Good Boss Bad Boss

What’s the difference between having – or being – a good leader or a bad leader? A good manager or a bad manager? A good boss or a bad boss?

I saw this conversation come up this week, and thought I’d share my thoughts.

Bad ones

The ‘bad ones’ acknowledge that a business is a machine. It makes things. It has resources, it produces widgets, it (hopefully) makes more than it spends.

That’s fine. What makes them ‘bad’ to work with is their mindset.

They look for cogs to fit the machine. You are considered a cog. The best place for you is the space you were made for. That’s where they want you to stay. Do the thing you’re meant to do.

It may not sound all that bad until you compare it to a ‘good one’:

Good ones

These folks still acknowledge how a business works. They recognize that things must get done, properly.

But you’re not a cog anymore. Cogs don’t have the potential to make the machine better, they merely maintain the current state of affairs. Team members have the potential to transform the machine. To build better machines. To create something new.

To a ‘bad one’, this would be awful – if you’re great at what you do, you must keep doing it, precisely as you always had. To a ‘good one’, being great earns you the trust – and opportunity – to do something amazing.

Which do you have leading you? Which are you to those you serve alongside? (We’re all one or the other…).