how to be a successful boss essay

Being a good boss isn’t easy—here’s how to get better

Leads economic and business research on growth, productivity, innovation, technology adoption, and outcome measurement

October 18, 2021 Managers are more important than ever as employee satisfaction moves to the forefront in today’s race for talent. In fact, according to McKinsey research , one of the top factors that employees cited as a reason for quitting amid the Great Attrition was that they didn’t feel valued by their manager.

In contrast, people at organizations with good employee-manager relations report significantly higher satisfaction with their jobs: Among those who say that management relations are “very good,” 74 percent state they are very or completely satisfied in their job, versus only 15 percent of those who say relations are “very bad.”

Countless studies also show the empirical link between employee satisfaction and business outcomes like customer loyalty and profitability. One large-scale meta-analysis found that business units with top-quartile employee engagement achieved operating-profit margins that were 1-4 percentage points higher than those in the bottom quartile.

But being a good boss isn’t easy—one study suggests that only 10 percent of people naturally have all the traits needed to be a good manager. Many incentives for leaders are also misaligned; research suggests that some leaders may even achieve their positions by being self-centered, overconfident, narcissistic, and manipulative.

In contrast, the fundamental elements of good employee-manager relations are the same as with any other human relationship: mutual trust, encouragement, empathy, and good communication.

Regardless, any manager can become a better manager and, in turn, play an essential role in improving workplace happiness and employee satisfaction. These four simple, human practices are a great place to start.

• Empathy, compassion, and vulnerability. A manager who genuinely cares about an employee’s well-being tends to be curious about it. Sincerely asking, “How are you doing today?” creates an opportunity for employees to raise issues and to feel safe when they do. Moreover, curiosity and compassion typically go hand in hand. Research shows that when employees perceive compassion or kindness from their leaders, they become more loyal. Loyalty in turn feeds better performance at work.
• Gratitude. The simple act of thanking people is win-win: It doesn’t cost anything, and everyone feels better. Being thanked makes people feel valued. Celebrating small achievements helps people face larger challenges and sets up a positive dynamic where everyone wants to do better. But don’t overdo it. People can tell when their bosses and senior leaders are just following a script without truly meaning what they say. Hone the ability to feel genuine thankfulness and express it in a heartfelt way.
• Positivity. Giving positive feedback builds employee confidence and reinforces beneficial behaviors. Unconditional positive regard—the practice of validating feelings, withholding judgment, and offering support—bolsters motivation and fosters authenticity. In addition, positive regard is a key contributing factor to developing an individual’s sense of autonomy and self-competence, which is directly linked to greater happiness and well-being.
• Awareness and self-care. Leaders must first help themselves before they can do the same for others. When highly stressed or anxious, it’s hard to be empathetic, thankful, and positive. Being a supportive and compassionate manager is easier for people who are aware of and at peace with their own inner state of being. The recipe for self-care will be different for everyone, but it most often includes attention to diet, exercise, downtime , and sleep . For many, mindfulness or other meditation practices are also powerful sources of resilience .

Indeed, micro-actions often count more than larger, structural changes. One silver lining of remote work is that it has helped us see our colleagues as people first by giving us a peek into their homes, families, and lives. That works both ways, with employees also able to see a more human side of their managers. Bosses who build these practices into daily habits can increase employee satisfaction while becoming better—and happier—people themselves.

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How to Be a Good Boss – 10 Qualities of a Good Boss

January 9, 2019 By Patricia Lotich

Estimated reading time: 5 minutes

Not everyone knows how to be a great boss. But most can tell you a story about enduring a bad one.

I’ve heard horror stories of bosses berating employees in front of other people, screaming at workers, or throwing temper tantrums.

This kind of behavior affects productivity (at least when the boss isn’t looking) and wreaks havoc on employee morale.

When there is low morale, employees disengage – which contributes to undue stress. Employees who are forced to deal with a bad boss view the culture as “we” versus “them”.

Not only do these hostile environments lower worker productivity , but they are also very difficult to manage.

We spend a third of our lives with our employees and co-workers so why not try to create an environment that encourages fun and supports productivity.

Not everyone knows how to be the boss, but successful managers have figured out what it takes to encourage and motivate employees.  So what makes a great boss?

10 Qualities of a Great Boss

1. communicates clear vision.

Employees go to work and want to make a difference and do a good job.

Bosses who communicate a clear vision  for the organization help to  engage employees  by making them understand why they do what they do.

This gets employees involved and interested in helping the organization achieve its objectives.

2. Connects Vision to Daily Tasks

Great bosses demonstrate how employee tasks support what the organization is trying to achieve.

This is done by showing a clear line connection between what the employee does on a day-to-day basis and how it supports the mission of the organization.

This is achieved by writing  smart goals  that support  organizational goals  that are ultimately tied to business strategy .

3. Sets Clear Performance Expectations

Research suggests that employees experience increased stress levels when they don’t have a good understanding of what is expected of them.

Set clear performance expectations by providing the employee with a very specific  job description  that lays out all expected tasks that include  employee goals .

The employee’s supervisor should discuss and clarify these expectations through a one-on-one conversation.

As priorities change, continue to communicate updated expectations to provide the employee with an ongoing understanding of their role and job responsibilities.

4. Provides Consistent Feedback and Coaching

Employees need constant feedback on how well they are meeting expectations.

Help them understand when they are doing a good job and communicate when they are not meeting requirements.

This can be achieved by  coaching employees  on a regular basis.

If you see something that they are doing right, mention it. If you see something that needs to change, mention it as soon as you are aware.

Often employees do not even realize when they are not meeting requirements. It is the manager’s responsibility to coach and develop them.

The boss has the responsibility of telling them when they are not adhering to  customer service standards .

For example, if a manager hears employees being rude to a customer on the phone, they need to point it out to them and coach them in a better way to communicate with customers.

If this doesn’t happen, the customer experience is affected, and the employee may not even be aware that their mannerism is inappropriate.

5. Cares About the Employee as a Person

Employees want to feel like they are cared about on a personal level.

A great boss will take the time to ask about an employee’s personal life and what they do when they are not at work.

Employees feel valued when the boss shows an interest in their hobbies, family, or other interests.

If you want to see an employee light up, just ask them about their kids!

6. Shares Personal Experiences

Bosses who share personal experiences demonstrate their vulnerabilities and help employees appreciate the human side of the manager.

When a supervisor shares real-life struggles and how they process the issues of life, it not only humanizes their relationship but can also serve as a life mentor for employees.

For example, if a boss shares a conflict they have with a neighbor, and how they resolved the conflict, it provides an additional coaching opportunity.

It also gives the employee a lens into the personal life of their boss.

7. Makes Work Fun

I had a boss tell me once that “if you’re not having fun at work, you’re in the wrong job.”

At the time I didn’t really understand what he meant, but it makes so much sense to me now.

Whether you are working a line in a factory, greeting guests at the reception area, or flipping hamburgers, every work environment has the opportunity to be a fun and productive place to work.

Incorporating fun activities, events, and organized playtime for employees gives them something to look forward to.

Things as simple as blue jean Friday or a lunchtime video game challenge can not only be fun – but also a great  team-building  exercise.

8. Fosters Team Development

Diverse personalities and varying frames of reference can make team interactions difficult.

Great bosses have good  team leader skills  that foster team development.

A great boss knows how to gather the troops and get them all headed, in unity, in the same direction.

9. Values Employee Perspectives

Employees do the work of the organization, and great bosses care about what employees think and proactively solicits employee feedback .

They understand that employees often have the answers to many of the operational problems.

And when asked, employees feel valued for being able to contribute their thoughts and opinions.

10. Rewards Good Performance

Employees go to work with the intention of doing a good job and should be rewarded for meeting and exceeding job requirements.

Create a compensation strategy that identifies the good performers and rewards them for doing a good job.

Employees go to work and want to do a good job but it is the boss that sometimes gets in the way of them performing well. When bosses communicate where the organization is going, explain how what the employee does contributes to what they are trying to accomplish, and allow employees to participate in organizational problem-solving efforts, they create an environment that employees are proud of and enjoy working in.

So what kind of boss are you?

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Anyone Can Learn to Be a Better Leader

• Monique Valcour

You just have to put in the work.

Occupying a leadership position is not the same thing as leading. To lead, you must be able to connect, motivate, and inspire a sense of ownership of shared objectives. Heightening your capacity to lead others requires being able to see how you think and act, and how your behavior affects others. Leading well requires a continuous journey of personal development. Yet people in leadership roles often eschew the long and challenging work of deepening self-insight in favor of chasing after management “tools”— preferably the “quick ’n’ easy” kind, such as personality type assessments that reduce employees to a few simplistic behavioral tendencies. Tools can be handy aids to good leadership. But none of them can take the place of fearless introspection, feedback seeking, and committed efforts to behavioral change for greater effectiveness and increased positive impact on others.

