12 Personality Traits That Make You a Rock-Star Boss (Infographic)

Relationships can go two ways. And if a relationship isn’t working, it’s so tempting - and so easy - to look across the table to find the problem. But the problem may be you.

As a business owner, if your staff is lackadaisical and underperforming, it’s time to evaluate whether you can be doing a better job as a manager. After all, a team is only as efficient, productive and happy as its leader.

Officevibe, a company dedicated to improving corporate culture through gamification, put together an infographic summarizing what makes a good boss. From always being positive to always being honest, even when it’s hard, take a look at the infographic below for an overview of the fundamental personality traits shared by good managers.

From Entrepreneur

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Africa’s female entrepreneurs take the lead

Madinah Nalukenge recalls the day she set out to sell food on the filthy edges of a bus terminal in the Ugandan capital in 2004. She had just US$10 left over from a failed attempt to sell bed sheets.

Now she runs a catering business that makes a monthly profit of up to US$3,000, a source of pride for the 34-year-old single mother who spends her days offering plates of mashed plantain and greasy meats to transport operators in downtown Kampala.

“There is a lot of money to be made here,” she said recently, her apron bulging with cash. “I need to stay focused.”

Her competition: More than a dozen other women operating food stalls next to hers.

Nalukenge, who did not study beyond grade school, is part of a growing trend in Africa where more women are running businesses on a scale that was unthinkable a generation ago. Africa now has the highest growth rate of female-run enterprises across the world, according to the World Bank.

About 63 percent of women in the non-agricultural labor force are self-employed in the informal sector in Africa, more than twice the worldwide rate, according to World Bank data, which also show that necessity — not opportunity — is the main driving force behind female entrepreneurship in poor countries.

INFORMAL SECTOR

Women often start by running informal retail or service businesses, but those who are more ambitious have created thousands of jobs in projects that break stereotypes about what women can do, physically and socially, in societies that are still largely conservative.

“Traditionally women would sit at home and wait for the man to return home with a bag of groceries, but this has been changing over time as women’s dependence gradually reduces,” said Thomas Bwire, an economist with Uganda’s central bank.

In a sign of the times, he said, Ugandan women now even work at road construction sites.

There are more women than men working in the informal sector in all of sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Labor Organization. The UN agency’s most recent survey, released last year, said that this is unlike other regions, including South and East Asia, where informal employment for women tends to be concentrated in home-based, domestic work.

Some of the food vendors in downtown Kampala have remarkably similar accounts of what sparked their entry into private business: hungry children, unpaid rent and some violent partners. Most of them have long been single or were recently in failed relationships, an important detail because many insist their businesses are succeeding in part because of their independence on the home front. Many of the vendors have also enrolled their children in boarding school to make more time for work.

“They don’t help and they never want to help,” Nalukenge said of her former partners. “Yet even the little you get they want to take away from you. I was alone when I started this business.”

Development economists note that if more women are helped to join the labor force, especially through access to credit, they can be a powerful force for global economic growth.

CREDIT SUPPORT

A report released earlier this year by the investment bank Goldman Sachs urged what it called “giving credit where it is due,” adding that women’s “increased bargaining power has the potential to create a virtuous cycle as female spending supports the development of human capital, which in turn will fuel economic growth in the years ahead.”

An estimated US$300 billion credit gap exists for female-owned enterprises, according to the International Finance Corp of the World Bank, which in March launched a US$600 million fund to finance women-owned businesses in the developing world. The venture — dubbed the Women Entrepreneurs Opportunity Facility — aims to work with local banks in sharing risks and extending credit to 100,000 women entrepreneurs.

Across sub-Saharan Africa, where poverty remains extreme in many parts, stories of successful women entrepreneurs are accumulating. A Kenyan woman, Mary Okello, is feted for starting, inside a three-bedroom house, what has since become a prestigious group of private schools. In Rwanda, Janet Nkubana has been recognized abroad for running a handicrafts company that employs more than 3,000 women whose baskets can be purchased at Macy’s. The Nigerian Adenike Ogunlesi is famous for her “Ruff ‘n’ Tumble” clothing line for children, a business that she first operated out of a car trunk.

COOPERATIVES

In Uganda, where most of the food is grown locally, many women have been drawn to catering, and their food stalls are ubiquitous at transport terminals and open markets. Unable to get credit from banks, often the women start “cooperative” groups in which they pool savings. Then they take turns getting loans.

