How to be a good boss?
Excuse me, leader
Your boss can either make you love your job or hate it, the same as your math teacher in high school (if you know what I mean). There is no surprise that our relationships with people affect also our performance in everything we do in life (remember that project that went so badly because you could not get along with your teammates? Me too.)
I maybe should consider myself lucky to never have had a “bad boss” in my life. At least so far. But I did have some better ones than the others. My first boss was such a great person that he really put some high standards about how a leader should behave in a company. If you realized, I used both the words boss and leader in a sentence. The truth is I do not like the word boss, I believe that gone are the days when a boss would give orders to his employees while he wouldn’t do much himself. Instead, I believe in leaders who work together with their employees, because after all, they know they set an example for them. But since the word “boss” is somehow more catchy and causes contradictory feelings, I decided to go for that one.
So back to the story of my first-ever boss. I was working as an intern in a startup and I loved it. The working environment was perfect, we had an open space office where programmers, marketing people (just me at that time), and my boss would be in the same space. Besides that, we were all young, most of us were still students or just graduated. My boss was young too. One of the things I really liked about that company was the working atmosphere. We would communicate with each other, sometimes we would make jokes and laugh and sometimes we would go into a silent mood, being too focused on our tasks. And the cool thing? My boss would join us in everything we’d do, he would laugh with us, tease us, and sometimes we would just have some random conversations together. If I have given you the impression that this was a very chill company, well, not really. We knew when to work hard and when to relax for some time. We were also the team that worked till 7 pm during the week and also worked on Saturdays, my boss would even work on Sundays. Something else that actually blew my mind was that whenever my boss would prepare his coffee he would also ask us if we wanted some. He is one of the most polite people I have ever known. Since we were a startup he also made sure to make us all part of the company’s vision. So whenever we had a meeting he would invite all of us to participate and know what everyone was working on. To him it was important that all of us knew what was going on in the company and what was our common goal, so we had the same vision while working. He would often mention the story of JFK and the Janitor.
The story goes like this. President John F. Kennedy was visiting NASA headquarters for the first time in 1961. While touring the facility, he introduced himself to a janitor who was mopping the floor and asked him what he did at NASA. The janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon!”
Later on, I realized this is something essential that every company needs to implement. I do understand that as a startup it is easier to connect with all your employees and this would be quite impossible in a corporate, but there are other ways to make your employees feel part of something greater than themselves, after all, belongingness is a psychological need we all have(check Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs below).
My first work experience taught me a lot about what a good boss should act like and what actually motivates young people to perform better at work (at least in my opinion).
Appreciate your employees’ work and always give feedback
This one is so important and I want to really highlight it. It is crucial to our existence to feel appreciated for our accomplishments. It gives us a boost to work even more and better! Self-esteem is one of the most important needs of human beings. Take time to appreciate your employees when they achieve something, even if it is just a short “thank you” note. Trust me, that is powerful. Remember when you were a kid and your teacher would congratulate you on something and the next day you would have done double the work of the previous day? Now you are still the same kid who does double the work when your boss congratulates you on something. We all want to feel appreciated.
It is important to show the employees that they matter in the company and that you do want to have them there. I remember being an intern in a company where nobody cared about what I was doing or whether I was doing what I had to do or not. I felt invisible and soon quit the job. So please, give feedback to your employees, whether they did something good or bad, and let them know. Also, remember that whenever you have to criticize your employees, start with the critics and end it with appreciation (Actually apply this rule in every field of your life). This way the appreciation and not the criticism will stay in their mind in the long term and that will cause a positive feeling in them (let’s face it, nobody likes to be criticized). Imagine getting two different emails from your boss:
“Hey John, I just saw your flyer design. The colors used are totally wrong. Haven’t you checked the guideline of the company? You better do!”
I do not know about you, but this email makes me feel like whatever I would try to do would never be good enough. This kind of boss sounds rather angry and annoyed and he gives a negative vibe to his employee as well.
“Hey John, I know you worked hard on the flyer design, but you did not use the right colors of the company, so I would really appreciate it if you could correct it. I really liked the creativity and the work you put into that. Looks amazing!”
Now how does that make you feel? If I would get an email like this I would be so motivated since my boss loved my job that I would start immediately working on it to make it better.
Of course, it is not always easy to look on the bright side. Maybe your employee really did something that cost a lot to the company. Then if you think the company is better off without that person, you can tell them where it all went wrong and that you would not like to work with them anymore.
Stay humble
Gone are the days when the boss had to be authoritative or arrogant, wear a suit and tie, and make his employees fear him. Let’s be honest, that never brought anything good. Employees would be scared all the time whether they would say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, and then get fired. Nowadays is another story. I have had the chance to meet many successful people including here CEOs of different companies, professors studying in well-known universities, and even the Vice President of Amazon Web Services, and all these people had one thing in common, they are humble people. I came to the conclusion that the more successful a person is-and only if he has gained this success on his own- the more he is open to others. Actually, the most successful people are often the ones that are ready to listen to you and help you. I really thought it would be the complete opposite. Thinking the more successful a person was the more arrogant he would be. Never had I been so wrong in my life. Even though that too unfortunately happens.
If you want to be a good boss you need to talk to your employees in a language that they can understand. Don’t try to be authoritative, instead, try to show them that you also want to learn from them. After all, you did not hire your employees to tell them what to do. So be open to them, and speak their language and thus you will remove the barriers between you and your employee. Communication and respect are key elements in every relationship we create. Previously people used to believe that you could make others respect you by being authoritative, but today you can be a humble person and still be respected by everyone.
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