When you’re an individual contributor, your ability to use your technical expertise to deliver results is paramount. Once you’ve advanced into a leadership role, however, the toolkit that you relied on to deliver individual results rarely equips you to succeed through others. Beware of falling into the logical trap of “if I can do this work well, I should be able to lead a team of people who do this work.” This would be true if leading others were akin to operating a more powerful version of the same machinery you operated previously. But it’s not; machinery doesn’t perform better or worse based on what it thinks about you and how you make it feel, while humans do .

• MV Monique Valcour is an executive coach, keynote speaker, and management professor. She helps clients create and sustain fulfilling and high-performance jobs, careers, workplaces, and lives. moniquevalcour

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How to Be a Good Boss in Trying Times

Offering compassion, predictability, and control can help, say two Stanford experts.

July 23, 2020

As layoffs and pay cuts proliferate, Professors Rao and Sutton offer seven tips for being a good boss during a crisis. | Illustration by Tricia Seibold, iStock/supakritpumpy

Good leadership can be challenge in the best of times. But amid an unprecedented pandemic and economic crisis, even the best bosses are struggling with how to navigate turbulent waters.

Robert I. Sutton and Hayagreeva “Huggy” Rao know all about good bosses. For their 2014 book, Scaling Up Excellence , the two Stanford Graduate School of Business organizational behavior professors spent seven years researching how exemplary leaders build on successful performance as organizations grow. They have also examined how dozens of organizations, including JetBlue, Netflix, Home Depot, and the Atlanta public schools, have dealt with difficult times, ranging from natural disasters to recessions to ethics scandals.

In a Stanford webinar that drew in part on their recent article in the McKinsey Quarterly , Sutton and Rao shared the hallmarks of great leadership during tough times. As layoffs and pay cuts proliferate, these are their tips for being a good boss during a crisis.

Don’t Pass the Buck

Leaders love to announce record earnings and awards, but most are loath to share bad news. You may be tempted to ask subordinates to deliver negative information, but as venture capitalist Michael Dearing has said, “There is a difference between what you do and how you do it.”

In late March, electric scooter company Bird left it to an anonymous executive in a two-minute Zoom call to inform 30% of the staff that they would lose their jobs. Workers had one hour’s notice to join the call, and those who missed it learned they were laid off when they couldn’t access email.

A counterexample comes from an April announcement from Henry Ward, CEO of the software firm Carta, to the 161 employees he was letting go: “If today is your last day, there is only one person to blame and it is me.”

Being a good boss in a crisis means not only making hard decisions — often quickly and with limited information — but also taking responsibility for them.

Show Compassion

From Gallup to Google, extensive research shows that a boss who expresses concern for employees’ lives leads to workers who perform better, are more committed to their roles, and are more satisfied.

Showing compassion doesn’t mean projecting insecurity or a lack of control. Instead, communicate to employees that you understand the situation is painful and the effect it has on them and their families. Don’t gloss over difficulties to project that “everything is just fine.” Give a realistic assessment of what’s happening, couched in empathy and understanding.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky demonstrated compassion, through his tone and actions, in a May 5 memo announcing the company was laying off 25% of its staff. “I have a deep feeling of love for all of you,” he wrote. “I am truly sorry. Please know this is not your fault.” Chesky also offered generous benefits for those leaving, including reorienting most of the company’s recruiters to help those laid off find new jobs.

Offer as Much Predictability as Possible

These days, you may not be able to promise much certainty to employees. But you can offer pockets of safety.

Psychologist Martin Seligman’s classic studies on learned helplessness show that when people feel powerless in the face of stressful events, they suffer physically and mentally. He concluded that the London Blitz was less emotionally disruptive than other German bombings during World War II because the country’s reliable warning system could alert residents to danger in advance.

More recently, researchers Erik Gonzalez-Mulé and Bethany S. Cockburn found that employees in highly stressful jobs where they felt little control were more likely to die or have health problems over a 7-year period than those who had more control at work.

As a leader, offer as much predictability and control as you can. Telling employees that their jobs are safe for the next month prevents them from waking up every day wondering if they’ll be laid off. If you’re still weighing your options, tell staff when you will update them. And if no layoffs are coming, don’t assume workers know that. In this climate of fear, make it clear.

Watch Your Tells

An executive vice president once told Sutton that, during the 2008 recession, his assistant asked when layoffs were coming. The executive was shocked — the company had decided on job cuts but not announced them. “It’s an interesting shoes day for you, so we knew something was off,” the assistant told him. It turned out the executive had a tell: When he was stressed or upset, he’d look at people’s shoes rather than make eye contact.

Quote A boss who expresses concern for employees’ lives leads to workers who perform better, are more committed to their roles, and are more satisfied.

Stanford biology professor Robert Sapolsky has noted that the average member of a baboon troop looks at the alpha male every 20 to 30 seconds. Such asymmetrical attention is a hallmark of human groups, too. If you are in charge, don’t forget that your employees are watching your every move and word, especially during frightening times.

Create Community from Afar

Building successful teams is hard enough under normal conditions — managing through a computer screen can be even more challenging. Most organizations were not prepared for a sudden shift to remote work.

Tsedal Neeley, a professor at Harvard Business School, has spent years researching how companies can manage spread-out teams. She advises ensuring that everyone has the right technology, so no one is left behind. Next, managers should acknowledge that the world has changed and work with their teams to figure out new processes. She recommends meeting at least once a week and not neglecting fun virtual events, like group lunches or happy hours, to maintain connections. You should also strive to help all employees feel like they’re in the loop and have equal access to you, she says.

Build Psychological Safety

Especially in a crisis, subordinates need to be able to tell you the ugly truth — you can’t fix problems if you don’t know about them. In her book The Fearless Organization , Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson describes decades of research about the importance of psychological safety — “a climate in which people are comfortable expressing and being themselves” — to the performance of businesses and other organizations. Its absence is linked to everything from more medical errors to a greater chance of fatal plane crashes.

Yet research also shows that leaders’ knee-jerk reaction is to dislike those who criticize them or deliver negative information. Bosses must buffer against this instinct to avoid tunnel vision, because people want leaders who project confidence but who also invite contradictory views.

Brad Bird, the Oscar-winning director of The Incredibles and Ratatouille , consciously sought out “black sheep” at Pixar — those who wanted to do things differently but were being ignored. Thanks to their ideas, Bird’s team was able to make films that were more visually complex on a tighter budget.

Given the extent of the current crisis, if people around you are not providing bad news, that’s a signal that you’re operating in a culture of denial and fear. Creating a sense of safety to try new things is especially important as organizations try to adapt quickly to new realities.

Look for Opportunities

The pandemic has caused wrenching disruptions, but along with threats come opportunities. Crises can accelerate innovation by forcing us to question whether the previous status quo was optimal.

In a 1982 paper, management scholar Alan Meyer examined how a group of hospitals in the San Francisco Bay Area reacted to a doctors’ strike. He found that an abrupt change doesn’t have to put organizations in jeopardy. Hospitals that framed the strike as an opportunity to learn and improve did better than those that hunkered down or ignored the protest.

Some entrepreneurs are taking advantage of the current reality to push historically rigid industries forward at lightning speed. For example, on April 7, 2020, Stripe CEO Patrick Collision and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman were among those who launched Fast Grants, which approves grants for COVID-19 research within 48 hours. By May 9, they had reviewed over 4,000 proposals and awarded over $125 million to 127 research teams. In contrast, the typical grant-making process in academia often takes years.

The pandemic can be an opportunity for leaders to do things faster and better than ever seemed possible. If you’re only playing defense, the professors stress, you’re probably missing out.

For media inquiries, visit the Newsroom .

Explore More

The function of friction: how to use obstacles to your advantage, aicha evans: “you must have the irrational belief that it will work out”, class takeaways — how managers can think like economists, editor’s picks.

McKinsey & Company July 09, 2020 From a Room Called Fear to a Room Called Hope: A Leadership Agenda for Troubled Times This article coauthored by faculty member Hayagreeva Rao and courtesy faculty member Robert I. Sutton discusses leading in difficult times.

July 06, 2020 Be Better at Work: How to Communicate Better with Coworkers and Employees In this podcast episode, two experts discuss where leaders should and shouldn’t focus their attention when it comes to running group communication.

April 23, 2020 Contagion, Xenophobia, and Leadership Infectious diseases such as COVID-19 trigger both disgust and fear. Combined, those can trigger a misguided search for a scapegoat.

Stanford Innovation and Entrepreneurship Certificate Discover new ways of thinking and acting so that you can solve your biggest business challenges.

Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less Robert I. Sutton Hayagreeva Rao

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• Workplace Management Skills

How to Be a Good Boss

Last Updated: August 23, 2023 Approved

This article was co-authored by Elizabeth Douglas and by wikiHow staff writer, Danielle Blinka, MA, MPA . Elizabeth Douglas is the CEO of wikiHow. Elizabeth has over 15 years of experience working and managing teams in the tech industry. She has held roles in multiple areas, including computer engineering, user experience, and product management. She received her BS in Computer Science and her Master of Business Administration (MBA) from Stanford University. wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. This article has 14 testimonials from our readers, earning it our reader-approved status. This article has been viewed 912,329 times.

