited as you described how this learning was making your work easier, more efficient, and more fun.

Then, you would move on to telling us about what you were learning in your personal life. Your face would light up as you described your movement into uncharted waters. Who your teacher was. How often you got to practice what you were learning. How you realized that this personal learning was giving you insights about your business situation—an unexpected bonus. How something could be frustrating and fun at the same time.

After a conversation like this, I’d know you were a lifelong learner and I’d be challenged. Way to go, leader!

Business, any business, is about people. I will defend that statement at any time, in any place, under any circumstance. Leaders know more people, usually because they’ve been around longer and had more opportunities to meet and converse with more people inside and outside their organization. When a leader leaves one company to go to another, it is more likely that they can—in the course of their business day—keep in touch with people from their prior organization. Part of the leader’s job is to help others make connections. Nowhere is this more helpful than in a coaching and mentoring session. This question is designed to get your mental Rolodex going. You listen to the response to this question and search for a person you can recommend as a connection.

People need to find other people for information, perspective, or advice. Each of these three situations has its own set of requirements.

* Looking for information. Here you need to help your mentee construct her own questions well so that when she asks for information, she’s asking for the right information. Usually you can suggest a phone contact unless the desired information is detailed or lengthy. Make sure you give your mentee permission to use your name as a reference.

* Looking for perspective. When perspective is the goal of an interaction between two people, a face-to-face meeting is probably required. This is asking for more than a quick answer, and you are sending your mentee to impose on someone’s most precious commodity these days—time. In this case, you will probably need to make a phone call of explanation or facilitate the meeting yourself.

* Looking for advice. I once coached a woman who was struggling with issues around balancing her career with her young children. I can remember my own issues of balance well, but my experience was years ago, and things have changed. I called a friend, a successful working mom I know, and asked if she could spend some time with my mentee, helping her figure out some strategies to keep her sanity. Advice is a bigger request than information and perspective, and I needed to put some skin in the game by asking my friend what I could do to repay her. The night I spent having pizza with her kids while she worked late on a critical report was really quite fun.

No matter what form your connection takes, make sure you remind your mentee about the basics of good networking. You learned them from your mother or, if you didn’t, borrow my mother’s lessons: Please, thank you, and the asker picks up the check.

Some people live their lives as though joy were a very limited resource. As if they were allocated an amount at birth, squandered much of their share during childhood and must now, as responsible adults, hoard their remaining supply for some unspecified time in the future. Given these parameters, why would anyone in their right mind waste joy on work?

Let me think. Artists often do. Teachers do, I hope. The waiter at my favorite Wausau restaurant, The Back When Café, does. The vendors I do repeat business with do. The most successful leaders I’ve known do. The organizations that thrive, year in and year out, do. If you agree with the conventional wisdom that joy is an endangered species, then these people are fools. The day will come when they’ll simply run out of their allotment of joy—and won’t you have the last laugh then. However, what if they’re wrong? What if you run out of life with your allotment of joy untouched?

Work is a great place to express joy. If you look, you’ll see that there are so many little opportunities for happiness when you work with people you respect, do tasks that make a difference, and use the talents you’ve been given. If you read that and don’t agree that your job affords those possibilities, then you’re either in the wrong job or not paying attention. No matter which is true, you can and should make some changes.

Remember these thoughts as you listen to the answers to this question. Do people find joy in their work at your organization? What are the implications for you if they don’t? You can help people find joy in their work by showing them how what they do matters. Many people in today’s workplace have no idea how the things they do on a daily basis affect the success or failure of their organization. A receptionist needs to understand that the way he answers a phone could make or break the biggest deal your organization may ever have. A filing clerk needs to know that her daily efforts make it possible for the customer service team to respond quickly to a customer request. A pipe fitter deserves to look at the architect’s drawing and know that, because of her efforts, the building she’s working on will shelter the children at a daycare center. It is your job to help all team members understand the importance of their work. Do that and watch the joy spread.