What are the major nightmare boss traits that you’ve either experienced or heard from your friends? Chances are, they will overlap with the Forbes survey of employees about their worst boss experiences. The key hated traits in a boss? Micromanaging, lying and aggression (especially passive aggression). One poor women even had a computer monitor thrown at her. Read More

Emotional intelligence is often a trait that women naturally have. In the business world, I think it’s one of our trump cards. But as research continues to develop, I know it’s as important to stay on top of developments as any other element of business. Read More

Over-confidence sounds pretty bad to me. Perhaps because I know your confidence doesn’t see the results you expected, you feel so foolish. Or perhaps because I’ve seen managers turn solid progress into feeling like  a failure by setting ambitious but ultimately unachieved goals. Read More

Think of your favourite boss. Think of a few words to describe them. Chances are angry, busy or ruthlessly task focused didn’t come up. In fact, in a new article by Tony Schwartz, he shares the list of the 10 most popular words that thousands of people used to describe their favourite boss. And two thirds of them were emotional qualities. Read More

It’s one of those cycles we see way too often in the business world. A division, branch or business starts to fall apart, the boss bails or gets booted, and the role goes to a woman. The men are all busy looking the other way, while a gutsy woman decides its rare an opportunity like this comes along so let’s go for it. Read More

We have a lot of sphinxx members and readers who work in the public sector. There are many sites full of business resources, articles and international news, and I would like to introduce you ladies working in the public sector to Public Sector Women, a much needed and very useful website. Read More

I’m very excited by our speaker line up for August Ascend “Re-energise You”, and delighted to announce that as we head towards the conference our speakers will be sharing some of their resources here. Read More

You’re probably already familiar with the de Groots restaurant site www.bestrestaurants.com.au which is oldest restaurant site in Australia and the function site www.bestvenues.com.au. These much-loved websites are the go to source for information about the best restaurants and function venues all around Australia and unique features such as downloadable full menus, function packages, lunch special and a real-time restaurant booking engine to book direct with restaurants. Read More

Everyone loses motivation from time to time. In fact as a leader or a manager in business or indeed any field, maintaining your own motivation and focus is a crucial and constantly evolving art. But what about your employees? How can you boost their satisfaction and productivity?

Knowledge Wharton has published an articles on the findings of management professor Adam Grant that outlines the benefits of workers having even brief contact with the individual customers/beneficiaries of their work. He argues that workers being aware of the impact of their work, and the importance of even the mundane tasks is essential. Read the  full findings and the case studies that proved his theories here.

 Read More

Is it time for a new form of creativity? In the Harvard Business Review, Roberto Verganti has written a thought provoking article on the possibility of transforming the current bountiful harvests of ideas into the focused creative function of vision. 

I hear so many good, great and terrible ideas everyday and think his opinions are spot on about the need for “the relentless exploration of one direction”. Think about the project, issue or opportunity your workplace is currently most concerned with – now imagine focusing completely on finding the solution (including multiple ideas) till you’ve achieved it. Exciting isn’t it?

Read the full article here.

 Read More