When you’re the boss, you want to do your best to effectively run your organization. But how do you motivate the people who are working for you while still seeming approachable? Whether you’re new to the job or just want to improve your performance, we can help you develop the qualities you need to be a great boss!

Have an open door policy.

• If you’re very busy, you can specify times when your employees can filter in or out of your office, or you can make rounds to visit your employees in their workspace.
• Actively listen to your employees to make sure they feel like they're being heard.
• Give serious consideration to employees' suggestions about how to improve productivity—after all, they're the ones on the ground each day!

Respect and value your employees.

• Say, “I don’t say it often enough, but we couldn’t keep this place running without your hardwork. Thanks for all you do.”

Elizabeth Douglas

Elizabeth Douglas, CEO of wikiHow, adds: “For the kind of roles that I manage, I think it’s important to empower people to leverage their strengths to create value. This also means you need to listen when they're having problems and be receptive to feedback, both positive and negative.”

Create a positive atmosphere in the workplace.

• Set up a bulletin board to post about employee’s achievements. You can also create a section for photos of employees and company events.
• Try instituting a casual Friday.
• Make a point to celebrate holidays and birthdays.

Stay involved in the day-to-day activities of the office.

• Sit in on a planning meeting.
• Join the sales team on the floor.
• Spend a few minutes sorting mail in the mailroom.

Assign tasks that help your employees stretch and grow.

• If you don’t allow your staff to grow, they may seek other opportunities.
• Letting employees try new things can lead to innovation. You can also use it as a strategy to increase the number of people on your staff who are able to complete certain tasks.
• Try to support the career goals of your employees when you can. For instance, if you know an employee is interested in leading a team one day, you might assign them the lead role on a project.

Help your employees when they’re struggling with a task.

• Don’t take over for your employee. Instead, provide them with assistance, whether it’s from you or another employee who can mentor them.

Provide your employees with the training they need.

• Monitor your employees to see if they are struggling to meet their work demands, especially if you work in a rapidly changing industry. [6] X Research source

Delegate responsibility to avoid micromanaging.

• For example, allow problems to work their way up a hierarchical chain before they reach you. This will empower your employees to make more of the day-to-day decisions.
• Stepping in to help an employee who truly needs direction is not the same as micromanaging.

Provide your employees with regular feedback.

• Give positive feedback during meetings, right after an employee gives a presentation, or while you walk around the office.
• Meet with employees for a few minutes each week to discuss their projects.
• If an employee is expecting feedback on a project, get back with them ASAP so they don't feel frustrated or anxious.

Give your constructive criticism in private.

• Try to give positive praise at least as often as you offer criticism. [10] X Research source

Reply thoughtfully to emails.

• Say, “Thanks for letting me know that the deadline has shifted. I appreciate your hard work.”

Ask for help when you need it.

• Say, “I’m mulling over how to approach this merger decision, and I’m open to your suggestions. If you’d like to talk about your ideas or concerns, drop by my office between 2:00 and 5:00 p.m. today.”

Be open to criticism.

• Don’t punish people for giving you negative feedback.
• No one is perfect, not even you. It’s normal to make mistakes.
• If you do make a mistake, admit the error and apologize for it. [14] X Research source

Give credit to your team for their hard work.

• Acknowledge the contributions of others.
• Congratulate your employees for a job well done.
• When people give you praise, mention the employees who helped you make the accomplishment happen.

Treat your employees equally.

• If you find yourself focusing your attention on a fraction of your employees, make a point to shift your attention to include others.
• If you go out to lunch or happy hour with employees, make sure everyone is invited.

Maintain some distance from your employees.

• Maintain strong boundaries around your personal life. Don’t overshare personal details, such as what you did over the weekend or the issues you’re having with a relative. [17] X Research source
• Keep your conversations centered on the workplace or your professional experiences.
• Also, avoid engaging in office gossip. Spreading gossip will destroy your credibility as a boss immediately. [18] X Research source

How Can I Be a Good Manager?

Expert Q&A

You might also like.

• ↑ https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/246556#
• ↑ http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/24/pf/great-bosses/index.html
• ↑ https://www.fastcompany.com/3050947/5-tips-for-busy-ceos-to-stay-grounded
• ↑ http://www.businessinsider.com/more-signs-you-are-a-good-boss-2016-10
• ↑ https://fortune.com/2014/07/31/5-simple-ways-to-be-a-good-boss/
• ↑ https://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2015/07/16/6-tips-for-becoming-a-good-boss

About This Article

If you want to be a good boss, stay involved in the daily activities of the office so you can better understand the jobs and needs of the employees. While you’re at it, listen to their opinions and try to implement the ideas you think are most likely to succeed so they know you value their opinions. To show them you trust them, try to avoid micromanaging them, which will take some of the workload off of you as well. For more advice on being a better boss, including how to communicate with your employees better, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Are You a True Leader or Just a Boss?

Table of Contents

Being promoted to a management role is a huge accomplishment, but many professionals find the responsibility more challenging than they imagined. Being someone’s boss doesn’t necessarily mean you’re a good leader.

Effective leadership is increasingly essential in the workplace, as more and more employees leave otherwise excellent companies over one resolvable element – bad bosses. According to a study by GoodHire , 82% of all surveyed professionals would potentially quit their job because of a bad boss . 

There are crucial differences between bosses and leaders, so it’s crucial to analyze your leadership style to ensure you’re effectively steering your team in the right direction. 

Even people who start out with less effective management skills can modify their behavior to become good leaders .

What are the differences between a boss and a leader?

According to the father of modern management, Peter Drucker , above all else, all business managers must be leaders. But when many professionals step into management or supervisory roles, they wonder, “What are the qualities of a boss versus a leader?” 

We spoke with leadership experts to discover five crucial differences between the two.

As you read the following comparisons, reflect on your actions to determine where you fall.

1. Bosses command; leaders influence.

According to Sue Andrews, business and HR consultant at KIS Finance, a key difference is that a boss’s authority comes from their position. In contrast, a leader’s authority comes from their ability to influence others.

“A boss is there to ensure that employees follow the rules of an organization, but a leader will encourage others to think for themselves to achieve the desired ends,” Andrews said. “A boss will need to give orders to instruct others what to do, but a leader can inspire others to find the best way forward, whilst motivating them to maximize their potential.” [Related article: 35 Inspiring Leadership Quotes ]

Although subordinates follow bosses only because they have to, bosses can grow their influence through encouraging behavior, added Ken Gosnell, founder of CEO Experience. “You can grow your influence by caring for your team, listening to their thoughts and ideas, and sharing the ‘why’ behind the decisions and actions that you take. This is the second step in leadership, but it makes all the difference, and people will follow you because they want to, and not just because they have to.”

2. Bosses explain; leaders inspire.

You shouldn’t just explain a task and leave it in your employee’s hands. According to Christine Macdonald, director of The Hub Events, a boss ensures you understand your work, while a leader supports and guides you through it.

“The biggest difference between a leader and a boss is that a good leader inspires people and makes them excited about their work,” she said.

Success takes passion; without the desire to complete tasks, workers won’t be as driven to give their best performances. As their leader, you should motivate them by letting them know the importance of their work.

3. Bosses discipline; leaders mentor.

Employees are human, and mistakes are to be expected. Who you are as a boss is evident in how you deal with mishaps. While bosses are more likely to use a reward-and-punishment system to discourage poor behavior, great leaders understand that employees benefit from encouragement and mentorship. If an employee performs well in a specific line of work, that strength should be recognized and mastered.

“One key element of leadership is the ability to harness the talents of others to achieve a common goal,” Macdonald said.

It’s essential to note each employee’s strengths and weaknesses and mentor them independently. Rather than attacking skill gaps, work to patch them by guiding employees through their shortcomings and building their confidence in new areas. 

To become a better mentor , listen, communicate, offer constructive feedback, delegate, and practice empathy.

4. Bosses delegate tasks; leaders delegate authority.

A boss focuses on their department’s objectives and stringently follows protocol to achieve those goals. They think for the short term, delegate tasks to their subordinates and tend to micromanage.

Executive and leadership coach Christina J. Eisinger says a boss has key objectives to meet, while a leader sets the team’s long-term vision and uses it as “a key motivator.”

“A boss gets results by telling people what to do and is concerned with doing it right,” she said. “A leader is skilled at results by enabling their team to figure out what to do and is concerned with doing what is right.”

Andrews added that leaders seek to drive commitment by setting an example for others to follow and inspire others by encouraging development. “They are comfortable delegating authority and avoid micromanaging, preferring to see others develop. Utilizing their excellent communication and negotiation skills, they will influence others for the overall benefit of the organization.” [Related article: 3 Elements of Delegation All Managers Should Know ]

According to the GoodHire survey, most U.S. workers are most irritated by a manager who is overbearing and micromanages – qualities that can significantly influence their decision to quit their job.

