Who’s a Good Boss Then?
Are you a good boss? Do you have a good boss? Do you wish someone else’s good boss was your boss?
Regardless of the answers to these questions, being a good boss is crucial if you want to see your team and or business succeed.
Read on to find out the 5 best ways, + a bonus tip at the end, to be the good boss you’ve always wanted to be.
Good Boss Qualifications
No Degree Needed to be a Good Boss
I don’t have an MBA from Harvard or Stanford.
Actually, I don’t have an MBA at all!
But I have worked in both the public sector and the private sector and I have been self-employed and an employee.
I’ve been a musician in an orchestra; I’ve done manual labour in a factory, sold flat pack furniture in a retail store; I’ve been a customer-facing employee in a tiny company with three employees and by contrast, I’ve worked for a global brand with over 86,000 employees in 70 countries. I’ve also had many years of experience as a senior director in a large family-run business.
In addition, I’ve managed teams, some remotely, in a number of the roles I’ve held.
I don’t need an MBA to tell me how to be a good boss – I’ve had dozens of managers – some great, some OK and some absolutely terrible – and I’ve learned from every single one of them.
Now, this doesn’t mean that I am the ultimate manager and I have all the answers. Far from it. I made a lot of mistakes as a boss and I know I’m not perfect but what I’ve created below, are the five things I’ve come to appreciate every boss should do regularly, to become a GREAT boss. There are many, many steps to becoming a great leader, however, if you focus on these five steps you won’t go too far wrong.
1. Communicate….and do it regularly!
A Good Boss Talks to his People
This sounds obvious. It should be, but a lot of the time it is forgotten about or worse still ignored.
Your staff need to know what is going on in their business/department/team. Communicate your strategy with your team often. This strategy needs to align with that of your business as a whole. If your people don’t understand what they are meant to be doing, how can they deliver the results you expect them to?
Performance feedback is also essential. Don’t wait until a quarterly or annual review to raise issues. This goes for both good and bad performance, highlight when things are going well and when they are not; provide honest constructive feedback that will help your staff to grow and become better at their jobs.
As long as you are not giving away confidential or company-sensitive information, then, talk to your people. You’ll build a much more cohesive and motivated team.
2. Delegate, Delegate, Delegate
A Good Boss Shouldn’t do all the Work
If you have a team, you should be delegating.
However, if you are delegating, you need to do it properly.
You need to explain exactly what you want and how you want it done.
For example, if you are delegating the organisation of a dinner for your top 100 customers. You need to specify where the invite list will come from; what the budget is; the types of venues you would consider; when you’d like the event to happen; what you want the event to look like; the format of the evening; the style of invite; the type of menu you’d like to see; what sort speakers you would like for the event etc.
It is not simply a case of saying ‘organise me a dinner’. If you do this, you will end up with something that looks completely different to what you envisaged in your head.
This goes for any kind of delegation – whether it is a report, a presentation or a brief for a meeting.
Be SPECIFIC about the outcome you want and how you want it to be delivered.
As with point one; great communication is essential for great delegation. Check-in regularly with your team members, to ensure everything is on schedule. Create a culture where if your team need help, they feel comfortable asking.
But beware – DO NOT micro-manage. Micro-management is a disease in teams, and you should do everything in your power to eliminate it from your management style.
This brings me nicely to my third tip for management success – TRUST.
3. Trust Your People
Like Being Married….Except You’re the Boss
This can be a difficult one for some leaders to grasp and the ones usually guilty of it are the micro-managers!
You have to learn to trust your employees. If you have inherited a team, this can take a little time. Trust is a two-way street and your staff need to know that they can trust you and vice-versa.
Your employees are paid to do a job, so let them do it. If you trust your staff, you will grow and motivate your team and create autonomy.
Your job as a boss is to inspire and develop your people. If you are doing your job correctly your staff should be aspiring for promotion and looking to move on, out with your team or department. You are shaping what kind of boss they will become.
It’s like being a parent. You don’t raise your kids so they will be still living with you when they are 45. You raise them to be strong, independent people. Do the same with your staff.
Let them do their job.
4. You are not the King or Queen of all Ideas!
The Good Boss Welcomes All Ideas
This might just be my pet hate of bad leaders.
Bosses who think that because they are in charge, only their ideas will work.
CEOs I’m looking directly at you!
If a team-mate approaches you with an idea to make something better, work more efficiently or create more customers. Listen to them.
If it won’t work, be honest and explain why.
If you think it has potential, ask them to develop the idea and bring it back to you in a way that demonstrates, with evidence, how it will work. If it makes sense and is financially viable, consider implementing that idea – it might be as a ‘pilot’ to see if it works, but give the idea oxygen to work.
Whatever you do, do not ask them to write a paper/report on the idea to use that as a stalling technique. I’ve seen leaders do this too many times, only for the idea to be lost in the ego of an ineffective manager.
Worse still is when the idea is implemented, and the manager takes credit.
You don’t need to, and you can’t use every idea you are given as a leader, but if it is a good one, then let it live. I guarantee you will see your employees walk a little bit taller because they have contributed to the business.
5. Acknowledge a Job Well Done
Good Boss 101
Studies show that being acknowledged for doing a good job is more effective than money.
Sure, it is nice to get a bonus, but by the very nature of it being a bonus, this usually means it will only happen once, maybe twice a year, as it is simply not cost-effective to constantly use money as a mechanism for praise.
Acknowledging the fact that someone has done a good job works instantly; staff feel more engaged and will go out and continue to work hard to exceed expectations.
It can be as simple as a ‘thank you’ or an ‘awesome job’, perhaps lunch or a night out to celebrate the team delivering the outcomes together; an email showing your gratitude for a job well done or even a public announcement, detailing your appreciation.
I remember when I worked in the public sector, all the managers had to be assessed to make sure they were delivering a consistent level of management.
Part of this involved me being evaluated by an external agency, as I conducted an employee review.
The assessor praised me at the end of the meeting, stating that he had assessed over 20 of the organisation’s leaders and I had been the only one who had thanked an employee for doing a good job.
I thought it was sad – and I never forgot this.
Where praise for a good job is required – make sure you do it.
Finally, how about a bonus sixth tip on how to be a good boss? Perhaps, the easiest of them all.
Bonus Tip……
Don’t be a Dick!
The Number 1 Rule for Being a Good Boss
Becoming a boss is a great honour, sometimes it can be unexpected, and sometimes it is all you have worked for, but however you get there, don’t forget – you are still the same person you were before you got this job. You haven’t been anointed by some high priest of business and you are not any more special than the people you work with.
You just have more responsibility, that’s all!
Don’t swan about like you own the place (even if you do), don’t believe your own hype and most of all: don’t be a dick!
