Contributed article in our leadership series. Enjoy! – Kimberly
Being a good boss is essential if you want your team to work well. Becoming a great boss takes time and experience, but there are some things to remember that will help you. When the boss of a company is amazing, the work that is done for that boss is amazing too.
Passion
A great boss must be passionate about the company, the team, and the work that is done. They must love the products and services that are sold, and they must show that passion in everything they do. A boss who doesn’t care, or who is unsatisfied with their job, is very demotivating, and can lead to employees not caring either. If no one cares about the company, customers will soon sense that and stay away.
Integrity
A great boss has integrity. They will admit to their mistakes and not allow anyone else to take the blame. If someone has done something wrong, a great boss will help them to get back on the right track if possible, and, if it was a genuine mistake, they won’t hold anything against them. Behaving in this way creates loyal employees who will go the extra mile to help their boss when required.
Gets Involved
A boss who stands back and delegates every little thing is not a great boss. They may have made their own lives easier, but they make everyone else’s that little bit harder, so in the end they are disliked. To be a great boss you need to get involved in the company wherever possible. That doesn’t mean taking over someone’s job for them, but if your skills are required to write a Facebook post, or whatever else it is, do it. Be there. As long as it doesn’t compromise what you should be doing elsewhere, help out. A great boss also knows when it is time to outsource if the skillset of the employees does not match the task in hand, for example, knowing when to call professionals for a new label for a beverage design, will ensure that time and money is not wasted on producing a low quality design that may impact the long term success of the product.
Calm
A calm boss is a great boss. Even when they are under immense pressure, they don’t let it get to them – they keep a level head and guide their team out of the way of the problem so that they can look at it objectively and fix it as soon as possible. The key is not to pass any uncertainty that you might be feeling down to your team. Panic fosters panic, and a calm, measured approach makes you team calm and measured too.
Human Beings
A great boss is a human being. That may sound obvious, but some bosses work like robots, not taking any kind of emotion or feeling into account – theirs or anyone else’s. Someone who behaves in a human way is warm and kind, they listen to their employees and they help whenever possible. It’s true that they make mistakes, but they also understand when someone else makes a mistake. They praise good work, and they aren’t afraid to express emotion when it is the right situation (they can always keep their emotions in check if that is called for though). The best bosses are human beings first, and bosses second.
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