5. Bosses are above the team; leaders are part of the team.

A boss doesn’t take the time to get to know their employees as a leader does. Eisinger said that bosses view their team members as subordinates, while leaders let go of this hierarchical distinction and view their team members as equal contributors. 

To be a leader, it’s essential to facilitate positive relationships with your employees. Work with their needs and create a culture that encourages open communication.

“By getting to know your team better, you’ll be able to understand how to explain your vision in a way that will really connect with each person,” Macdonald said. “This means you can personalize the way you motivate people.”

She added that good leaders are genuine and loyal, setting an example for their company. “If you lack passion or motivation, odds are your team will too. Don’t be afraid to be human – be real and express your emotions to connect with your workers.”

The best online project management software makes it easier to delegate and track deadlines while avoiding micromanaging.

Are leaders born or made? 

The discussion about whether leadership is an innate trait or something that can be learned spans decades. While there’s extensive research about whether leaders are born or made, the general consensus is that there’s truth to both sides. While some natural abilities – like being collaborative, intelligent, charismatic and compassionate – help professionals emerge as managers, training and experience can transform someone into a true leader. [Related article: 6 Tips for Getting Your Team to Work Together ]

Many traits, including stress resistance, the ability to delegate, being responsible and having a respectful management style, can and should be trained and learned. 

How to train to be a leader

These are some of the many ways to grow proactively as a leader:

• Explore management theories. One way to become a better leader is by consulting management books and exploring management theories . You can evaluate different management styles and select one that suits you and will benefit your team. 
• Find a coach. Another way to improve your leadership skills is by enrolling in a coaching program. A good career coach will help you identify problem areas and employ thought-provoking strategies to help you develop personally and professionally. 
• Find (and become) a mentor. Unlike a coach, who is usually with you for a short time with a clear agenda in mind, a mentorship relationship is long term. While a mentor can help you, being a mentor can also help improve your leadership skills. 

To find a mentor , try exploring your professional network and ask for recommendations. Alternatively, turn to peer mentoring , which relaxes the traditionally rigid lines between a mentor and mentee.

To be a good boss or leader, incorporate a few key strategies into your behavior, including thoughtfulness, communication and setting clear expectations for your employees.  

• Be thoughtful. A good leader conducts their decision-making process based on the team’s and company’s best interests. Gosnell recommends treating your employees with thoughtfulness. “Leaders who lead for impact think first of their followers. They know that if they are doing what is in the best interest of their followers, it will bring great results for the followers and the organization.”
• Communicate and listen. Leaders should also incorporate good communication by listening to their teams. Gosnell said that a listening leader will hear how to make an organization better through their team’s words. “Listening leaders grow in influence and impact, while those who neglect to listen to their team will struggle with disengaged employees who won’t listen. A leader who wants to be listened to should practice listening to their people.”
• Set clear expectations. Whether you see yourself as a boss or a leader, Andrews said, the key to your success is your staff seeing you as fair in your approach toward them. Set fair, clear employee expectations and be consistent in your manners so your staff knows what they can expect from you. “This is essential in the workplace, as one of the greatest causes of employee stress is not knowing what to expect from their manager,” Andrews said. “Frequent changes in focus and conflicting priorities will leave staff feeling anxious. However, effective communication and a clear goal will ensure that teams all pull in the same direction.” [Learn why effective communication is key to genuine employee engagement .]

What are a team leader’s responsibilities?

Team leaders are responsible for more than just delegating tasks and monitoring employees. They are responsible for the success of the whole team and the success of each team member. An effective team leader should understand each member’s strengths, weaknesses and goals, and utilize their talents accordingly.

Eisinger created a brief checklist for leaders when they’re determining their primary responsibilities:

• Ensure the team has what they need to get the job done.
• Provide challenging, meaningful work.
• Be accessible and approachable.
• Hold regular one-on-one meetings with each direct report that focus on career development.
• Measure performance.
• Provide regular, ongoing feedback, including performance reviews . 

If you do not currently implement all of these responsibilities in your work duties, don’t worry. Focus on improving and seek feedback from your team about what you can do better. According to Eisinger, most good leaders start out as bosses.

“In the work I do, it seems to be an inevitable transition point for people as they first step into a supervisory role and develop their leadership capabilities,” she said. “It’s normal to exhibit some of these ‘boss’ characteristics. However, it is critical to recognize one’s unique challenges and work to overcome them so they can become leaders.” 

Are you a leader or a boss?

While it can be a strenuous journey from boss to true leader, the rewards are well worth the effort. Being a thoughtful leader can increase your team’s productivity, motivation and loyalty, and ensure your company’s success.  

Nadia Reckmann and Sammi Caramela contributed to the writing and reporting in this article. Source interviews were conducted for a previous version of this article.

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10 Tips for Leading Like a Boss

How to Become a Great Leader Even If You Don't Feel Confident

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

• Find Out Your Leadership Style

Encourage Creativity

Serve as a role model, be passionate, listen and communicate effectively, have a positive attitude, encourage people to make contributions, motivate your followers, offer rewards and recognition, keep trying new things.

How would you describe a strong leader? One study cited leadership qualities such as assertiveness, adaptability, intelligence, and conscientiousness as the most important.

Transformational leaders are positive, empowering, and inspiring. They value followers and inspire them to perform better. So, what can we do to embrace these valued leadership qualities and become stronger and more effective leaders?

Transformational leaders are usually described as enthusiastic, passionate, genuine and energetic. These leaders are not just concerned about helping the group achieve its goals; they also care about helping each member of the group reach his or her full potential. 

Start by Understanding Your Leadership Style

Understanding your current leadership style is essential. What are your strengths? Which areas need some improvement? One way to start assessing your skills is to take this leadership style quiz to get a general idea of how you lead.

Once you have completed the quiz, read about the major characteristics of your dominant style. Are these qualities helping or hindering your leadership? Once you've determined which areas need work, you can look for ways to improve your leadership abilities.

Intellectual stimulation is one of the leadership qualities that define transformational leadership. Followers need to be encouraged to express their creativity . Effective leaders should offer new challenges with ample support to achieve these goals.  

One way to foster creativity is to offer challenges to group members, making sure that the goals are within the grasp of their abilities. The purpose of this type of exercise is to get people to stretch their limits but not become discouraged by barriers to success.

Idealized influence is another of the four key components of transformational leadership. Transformational leaders embody the behaviors and characteristics that they encourage in their followers. They walk the walk and talk the talk. As a result, group members admire these leaders and work to emulate these behaviors.

Research suggests that leaders are able to foster a specific belief and then transmit that inspiration to their followers. As a result, followers are optimistic and have high standards for performance and achievement.

If you want to become a better leader, work on modeling the qualities that you would like to see in your team members.

Would you look to someone for guidance and leadership if they did not truly care about the goals of the group? Of course not! Great leaders are not just focused on getting group members to finish tasks; they have a genuine passion and enthusiasm for the projects they work on.  

You can develop this leadership quality by thinking of different ways that you can express your zeal. Let people know that you care about their progress. When one person shares something with the rest of the group, be sure to tell them how much you appreciate such contributions.

Another important quality of transformational leadership involves a focus on providing one-on-one communication with group members. Transformational leadership is effective when leaders are able to communicate their vision to followers, who then feel inspired and motivated by this vision.  

Good leaders should express sincere care and concern for the members of their group both verbally and nonverbally .

By keeping the lines of communication open, these leaders can ensure that group members can make contributions and receive recognition for their achievements.

Transformational leaders have an upbeat, optimistic attitude that serves as a source of inspiration for followers. If leaders seem discouraged or apathetic, members of the group are likely to also become uninspired.

Even when things look bleak, and your followers start to feel disheartened, try to stay positive. This does not mean viewing things through rose-colored glasses. It simply means maintaining a sense of optimism and hope in the face of challenges.

Let the members of your team know that you welcome their ideas. Leaders who encourage involvement from group members are often referred to as democratic or participative leaders . While they retain the final say over all decisions, they encourage team members to take an active role in coming up with ideas and plans.

Research has shown that using a democratic leadership style leads to greater commitment, more creative problem-solving and improved productivity.  

Transformational leaders also provide inspirational motivation to encourage their followers to get into action.   Of course, being inspirational isn't always easy. Fortunately, you don't need motivational speeches to rouse your group members.

Some ideas for leadership​ inspiration include being genuinely passionate about ideas or goals, helping followers feel included in the process and offering recognition, praise, and rewards for people's accomplishments.

Another important quality of a good leader involves knowing that offering effective recognition and rewards is one of the best ways to help followers feel appreciated and happy.   It may also come as no surprise that happy people tend to perform better at work.

Who says leadership is a one-way relationship? As you work toward developing some of these leadership qualities, don't forget to look to your followers for feedback and inspiration. Pay attention to the things that have been effective in the past and always be on the lookout for new ways to inspire, motivate, and reward group members.