“The few who have ventured out have surprised themselves by succeeding,” said Ugandan economist Fred Muhumuza, who has been advising Uganda’s government on development policy.

Rampant poverty is driving women to find ways of taking over “core family responsibilities” from men, he said.

Nalukenge said she has kept her children in school and now owns two small plots of land.

On a recent evening, as she prepared to clean up and pack her saucepans, she pondered her unlikely journey from failed hawker of bed sheets to successful caterer with a long line of loyal clients.

“We spend a lot of energy here,” she said. “There’s no resting, but at the end of the day, we get our reward.”

From Taipei Times

10 Movies Every Entrepreneur Needs to Watch

No one ever said being an entrepreneur would be easy. A million obstacles seem to stand in the way each and every day. The naysayers and budget woes can be enough for the average person to start waving the white flag.

But you are not an average person: You’re an entrepreneur. That means that even when times are tough, you’re still going to march forward.

Yet when this whole entrepreneur thing becomes overwhelming, take a break and look for some much needed motivation. And what better way to find inspiration than watching movies?

Whether it’s a heartwarming adventure, irreverent comedy or thought-provoking documentary, a film can inspire and motivate a weary business owner.

With that in mind, here are 10 movies that every entrepreneur needs to watch:

1. The Social Network: It was no surprise that The Social Network was a blockbuster when it was released in 2010. After all, everyone wanted to see how Mark Zuckerberg became transformed from a Harvard student to launching the most popular social-media network in the world.

Why watch it? Never mind if this was overdramatized. The film gives viewers a better understanding of how to make a startup succeed by exhibiting such qualities as being flexible and resilient. Every time I watch this movie it motivates me to be a better entrepreneur.

2. Glengarry Glen Ross: Based on David Mamet's Pulitzer Prize-winning play, this film explores the cutthroat world of Chicago real estate.Glengarry Glen Ross takes a closer look at the lies and betrayals people endure  just to succeed in business.

Why watch it? Unfortunately, the business world can be brutal, something you’ll learn even as a salesperson. This 1992 film illustrates just how vicious it can be.

3. Pirates of Silicon Valley: This was a made-for-TV movie released in 1999 that covers the early days of the country's leading technology hub and the eventual rise of both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. The documentary-style movie provides an interesting take on the lives of the founders of Microsoft and Apple.

Why watch it? Entrepreneurs are still looking for inspiration from these two iconic “pirates.” It definitely provides pointers to learn from.

4. Citizen Kane: Even if you’re not an entrepreneur, watch Orson Welles’ 1941 masterpiece. The film revolves around the life of a fictitious Charles Foster Kane, a newspaper tycoon loosely based on William Randolph Hearst and his quest for fortune and power. In the end, however, Kane comes to understand what’s really important in life.

Why watch it? While launching a successful business is a goal of every entrepreneur, it’s not the only goal in life. 

5. The Pursuit of Happyness: Based on the true story of Chris Gardner, this 2006 Will Smith vehicle is one of the most heartwarming and motivational films for entrepreneurs. If you’re not moved by watching Chris and his son struggle to follow a dream, then I am truly puzzled.

Why watch it? Even though he became homeless and struggled to provide for his son, Chris never gave up on his dream. That passion and sacrifice is something every entrepreneur should be willing to embrace. 

6. Moneyball: You don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy Brad Pitt’s portrayal of Billy Beane, the general manager of the Oakland A’s. Because the team didn't have the finances to spend on players, Beane had to discover a unique way to compete.

Why watch it? Beane had to be innovative. And that’s one of the most-well known traits of entrepreneurs: figuring out how to make something better. Also, Beane never listened to the naysayers and never backed down from his vision.

7. Rocky: This is another film that everyone has to watch at least once. Sylvester Stallone wrote and starred in this ultimate underdog tale of Rocky Balboa going the distance with boxing heavyweight champion Apollo Creed.

Why watch it? Even when the world tells you that you'll never have a chance to succeed, keep fighting. That competitive spirit can take you a long way. And I dare you to listen to the classic score from Bill Conti and not become motivated. 

8. Wall Street: In 1987, director Oliver Stone made Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) one of the most infamous characters in cinema history with his motto “greed is good.” The film centers on the illegal and unethical decisions made by Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) to become filthy rich like Gekko, a corporate raider.

