It’s pretty easy to be a bad boss but much more difficult to be a great boss. Being a bad boss takes no effort or thought. Contrary, being a great boss does take effort and thought. During any challenging time in business…a depressed economy, faltering sales, increased competition, or even a global pandemic…it is increasingly more important to be a great boss for employees looking for leadership, motivation, and moral support.
Great bosses display certain characteristics. Obviously, bad bosses display just the opposite. As a business owner or manager, review the below questions and answer “yes” or “no” to the following:
1. Do you give credit to employees?
Hopefully, the answer is yes; however, it could be that you take all the credit for yourself when something good happens or progress is made. A glaring characteristic of a bad boss is the one who takes credit for all good things happening in a business but is quick to blame employees when something bad happens. A great boss is quick to give credit when credit is due and willingly accepts responsibility when required.
2. Do you empower and trust employees?
Trust is a two-way street. Employees need to trust their bosses, but bosses equally need to trust their employees. Employees must feel empowered and know their bosses trust them to get the job done whatever their position might be. When training is completed, great bosses trust their employees with certain amounts of responsibility.
3. Do you take into consideration how much work your employees are doing?
As an owner or manager, you might be putting in more hours than any employee, but you must also take into consideration how much work each employee is doing. Without hard-working employees, a boss’ job would be even harder.
4. Do you equate salary to job performance and position?
It is always hoped that employees love their jobs, but they love compensation as well. A great boss takes into consideration an employee’s job performance and position when equating that to salary. Employees must be adequately compensated, so they are not constantly looking for another job or generally being dissatisfied with their current job.
5. Do you focus on the strengths of your employees?
Certainly, this is better than focusing on their weaknesses. Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but motivation comes from recognizing and encouraging all employees to use whatever strengths they have to the best of their abilities. While weaknesses can be improved upon, dwelling on an employee’s weaknesses does nothing to improve performance.
6. Do you carefully consider who is hired and who is promoted?
Often the hiring and promotion process is rushed and negative results are the end product. Great bosses take time in hiring the right individual for the right job (i.e., interviews, probing questions, references, testing) and promoting the right individual (i.e., previous job performance, skills, training, attitude) into a position with higher responsibilities.
7. Do you micromanage employees?
The opposite, of course, is giving employees the freedom to make their own decisions. While some employees do enjoy being micromanaged or actually do need to be micromanaged (perhaps a bad hiring decision), most employees enjoy a certain amount of freedom to perform their jobs without being micromanaged as long as they are accomplishing predetermined objectives.
8. Do you support employees if there are disputes with customers or vendors?
Employees need to know if their boss will “have their back” if the need arises assuming, of course, that the employee is clearly in the right should a dispute occur with a customer or vendor. Nothing is more embarrassing for an employee than when they are not backed by the boss. Perhaps, a dispute might take a bit of diplomacy on the part of the boss, but employees must know where they stand if an unpleasant situation occurs.
9. Do you provide guidance, issue clear directives, and establish well-defined objectives?
Employees need guidance, directives, and objectives on what is expected of them and their job performance. This cannot be left to guesswork. Great bosses do not shy away from providing guidance, direction, and objectives. If the boss cannot provide these things, employees operate in limbo not knowing exactly what to do or what not to do.
Are You A Great Boss?
Time, money, and effort are spent in the process of hiring and training employees. Unfortunately, this can all be wasted if employees are not motivated and content with their jobs. They either become disinterested or decide to leave. Whichever option is taken if an employee is not content has an overall negative effect on a business, its operations, sales, net profit, and other employees.
Whether a business has a couple of employees or hundreds of employees, bosses need to be great. They need to motivate, engage, lead, build relationships, and create a culture in which employees want to stay and contribute to the longevity and success of their employer.
If you answered the above questions, which category did you fit into…a great boss or a bad boss?