Cekmecelioglu, HG, Ozbag, GK. Leadership and creativity: the impact of transformational leadership on individual creativity. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences . 2016;235(24):243-249. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.11.020

Hayati D, Charkhabi M, Naami A. The relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement in governmental hospitals nurses: a survey study .  Springerplus . 2014;3:25. doi:10.1186/2193-1801-3-25

Steinmann B, Klug HJP, Maier GW. The path is the goal: how transformational leaders enhance followers' job attitudes and proactive behavior .  Front Psychol . 2018;9:2338. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02338

Amanchukwu RN, Stanley GJ, Ololube NP. A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management . Management . 2015;5(1):6-14. doi:10.5923/j.mm.20150501.02

Riggio, RE. The 4 elements of transformational leaders . Psychology Today . November 15, 2014.

Gillbert SL, Kelloway, EK. Leadership, recognition and well-being: a moderated mediational model . Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences . 2018;35(4):523-524. doi:10.1002/cjas.1477

Bass BM, Riggio, RE. Transformational Leadership (2nd ed.). Erlbaum; 2016.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Business Tips

How to be a good boss: 12 tips from experts (2024), november 29, 2023.

Imagine being the boss everyone admires and respects – it’s an aspiration many in leadership roles strive for. Yet, the path to becoming a truly great boss is often shrouded in uncertainty. It’s a common misconception that being at the helm means you’ve got it all figured out. The truth is, even the most seasoned leaders can inadvertently slip into less-than-ideal management practices, especially in the absence of constructive feedback and insightful guidance.

Don’t worry. Even though no one is perfect, everyone can always try to do and be better in the future. But in order to do that, first we must know what better actually is. And although there isn’t a guide on how to be a good boss, there sure are people who figured out pieces of this puzzle.

Jump directly to:

 1. Be supportive

 2. Have clear vision

 4. Be patient

 5. Trust your employees

 6. Give feedback

 7. Be decisive

 8. Share the credit

 9. Offer mentorship

 10. Be empatic

 11. Be open for communication

 12. Reward your employees

12 steps to being a better boss

Being a better boss tomorrow is often easier said than done, but you have us. We searched the globe and managed to find the best advice on how to be a better boss from people who are indeed bosses themselves. As experts in this field, they all shared the most important things you must do in the name of being a good boss. And don’t be so sure that you know what they are, keep reading. Most of them will surprise you. That’s a guarantee.

Be supportive

If an employee excels in a particular field, the talent should be recognized and grown. The ability to harness the strengths of others to accomplish a shared purpose is one of the most important qualities of a successful boss. 

It’s important to take care of each employee’s strengths and weaknesses and guide them individually. Rather than targeting skill gaps, focus on filling them by guiding employees through their flaws and increasing their confidence in new areas.

Pranchil Murray, Head of Customer Success at Malwarefox

Have a clear vision

A good boss is someone who guides a group of people in the same direction, whether that direction is towards getting more customers or increasing sales volume . If you want to know how to be a better boss, first you must understand the big picture of the organization, including its vision, purpose, and strategic objectives, before determining how your unit, department, or team fits into the overall company vision.

Jason McMahon, Digital Strategist at Bambrick

YY Lee, Director of Zoewebs

Employees want to put more effort in with bosses who are passionate about all aspects of the business, including employees.

Elliot Kim, Co-Founder and Finance and Operations Head at Brevitē

Greg Berry, Founder and CEO of Municibid

Trust your employees

Jaclyn Strauss, CPA/Founder at My Macro Memoir

The ability to trust their employees is one of the traits of a great boss. Trusting the employees will not only empower them but also will give them a sense of value, which in turn will make them more productive and sincere with their job.

Being able to trust their employees also means that they do not micro-manage , which is a hassle not only to themselves but also to the employees as well.

Seb Hall, Founder & CEO of Cloud Employee

Give feedback

Continuous feedback on employees’ performance in satisfying expectations is the answer to how to be a good boss. Assist them in recognizing when they are performing well and communicating when they are not meeting the criteria. This may be accomplished by routine coaching of personnel. Mention something they are doing well. If you notice something that needs to be changed, make a note of it as soon as possible. Oftentimes, employees are unaware that they are not meeting the criteria. Coaching and developing them is the manager’s role. The boss is responsible for informing them when they violate customer service standards. For instance, if management overhears staff being nasty to a client over the phone, they should call attention to it and teach them how to communicate more effectively with consumers. If this does not occur, the customer experience may be negatively impacted, and the employee may be unaware that their behavior is wrong.

Mike Chappell, Founder of Formspal

Be decisive

A boss needs to play a constructive and direct role. I believe in a stress-free and healthy working atmosphere, which can be achieved by providing proper and clear job instructions to the employees.

I need to ensure that my employees understand exactly what they are expected to do so that they are not frustrated and overwhelmed by any sort of ambiguity. This results in you being a better boss by increasing worker motivation and morale, which boosts business efficiency . 

Setting clear expectations encourages employees to do their best  and be on the same page as me, reducing miscommunication. Finally, when there are set goals and workplace orders, employees experience a sense of pride when they meet the deadlines or complete the assigned tasks.

Jeff Johnson, Owner/Acquisition Manager at Simple Homebuyers

Share the credit

Being a good boss means always supporting and appreciating the input of staff and crew members. It uplifts the characters of the team when a boss openly points out the great work and unique contributions that the team has done in creating a particular project a success. It also encourages collaboration and confidence among the team.

Sharing credit among others does not cost the boss anything though it has a great return on investment. When righteous behavior and achievements are honored, recognized and acknowledged, it is possible to be repeated.

Daniel Carter, SEO manager at Property Investments

Offer mentorship

To be a good boss, create a culture of mentorship in your company because it will encourage your employees to grow with the business. One of the best traits of a successful leader is passing down the knowledge they’ve accumulated. You can start doing that with something as easy as recommending business movies or even entrepreneurial podcasts just as a way to show them that you notice them and have a desire to grow their talent within the company.

Having said that, the secret to being a better boss entails further involvement by creating and providing opportunities for personal and professional development within the organization. Create an internal hub where seasoned workers have the opportunity to volunteer by mentoring new hires. Also, develop criteria to become a mentor to incentivize others to work towards it. Accountability is also key for creating a culture of mentorship, as it helps ensure your business’s leaders stay on top of their tasks, progress, and inspire others to strive for advancement.

Nathan Liao, Founder of CMA Exam Academy

Be empathic

Before I hire employees , I make sure that I can rely on them in the future but I don’t forget that they are people too and they are at different stages of their life. Some are just learning and need a helping hand; others are going through monumental periods in their life outside of work, and some have many years of experience.

Being empathetic means you can relate to these employees and understand their perspectives. When something happens or I need to react to something, I take a minute to try and understand where they are coming from and what their situation is. I believe that a good boss should be empathetic and can help build trust, bring the best out of everyone, and build long-lasting relationships that make a difference.

Lindsey Allard, CEO and Co-Founder of PlaybookUX

Be open for communication

How to be a good boss? Simple. Have an open-door system and be ready for juniors when they need you. Convenience is critical; it grants you an advantage because employees seem comfortable reaching out and communicating to you primarily before a problem occurs. Even if you are managing a remote team , make sure your online communication  is flawless and you are easy to get to. That way you don’t end up being a boss who is working around helter-skelter wildly setting out fires because employees were hesitant to approach you in the first place before the fire was inaugurated.

A friendly boss is committed more by juniors and develops a culture of high confidence and more comprehensive employee engagement in their work. That waythe employer reduces the stress in the workplace  and employees are more comfortable sharing with the boss their ideas, feedback, suggestions, clarifications, and opinions that could be relevant for the success of the company.

Chris Nutbeen, Founder & CEO of Nuttifox

Reward your employees

Offer training opportunities to motivate employees to advance their skills. Incorporate weekly check-ins between managers and employees. Send out monthly surveys to gather anonymous feedback from staff on company culture, work-life balance, and overall attitude towards work. Listen and make positive changes based on the feedback received, so you won’t end up with toxic company culture or/and unhappy employees.

Kelli Lane, Chief Marketing Officer at Genexa

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Leadership Essay

27 August, 2020

12 minutes read

Author:  Richard Pircher

As a college student, you must write essays on a regular basis since the latter is one of the most common types of home assignments. All this means is that in order to get good grades and be successful with writing the papers, you need to have a sound understanding of the structure. Additionally, what you should never neglect is the variety of essay types. Indeed, your essay will significantly differ from one type to another: description essay will most likely have a structure that is slightly different from an argumentative one.

What you may have already encountered in your academic life is the work on a leadership essay. Although it sounds pretty complicated and vague, it is mostly possible to master an essay on leadership. Below is a guide for you to get an insight into this particular essay type.

What is a good leadership essay?