What watch it? Don’t sell yourself out just for the sake of money. Remember, being an entrepreneur isn’t just about becoming rich and famous.

9. Jerry Maguire: The protagonist, Jerry Maguire (Tom Cruise), had it all: a great career, lots of friends and a beautiful fiancé. One day, however, he has an epiphany: Sports agents shouldn’t just be looking at the money scenes but how to take care of their clients. Jerry loses everything and goes on journey to regain everything he’s lost.

Why watch it? When you’re following your dream, everything else will fall into place both professionally and personally. Jerry Maguire eventually learns this valuable lesson.

10. Office Space: This 1999 comedy from Mike Judge focuses on Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston), who eventually discovers how much he hates sitting inside a cubicle taking orders from his creepy boss Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole).

Why watch it? Every entrepreneur hates working for someone else and will even sometimes go to extremes to get fired: I'm not condoning that you embezzle, though: it could result in jail time.

I'm sure I missed a couple. What movie do you think every entrepreneur has to watch?

From Entrepreneur

Why I Admire These Two Women Entrepreneurs

SHARON HADARY: I struggle with identifying my entrepreneurial role model, because over the years I have had the privilege of working with and learning from many highly successful women and men entrepreneurs.

After much thought, I winnowed my list down to two social entrepreneurs.

Barbara Kasoff is co-founder and president of Women Impacting Public Policy (WIPP), a nonpartisan nonprofit that advocates on behalf of women and minority businesses in the legislative process. Before starting WIPP Barbara owned a highly successful for-profit business.

Monica Smiley is owner and publisher of Enterprising Woman Magazine, an international publication focused on showcasing, celebrating, and knowledge sharing for highly successful entrepreneurial women. She purchased Enterprising Women when it was a small, struggling publication and built it into a global enterprise including an annual conference that attracts women from around the world.

Both organizations are highly successful by all traditional business measures—financial, fulfilling their missions, sustainability, and growth. They are “doing well by doing good.”

Here is why they inspire me and what we can learn from them:

• Be values-based and act consistently based on your values — both internally and externally;
• Lead from your head and your heart;
• Take charge of your destiny;
• Bring out the best in others — both employees and constituencies — by creating shared values, vision, and goals;
• Embrace financial and performance metrics — remember no margin; no mission;
• Play well with others; and
• Make a difference to our world.

From Wall Street Journal

10 of the Most Counterintuitive Pieces of Advice From Famous Entrepreneurs

We all love to take advice from people who’ve previously been through the same situations as us or who are further along a similar path to us. For entrepreneurs this is particularly useful, since it’s such a difficult, unknown path to tread sometimes.

Funnily enough, some of the advice I’ve come across through reading interviews and articles from famous entrepreneurs is oftencounterintuitive to what I would expect them to say. I thought it would be interesting to gather some of this advice into one place, so here are ten of the most counterintuitive pieces of advice I’ve come across from famous entrepreneur.

Paul Graham: Don’t think big

Paul GrahamImage credit: niallkennedy via Flickr

Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things.

Paul Graham’s advice is something I was really surprised about at first, but it actually makes a lot of sense. No great outcome is achieved without lots of smaller steps to get there, and it’s almost certain that these smaller steps can lead to change your direction somewhat.

Empirically, it’s not just for other people that you need to start small. You need to for your own sake.

Graham points out how big companies like Facebook and Apple have come a long way from relatively small and humble beginnings. It’s hard to argue with logic like that.

I think the way to use these big ideas is not to try to identify a precise point in the future and then ask yourself how to get from here to there, like the popular image of a visionary. You’ll be better off if you operate like Columbus and just head in a general westerly direction. Don’t try to construct the future like a building, because your current blueprint is almost certainly mistaken. Start with something you know works, and when you expand, expand westward.

The popular image of the visionary is someone with a clear view of the future, but empirically it may be better to have a blurry one.

Leo Babauta: Don’t set goals

Leo BabautaImage credit: wmrice via Flickr

“These days, however, I live without goals, for the most part. It’s absolutely liberating, and contrary to what you might have been taught, it absolutely doesn’t mean you stop achieving things.

It means you stop letting yourself be limited by goals.”

Goal-setting is a pretty difficult practice to argue with, particularly for those of us who focus on life-hacking and productivity a lot, as goal-setting is pretty much ingrained for us.