A good leadership essay is the one in which the essay writer has fully covered the topic of leadership and understood its core ideas. More specifically, to end up with a flawless leadership essay, you will need to indicate what makes a person a good leader. For achieving the latter, you will most likely need to conduct research and trace how a particular person reaches his or her goals. In other words, the task is to discover which actions the person undertakes, what their followers say about him or her, and how the person organizes the work. So, a leadership essay implies providing real-life success examples and further revealing them.

Above all, a good leadership essay is the one that follows a precise, clear, comprehensive structure. Structuring your essay about leadership in the most coherent way leads to a win-win situation: you have fewer troubles and barriers to writing a brilliant essay, and your teacher is able to comprehend the essay easily. This guide is what you will need to refer to to get an insight into how the flawless structure for a leadership essay looks like and how it will let you take a benefit.

How to write a Leadership essay?

To write a leadership essay that stands out, you first need to brainstorm all the ideas that you have and come up with a topic for your essay. If you are struggling with this step, you may think of some of the most influential people, read about them, and find out what makes them unique. Or, you can pick any topic which is mentioned at the end of this article. After you have chosen an issue, it is time to structure your essay appropriately.

As you already know, an essay constitutes three essential sections: introduction, main body, and conclusion. Below is the more detailed description of each of the parts.

Introduction

Of course, your leadership essay introduction will always vary depending on the topic of the essay. However, you can always begin by stating your vision of leadership regardless of the topic. Additionally, to motivate the reader and instantly catch his or her attention, you may use a quote of a famous leader, or simply a quote which you find relevant to the topic. Be aware that you should avoid outlining the essence and the role of the leadership in your introduction; leave it for the body paragraphs.

What you may also do in your leadership essay is ask a question, which will most likely intrigue the leader. Or it will at least give your reader an overview of what you will dwell on  in your essay.

Body Paragraphs

You will need to divide the main body into 3-5 paragraphs to make the structure more comprehensive. What you have to do at this point  is  give your reader a sound understanding of your ideas. Therefore, try to fit each idea in a single body paragraph so that you do not confuse your reader. Do not hesitate to indicate your examples to strengthen your arguments. For instance, you may explain a fact that makes a particular person you are writing about a real leader.

Also, always stick to your thesis statement and don’t forget that the body paragraphs should reveal the parts of your thesis statement.

As you may already know, you need to restate your opinion and briefly summarize all the points from the main body in conclusion. For instance, if you wrote your essay on qualities of an effective leader, state the most fundamental qualities and indicate why they matter the most. Besides, try not to copy what you have already written in the body – it is better to restate your opinion using different words. And, of course, beware adding any new and extra information; indicate only those points that you have already outlined in the text. Finally, keep in mind that it is always favorable to keep your concluding remarks short.

Leadership Essay Examples

Writing a leadership essay requires some research and time. In case you feel the necessity to go through an essay example, below is a leadership essay sample you can refer to.

Is leadership an inborn or an acquired feature?

Is everyone capable of becoming a leader, or is this ability innate? A lot of researchers have been struggling to answer this question. One assumption about leadership implies that the leader is the person who possesses particular characteristics. Another assumption claims that leaders are capable of acquiring specific features over their life span. As the evidence shows, leaders own many features that distinguish them among others and make more and more people become their followers. These might be cognitive abilities, psychological traits, professional qualities, and a lot more, and all of them will be either acquired or innate. Based on the importance of leadership qualities, such as commitment, stress resistance, and the ability to make quality decisions, it is reasonable to claim that leaders are made, not born. 

One can deem commitment as one of the top fundamental qualities of the leader. In essence, such a feature indicates that a person is passionate about the common goal, strives to be a team player, and makes every effort to reach a shared goal. As the history shows, none of the successful companies was uncoordinated by an influential, committed leader: Apple, Amazon, Microsoft – all of these companies are examples of dominant teams led by a dedicated leader. A committed leader also inspires his or her team to achieve common goals and put more effort into the shared activity. Besides, commitment is unlikely to be an innate feature; it instead comes with experience. This is so, since commitment implies dedicating oneself to the shared task, and one can reach it only via learning and continuous self-improvement.

Stress resistance is another incredibly important feature that every good leader should possess. This is because only a stress-resistant leader has sufficient capabilities to overcome any complexity and not let the anxiety and stress prevent him or her from making proper decisions. Besides, such a leader will most likely have a positive influence on the team, as long as leading by example will motivate the team members to attain the same emotional stability. What is so far familiar about stress resistance as an effective leader’s feature is that it can be either innate or attained. However, although some researchers admit that emotional stability is something one is born with, it is not entirely true; many people still put a great effort into self-improvement, changing the attitude to unfortunate situations, and so on. Therefore, being resistant to stress can be mostly attributed to a personality.

An ability to make high-quality decisions most likely determines the chances for an enterprise’s success. In particular, such quality is incredibly fundamental for a company of any size and professional orientation. Additionally, it is one of the top tasks of a good leader to make final decisions. What he or she should do implies brainstorming, discussing various opinions in the group, making forecasts, analyzing all the pros and cons. However, the leader is the one to make a final decision. Thereby, he is in charge of researching the market, discovering all the hidden truths, and analyzing the organization’s potential and capabilities to result in the most effective decision. As it flows logically from the latter, an ability to make sound quality decisions is purely a professional quality. This leads to the conclusion that one has to work hard to become a genuine leader and master the skill of making effective decisions. 

Overall, the leader may possess a multitude of different skills and master them perfectly. However, what has so far become transparent is that any leader, regardless of which team he leads, must possess three essential qualities. These qualities are commitment to the common goal, ability to handle and resist stress, and, finally, an ability to make effective decisions. All of the three qualities are most likely to be acquired over a lifetime. The statement below leads to the conclusion that even though some qualities can be innate, most are not the ones that leaders are born with. Hence, this answers an essential question: leadership feature is acquired, and not necessarily inborn.  

20 leadership essay topics

When coming up with your next leadership essay topic, it is imperative to brainstorm ideas and think of what leadership might be related to. If you are struggling with a topic of the importance of leadership essay or any relevant type of essay, you may quickly take a look at some of the possible topics we prepared for you:

• What are the main qualities of the leader?
• Successful Time Management as a feature of an effective leader
• The role that rhetoric plays in leadership
• The most exceptional leader in the history of the 20-th century
• The role of female leadership
• What are the challenges of the leader of the 21-st century?
• How college helps students develop leadership skills?
• Qualities of the leader that motivate people to follow them 
• Top things to avoid doing to become a team leader
• Examples of effective and ineffective leadership in the history
• Top techniques for developing leadership skills
• The interconnection of creativity and leadership 
• Is a university’s role fundamental in developing leadership skills?
• Dictatorship as an anti-example of leadership
• Liberal vs Authoritative leadership: which one works better?
• The influence of the leader’s role model on the followers’ mindset
• Main difficulties that the new leader may face in a new team
• Leadership of today vs leadership of the past: what has changed?
• Reasons why I want to become a member if the leadership program
• The role of cognitive abilities for the leader 

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Structure: How to Build a Boss Essay

Your college admissions essay is a required writing assignment, yes, but try not to think of it as more work that will stress you out. YOU OWN THIS ESSAY. How can you be the boss of this assignment instead of letting it be the boss of you?  It’s easier than it seems. Just do these three things!

Have your takeaway in mind.

Knowing what you’re trying to communicate to admissions from the start is the key to entering this task with confidence and building an essay with a strong foundation. What might admissions not know about you from your grades, test scores and activity list? Which of your personality characteristics might be most valuable in an academic environment or on a college campus? How are you different from similarly qualified applicants? How are you going to reveal these aspects of your persona to admissions? Start with your bottom line and flesh out your essay roadmap from there.

Focus on a killer opener and closer.

Admissions officers often read over 100 applications in a single day. It takes a killer opener to shake them from their boredom, into a place of interest. It also takes a bold, poetic or otherwise memorable closing line to ensure you’ve been burned into an admissions officer’s brain, long after they’ve read your submission (and a hundred others). Try something funny or mysterious; an interesting quip of dialogue or advice, a detail that is easy to visualize — the possibilities are endless. Can you tie your closing line back up to the opening line? Or leave your reader wanting more (without leaving them confused)? These are just a few ways you can take charge and make sure you get noticed and stay top of mind.

Create smooth transitions.

So you know what you say and you have an admissions officer’s attention. Now, you have to take it all the way home. The key to a well-written story that holds a reader’s attention from beginning to end is smooth transitions. Think of your paragraphs as vines in the jungle. Your reader is Tarzan and you need to provide the connections for him or her to grab onto. Sharing your essay with peers, counselors, or experts (like us!) to confirm that you have done this successfully is often a good idea. But a basic test for whether or not your transitions are strong enough is to read through the essay and ask: “Am I getting tripped up anywhere as I read? Are there awkward areas where I have to pause for a beat before moving forward? Are any lines in this essay <gulp> boring?” And that’s where you do the fine-tuning to make your essay 100% BOSS.

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Category: Admissions , advice , College Admissions , Common Application , Essay Resources , Essay Tips , Essay Writing , Quick Tips , Tips , Uncategorized

Tags: 2017-18 college applications , 2017-18 common application , 2017-2018 college applications , Admissions , admissions essay , admissions help , advice , application , college admissions , college admissions essay , college application , college applications , college essay , college essay advice , college essay advisors , college essay help , college essay tips , college essay topic , college essay writing , common app , common application , essay , essay help , essay tips , essay writing , Essays , personal statement , structure , tips , writing

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Ultimate Guide to Writing Your College Essay

Tips for writing an effective college essay.

College admissions essays are an important part of your college application and gives you the chance to show colleges and universities your character and experiences. This guide will give you tips to write an effective college essay.

Want free help with your college essay?

UPchieve connects you with knowledgeable and friendly college advisors—online, 24/7, and completely free. Get 1:1 help brainstorming topics, outlining your essay, revising a draft, or editing grammar.

Writing a strong college admissions essay

Learn about the elements of a solid admissions essay.

Avoiding common admissions essay mistakes

Learn some of the most common mistakes made on college essays

Brainstorming tips for your college essay

Stuck on what to write your college essay about? Here are some exercises to help you get started.

How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

Learn how formal your college essay should be and get tips on how to bring out your natural voice.

Taking your college essay to the next level

Hear an admissions expert discuss the appropriate level of depth necessary in your college essay.

Student Stories

Student Story: Admissions essay about a formative experience

Get the perspective of a current college student on how he approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about personal identity

Get the perspective of a current college student on how she approached the admissions essay.

Student Story: Admissions essay about community impact

Student story: admissions essay about a past mistake, how to write a college application essay, tips for writing an effective application essay, sample college essay 1 with feedback, sample college essay 2 with feedback.

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Here’s what my worst boss taught me about success—and the undue respect we have for cruel leaders

I remember the longest conversation I ever had with my boss because it was the day I interviewed for the position. For the occasion, I’d swapped out a fresh glittery manicure for a more conservative neutral, but I needn’t have worried about the girlishness of my nail polish. My future boss favored feminine skirt suits with metallic accents herself. Sitting opposite from her at a small conference table on the day of my interview, I wanted to impress her. To me, she was a paragon of corporate success, and I hoped if I played my cards right, I could be like her one day. Of course, that was before I knew her.

There’s a theory of the world where the ends justify the means. The work got done, ergo, it was done right. The fact I remember so little of the actual work and so much about the interpersonal dynamics of our team perhaps speaks to my own weaknesses: a frivolous interest in human behavior over the technical demands of the task.

A leader who is feared may be obeyed, but the risk in their absolute authority lies outside the bounds of their knowledge, which for all people have finite ends. What they cannot anticipate themselves will catch them unaware. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s yes-men agreed him into the quagmire of Ukraine. Of course, in the situation I am describing we weren’t at war. We were at work.

The spoils of brilliance often include a certain license to bad behavior. In exchange for great contributions, we as a society have historically been willing to tolerate some mischief—and more. Among the revelations of the Walter Isaacson biography of Elon Musk released over the summer were anecdotes of the lionized founder oscillating between charm and what his girlfriends described as “demon mode.”

Modern corporate structure has policies and tools in place to discourage such actors from expressing the worst of themselves, but not all behavior rises to a level that might be rooted out with lawsuits and anti-harassment training. What should we make of the mild bully, the unpleasant person who makes work difficult, but not impossible?

I imagine the qualities I discovered in my former boss are probably not the ones celebrated by management consultants and eagerly cultivated in the next generation of MBAs: rigidity, vindictiveness, and pointed cruelty toward working parents in particular.

For almost two years I worked for this woman. Here are some things she did: deny a colleague his two-week paternity leave for no apparent reason; lay off another colleague while she was on maternity leave, in what appeared to be retaliation for working from home during the last few weeks of a challenging pregnancy; prevent a third from going to the closing appointment for his new apartment because he had been five minutes late to a meeting once. And that excludes all the quotidian indignities, that she might snap at someone reflexively gazing at the caller ID on her Polycom when a call came through during a meeting to accuse them of spying on her or embarrass someone else in a large meeting with a snide response. She would not allow working parents to use sick leave for their children’s doctor appointments. Vacation time was granted or denied on an arbitrary basis. (“No consecutive Fridays off.”)

Any deviation from her desired optics would be met with censure. All of this existed in a separate sphere from the work itself. The job had two primary components: actually handling the assigned tasks, and handling them in a way so as not to upset the emotions of the person supervising them.

And yet for all the disdain with which she regarded her people, nothing would rile her more than a departure. When a senior member of the team went into her office to share the news that he had accepted a new role, I watched through the glass walls enclosing the two of them as all color and excitement drained from his face and she told him she had never been more offended in her life because she was upset he had accepted the role without speaking to her first. She seemed to thrive on making life more, not less, difficult for the people who worked for her.

Every day, my boss wore her hair tied back. The ponytail was part of her impenetrable uniform—until one day, after I’d been there for a few months. She stepped out of her office into our nearly empty floor, holding her hair in place with her hand, and announced the hair tie had broken. Her short-haired assistant had nothing to offer. This was my chance. I had a full pack in my desk drawer. What my junior status prevented me from demonstrating with work, I could show with my organized preparedness for life. I imagined I would give it to her, and it would somehow be the thing that convinced her I did care about the work and wanted to do a good job. She accepted the elastic tie without thanks and with a glare that suggested witnessing her capacity for human vulnerability was yet another crime I deserved to be punished for. Oh no, I realized. My boss hates me.  

It’s not the most dramatic story. Certainly, other people have dealt with worse. We respected her expertise and knowledge, and if you could learn to operate within the narrow confines of her preferences, the work itself was interesting and engaging for most people on the team.

My job was so simple I felt from the first day how easy it would be to build a program to perform my primary duties, a basic automated decision tree of logic that could take over 90% of my responsibilities. If I’d had any sense that this boss appreciated new ideas, I would’ve shown her my program. Instead, I was happy to let the colleague who offended her poach me to his new team. She responded by blocking my transfer for six months.  

“Have you ever been afraid of someone you work for?” I asked a friend at dinner once. The invisible threat behind my boss’s rules was that she would make life difficult for anyone who challenged her by blocking promotions or adding them to an industry blacklist.

As my employment limbo dragged into the sixth month, the invisible threat, once sharp, turned dull. “I wanted to let you know: The boss noticed you’ve been coming in late,” her sidekick told me one day, at 9:35, after I had just arrived.

“Oh, interesting,” I said, at this point relishing the chance to play chicken over my stalled transfer.

At the time I worked for this woman, I considered her behavior normal. I imagined that the tradeoff for proximity to talent and expertise meant remaining slightly off-balance and concerned. Today, rather than the passage of time neutralizing my understanding of her, experience has only reinforced how unnecessary her behavior was. What kind of person doesn’t let her report take a meager two weeks to spend time with his newborn baby when the rest of the team would be happy to cover for him?

What I learned from my boss is that if behaving like her is what it takes to succeed, then I’m fine without it. In the time since I left her team, I’ve watched my former colleagues, who were always kind and hardworking despite our manager’s cruelty and paranoia, reach professional success with more emotionally balanced employers. I’ve met enough brilliant people to see cruelty is not one of its essential components.

At the end of the day, when she retires, she will be replaced, as all worker-drones are. When I think about her now, I don’t feel any respect for her at all.

Kara Panzer is a writer based in New York.

More must-read commentary published by  Fortune :

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The opinions expressed in Fortune.com commentary pieces are solely the views of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of  Fortune .

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Trent Alexander-Arnold reveals he's had 'good talks' with England boss Gareth Southgate ahead of Euro 2024 as Three Lions look to solve midfield conundrum

• Alexander-Arnold currently out injured
• But could play midfield role at Euro 2024
• Reveals 'good talks' with England boss Southgate

WHAT HAPPENED?

The Reds defender has long been utilised as an inverted full-back by Jurgen Klopp at club level, allowing him more freedom to affect play from a midfield position. Alexander-Arnold admits that he has enjoyed "coming into the centre more than ever" at Liverpool this year, which could be his primary position for the tournament in Germany in the summer. In that regard, the 25-year-old has revealed that he has been in contact with England boss Southgate over his Euro 2024 role.

WHAT ALEXANDER-ARNOLD SAID

Speaking about his position on the pitch going forward, Alexander-Arnold told Reds great Jamie Carragher for The Athletic : "It depends on the manager. I’ve had good talks with the England manager. A manager tells you how he wants you to play and you go out and play that role. I’ve evolved year after year, coming into the centre more than ever. I like to get on the ball in the middle of the pitch and make things happen. Whether I start in that role or just move inside when we’ve got the ball, it doesn’t bother me. I just want to play."

Pressed by Carragher on his priority over a No.8 or No.6 role, he added: "Either really. I can play a pass, I can receive the ball, I can do things with the ball. It’s more about what the manager wants to see from me defensively — whether he wants to see me jumping out or being a bit more protective."