Leo’s advice is to stop setting goals so we can live without the frustration and regret of chasing goals and never achieving them.

If you live without goals, you’ll explore new territory. You’ll learn some unexpected things. You’ll end up in surprising places. That’s the beauty of this philosophy, but it’s also a difficult transition.

It might sound like this is an easy way to get nothing done, but Leo says he still feels productive, even without goals:

What do you do, then? Lay around on the couch all day, sleeping and watching TV and eating Ho-Hos? No, you simply do. You find something you’re passionate about, and do it. Just because you don’t have goals doesn’t mean you do nothing — you can create, you can produce, you can follow your passion.

Dave Goldberg: Leave the office at 5:30

Dave GoldbergImage credit: Hubert Burda Media via Flickr

We’ve all heard of young founders and CEOs putting in long days and pulling all-nighters to get more work done. In some ways, this has become a pervasive view of Silicon Valley and how startups are run.

Dave Goldberg, CEO of SurveyMonkey, shows that it’s possible to get out of the office by 5:30 and still build a billion-dollar business.

Goldberg leaves work at 5:30 PM every day to spend time with his family. While he does get back online after he puts his children to bed after 8:00 PM, he sets an example that makes it easier for the company to build and maintain its workforce. A CEO who spends time with his family every day demonstrates to other employees who have families that it’s okay to be home for dinner and live a life outside the office.

Goldberg realized how important having a company culture of work-life balance was if he wanted to hire, and keep, top-tier employees:

Early in his tenure, he put culture into action by recruiting the current SVP of Product and Engineering, Selina Tobaccowala, when she was four months pregnant. Making SurveyMonkey a place where team members can actually have a family life made it possible for Goldberg to close the highly sought after recruit, even given the competitive hiring market.

Elon Musk: Seek out negative feedback

Elon MuskImage credit: jdlasica via Flickr

Elon Musk has had his fair share of negative press in the past, but surprisingly he says this can be really useful:

Always seek negative feedback, even though it can be mentally painful.

His advice is to pay attention to negative, constructive feedback, even if you’d rather ignore it.

They won’t always be right, but I find the single biggest error people make is to ignore constructive, negative feedback.

In fact, Musk even advocates asking for negative feedback from others:

Don’t tell me what you like, tell me what you don’t like.

Dharmesh Shah agrees with Musk, saying you should actively seek out negative feedback to test your idea and your willingness to follow it through:

Seek out the most critical opinions of your plan that you can find. The natural tendency for a first-time entrepreneur is to fall in love with an idea and then look for friends and colleagues to support it. After all, who wants to have a fledgling idea crushed by naysayers? But these are exactly the types of folks you should be looking for.

Have them shred your plan and designs from top to bottom. If you find yourself agreeing with them and having doubts, then your plan (and possibly you) may not have the mettle to make it. But if you are able to defend it with conviction, repeatedly, then you probably have both the moxie to last through the long, tough grind you’re facing, as well as a plan that just might work.

Jeff Bezos: Change your mind a lot

Jeff BezosImage credit: dfarber via Flickr

When Jeff Bezos visited the 37 Signals office, he shared this counterintuitive advice with Jason Fried:

He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.

This is a really surprising one for me, but I was definitely glad to hear it! It can sometimes feel like sticking to your original plan is the most important sign of dedication and perseverance, but Bezos points out how important being open to changing your mind can be.

He’s observed that the smartest people are constantly revising their understanding, reconsidering a problem they thought they’d already solved. They’re open to new points of view, new information, new ideas, contradictions, and challenges to their own way of thinking.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a well formed point of view, but it means you should consider your point of view as temporary.

Tim Ferriss: Don’t go all in with your business

Tim FerrissImage credit: Mark Beck via Flickr

If you’ve ever felt like starting your business as a side project must mean you’re not fully committed and it’s going to fail, you’ll love this piece of advice. I felt relieved to read Tim Ferriss’s advice to maintain a full-time income while building a business:

Work backwards from a target monthly income goal, design your business to support that, then minimize the amount of moving pieces and automate it. All that can be done with a full-time job, and I discourage people from cutting all ties and losing full-time income to focus on a business. You don’t have to make that leap. People tend to think it’s employee or entrepreneur, but there’s a broad spectrum and you can very slowly and methodically move from one end to the other.