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Despite his obvious qualities, Alexander-Arnold has seen his opportunities at international level surprisingly limited, picking up just 23 caps across six years. That is, in part, due to an overload of players in his usual right-back role, who to a man generally boast better defensive knowhow and all-round experience.

However, a position slightly further up the pitch may offer him greater opportunities - and solve England's deficiencies. The Three Lions are lacking in more defensive midfield options to partner Declan Rice, with Jude Bellingham often forced to drop too deep to effect play. With Jordan Henderson increasingly out the picture and Kalvin Phillips struggling , it could be a pick between Alexander-Arnold and Manchester United youngster Kobbie Mainoo for that midfield starting spot at Euro 2024.

WHAT NEXT FOR ALEXANDER-ARNOLD?

Long before the tournament in Germany, though, the England international will look to regain full fitness as Liverpool chase two more trophies in Klopp's last season in charge. Alexander-Arnold has missed the Reds' last ten matches due to a knee injury but should return later this month.

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Guest Essay

Something Other Than Originalism Explains This Supreme Court

By Marc O. De Girolami

Mr. De Girolami is a law professor at the Catholic University of America. He is writing a book about traditionalism in constitutional law.

It is a sign of the polarizing nature of the current Supreme Court that even knowledgeable critics of its opinions make diametrically opposed arguments.

This week, for example, the former Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, in a new book, “Reading the Constitution,” chides the current court’s approach to the law, which he says fixates on the text of the Constitution and attaches too much significance to the meanings of its provisions at the time they were ratified. If only, Justice Breyer urges, justices would soften this “originalist” approach and take into account how “our values as a society evolve over time” — including by respecting the “longstanding practice” of the court and other organs of government.

Justice Breyer’s criticism follows on the heels of that of another judge, Kevin Newsom of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. In a talk last month at Harvard Law School, Judge Newsom made the opposite argument: He criticized the Supreme Court, when considering matters such as handgun regulation and abortion rights, for being insufficiently faithful to originalism and overly attuned to social practices that occurred or continued after constitutional ratification. Such traditions, he warned, “have no demonstrable connection to the original, written text.”

The current Supreme Court is the object of considerable controversy and confusion. To understand its decisions properly, especially over the past three or four years, the key is to realize that each critic is half right. Justice Breyer is right that the Constitution should be interpreted, in part, in light of practices that persisted after its ratification, but wrong to think that the current court is not doing this. Judge Newsom is right that the current court is doing this, but wrong to think that it should not be.

This court is conventionally thought of as originalist. But it is often more usefully and accurately understood as what I call “ traditionalist ”: In areas of jurisprudence as various as abortion, gun rights, free speech, religious freedom and the right to confront witnesses at trial, the court — led in this respect by Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh — has indicated time and again that the meaning and law of the Constitution is often to be determined as much by enduring political and cultural practices as by the original meaning of its words.

The fact that the Supreme Court seems to be finding its way toward an open embrace of traditionalism should be broadly celebrated. To be sure, the court’s traditionalism has played a role in many decisions that have been popular with political conservatives, such as the Dobbs ruling in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade. But it is not a crudely partisan method. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an Obama nominee, has used it in a decision for the court — and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a Trump nominee, has expressed some skepticism about it.

Traditionalism may not be partisan, but it is political: It reflects a belief — one with no obvious party valence — that our government should strive to understand and foster the common life of most Americans. The Supreme Court has relied on traditionalism to good effect for many decades, though the justices have seldom explicitly acknowledged this. Traditionalism should be favored by all who believe that our legal system ought to be democratically responsive, concretely minded (rather than abstractly minded) and respectful of the shared values of Americans over time and throughout the country.

To get a better sense of what traditionalism is, it is useful to compare it with the two dominant approaches to constitutional interpretation in adjudication: originalism and what is often called “living constitutionalism.”

Sometimes the Constitution’s words are not clear and their application to a particular issue is also unclear. Consider the line “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,” from the First Amendment. Judges face choices about how to determine what exactly Congress (and today, by extension, the states) is being forbidden from doing.

One option is to discern the meaning that those words would have had at the time of their adoption, using ratification-era dictionaries, contemporary documents by learned authorities, databases of usage, other linguistic and legal sources and perhaps activities closely confined to the founding period. That is originalism.

Another option is to understand those words by recourse to a high ideal or abstraction. For example, a judge might take that passage of the First Amendment to reflect a principle of separation of church and state and then apply that principle in light of the judge’s moral views or perceptions of contemporary moral standards in the case at hand. That is living constitutionalism.

Traditionalism offers a third option. Here, one would look at specific political and cultural practices — the activities of the organs of government and of individuals and groups across the country over long periods of time — to help determine constitutional meaning and law. For example, one might observe that the practice of legislative prayer (prayer that opens legislative assemblies) was pervasive long before and at the time of the First Amendment’s ratification, and that it continued for centuries afterward. For that reason, one would conclude that legislative prayer is unlikely to violate the prohibition against an “establishment of religion.”

The intuition is straightforward: It would be odd to think that the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment prohibits legislative prayer if legislative prayer was widely practiced before, during and for centuries after ratification. Were we supposed to put a stop to a practice many showed no sign of wanting to stop, and indeed, that a great many people were eager to continue and did continue? Sometimes, yes, moral reflection or changed circumstance prompts a re-evaluation of our practices. But in general, we do what we mean and we mean what we do, and constitutional law takes its shape accordingly.

In its 2021-2022 term, traditionalism was the Supreme Court’s preferred method in a number of high-profile cases. Consider New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, a 2022 decision that concerned a New York law that strictly limited the carrying of guns outside the home. Justice Thomas, writing for the majority, held that New York’s requirement to demonstrate a “special need for self-protection” before the state would issue a handgun permit for self-defense outside the home violated the Second Amendment.

The “historical tradition” of handgun regulation, Justice Thomas argued, established the limits of the right to keep and bear arms. He noted that the practices of regulation “from before, during and even after the founding” of the United States indicated “no such tradition in the historical materials,” which suggested that a long, unbroken line of tradition, stretching from medieval England to early 20th century America, was at odds with New York’s law. The opinion granted the existence of scattered 19th-century regulations akin to New York’s, but argued that these were dwarfed by the dearth of analogous traditions of gun regulation over time and across state and local communities.

One can see a similar traditionalist approach in Dobbs, where Justice Alito, writing for the court, examined the government practices of abortion regulation before, during and after ratification of the 14th Amendment, concluding that there is no constitutional right to abortion in part because there is “an unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion” that persisted “from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.”

Likewise, in Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, the Supreme Court decided in 2022 that a public school football coach who prayed on the field after games was not in violation of the Establishment Clause by holding, in an opinion by Justice Neil Gorsuch, that this was not analogous to prayer practices long considered Establishment Clause violations. And in the unanimously decided case Houston Community College System v. Wilson, the court in 2022 held that “long settled and established practice” determined that elected bodies do not violate their members’ freedom of speech when they censure one of their members.

For some critics, the invocation of “tradition” sets off alarm bells. After all, our country looks very different today, demographically and otherwise, than it did hundreds of years ago, when political power was held by relatively few and denied to others for illegitimate reasons. These critics ask how well traditionalism deals with the contemporary realities of American democracy.

The answer to this legitimate question is: Compared to what? Consider again originalism and living constitutionalism. These approaches, different as they are from each other, are both suited to elite actors working at the nerve centers of legal and political power. Both depend on the preferences and findings of the legal professional class. Originalism privileges the centuries-old writings of illustrious figures of the founding or Reconstruction era as determined by today’s most brilliant legal historians and theorists. Living constitutionalism privileges the high ideals of today’s most prominent academics and judges.

Traditionalism, by contrast, looks to the ordinary practices of the American people across time and throughout the country. In democracies, people obey the law because they believe it is legitimate, and the law acquires legitimacy when the people believe they have had a hand, direct or indirect, in shaping it. True, the practices of “the people” may be repudiated or upended — no political tradition is perfect — but while they endure, their origin in popular sovereignty is a presumptive reason to preserve them.

Tradition, in the law and elsewhere, illuminates a basic fact of human life: We admire and want to unite ourselves with ways of being and of doing that have endured for centuries before we were born and that we hope will endure long after we are gone. At its core, this is what constitutional traditionalism is about: a desire for excellence, understood as human achievement over many generations and in many areas of life, that serves the common good of our society.

Not all traditions are worthy of preservation. Some are rightly jettisoned as the illegitimate vestiges of days gone by. But many, and perhaps most, deserve our solicitude and need a concerted defense.

Traditions can be fragile things. To the extent that a revitalized practice of constitutional interpretation is possible, it will depend on determining the content of the Constitution with an eye to their sustenance and restoration.

Marc O. De Girolami ( @MarcODeGirolami ) is a law professor at the Catholic University of America, where he is a co-director of the Center for Law and the Human Person.

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