Daniel Blumenthal from TripAdvisor agrees with Tim, and says that although learning on someone else’s dime before going all-in with your company isn’t the popular approach, it’s probably the best one.

Work in a great company that will teach you how to scale. Work at a startup to see how the game is played. Build your connections. Pay off some student loans. For God’s sake, finish school. Then go for it, and don’t give yourself an excuse for why it was ok for you to fail.

Nate Kontny: Stay in the building

Nate KontnyImage credit: Nate Kontny via Twitter

You’ve probably heard about how important it is for entrepreneurs to ‘get out of the building’ when starting a new company. The point of this is to talk to real customers and work out how to solve their problems so you can build something people want.

Nate Kontny has a very different idea about how to ensure you’re building a great product:

If you want to create something that truly makes a dent in the universe, you need to have a thorough understanding of a problem. When you’re building stuff only for other people, that’s tough to accomplish. Innovations like the Swiffer take Proctor and Gamble deep and lengthy periods of research where they hire teams of ethnographers to study their customers. You think you really understand someone’s business after 30 minutes over coffee? I didn’t.

Nate says that looking at your own habits and problems is a better place to start:

But you know who you can research with much greater depth 24 hours a day? Yourself. And you have plenty of problems.

Want a good place for inspiration? Look at your credit card statement. Each one of those line items, represents some job or problem that’s important enough you coughed up money for it. That’s a great list of tasks you have in life. Analyze them and the steps involved. Which one can you make simpler?

Reid Hoffman: Be embarrassed with your first version

Reid HoffmanImage credit: TechCrunch via Flickr

LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman argues against perfectionism and having a big launch with a finished product:

It’s the emphasis [on] time. It’s getting out and getting in the market and learning and moving, [which are] much more important than the ego satisfaction of ‘Oh, I want to do it completely behind a cloak and then [remove] the cloak and everyone knows how wonderful and what a genius I am cause they think the product is so wonderful.’ That’s actually rarely the winning strategy. The actual winning strategy is ‘I’m moving, I’m getting out there and I’m adapting at a fast rate.’

Hoffman says we should focus on shortening the time to getting feedback from users so we can start iterating immediately based on real user feedback:

…the key things to shorten the [length of time for] getting to the market with a minimum viable product… I had learned from SocialNet and PayPal. As opposed to waiting for a perfect product, you actually want to be launching the minimum viable product, the thinnest possible product, and then you iterate and develop

Chris Guillebeau: Provide the strongest guarantee you can

Chris GuillebeauImage credit: jenlemen via Flickr

World traveller (literally—he’s visited every country in the world) Chris Guillebeau doesn’t advise playing it safe when it comes to guarantees for your customers:

Provide the strongest possible guarantee, and stop worrying. I don’t mess around with guarantees. My Frequent Flyer guide guarantees that customers will receive at least one free plane ticket (25,000 miles) in exchange for $49, or I don’t get to keep their money. Everything else is guaranteed for life, or for as long as the bank that processes my Visa transactions will allow me.

This might sound nuts for a small, new business when you’re still unsure of how long you’ll survive or how big you’ll grow, but Chris is convinced that giving your customers a strong guarantee is worth it.

Some people ask: with such a generous guarantee, what’s the refund rate? Answer: less than 1%.

But don’t people take advantage of you? Answer: most people are honest, so why worry about the dishonest ones? Life is too short.

Richard Branson: Go with your gut

Richard BransonImage credit: easternnn via Flickr

Even at this high-point of his career, Richard Branson is still convinced that gut-feeling is his best indicator of an idea worth pursuing:

I never get the accountants in before I start up a business. It’s done on gut feeling…

It’s an unconventional approach to advocate mixing emotions with business, but I love that Branson does so:

Engage your emotions at work. Your instincts and emotions are there to help you. They are there to make things easier. For me, business is a ‘gut feeling’, and if it ever ceased to be so, I think I would give it up tomorrow.

Branson’s convinced that fun is important in business, and that creating things he cares about is a far better use of his time that working on a business that his accountants say will be viable.

Like all startup advice, counterintuitive or not, a lot of these tips might be wrong for you or your company. Or, they might be exactly what you needed to hear. Sometimes it’s so easy to get caught up in what we ‘should’ be doing that we forget there are others who have gone against the grain and had it work out for them.

From Entrepreneur