1.

Great bosses create a great work culture

Bosses are custodians; they are the ones responsible for people quitting or staying back.
Great bosses can be anti-attrition glues and it is important to groom bosses just as it is
important to train their subordinates.
A great boss is one who cultivates a great work culture.
Work culture cannot be copied or borrowed; it is something only you can cultivate.
Culture is like a spoonful of curd being introduced to a litre of milk.
A small amount of culture can turn any place around.
Cultivating culture is important and a difficult task.
A great boss does this effectively. And how does he do it?
By demanding transparency and being transparent herself/himself.
Holding everyone accountable... starting with herself/himself.
By empathising with the problems of her/his subordinates.
By being clear about what he expects of his people and defines everyone's roles.
By resisting politics within her/his team and refuses to play politics too because s/he
knows that the moment politics comes into play, it eats into 50 per cent of any person's
bandwidth.
2. A great boss shows integrity
If you don't have integrity nothing matters.
If you have integrity, nothing else matters.
Integrity isn't just about honesty.
Integrity is living up to your word.
A great boss is someone who inspires trust, conducts herself/himself with dignity and is
ethical.
3. A great boss sponsors her/his subordinate
It is important to groom your juniors by giving them larger roles and bigger projects, to
open them to higher levels of the organisation.

Being a great boss also means opening oneself to the risk of seeing your mentee fail but
ensuring that you are always available for advice.
A great boss is willing to take that risk because when a boss throws a deserving
subordinate in the sea, he also hands him a life jacket
4. A great boss uses discretion positively
A boss can exploit the loopholes in the system to either help you or put you down.
A great boss will always try to do the former if it is in the interest of the employee and
the organisation.
Let me give you an example:
Let's say a young employee has to go back to Bangalore to attend to an emergency but
cannot do so unless s/he is willing to go on leave without pay.
And let's say that an opportunity has arisen in the organisation's Bangalore office.
A good boss is someone who could use the opportunity to hit two birds with one stone
and instead of sending someone else, could assign the young employee to Bangalore.
Discretion can be used positively or negatively. A great boss always uses it positively.
5. A great boss always stands by his subordinates during a personal crisis
It doesn't take a lot to be by your subordinates during their times of distress.
It might mean calling an ambulance, or checking up on them at the hospital or ensuring
that the medical insurance has been taken care of.
It might also mean not writing off their troubles when, let's say, their pet is unwell.
It means being sensitive to their issues and being there for them.
6. A great boss identifies potential problems and tries to resolve them
A great boss is like a good driver who has control of the clutch, steering and accelerator.
S/he anticipates the hairpin bends, the possibility of a rash driver trying to overtake
them etc.
A great boss is someone who always anticipates problems and is always doing mental
gymnastics.

A great boss is also someone who, when s/he joins a new organisation, spends the first
few months saying nothing and instead getting a sense of how the new place works.
7. A great boss always gives credit to her/his team
Pretty simple, huh?
If someone's done a good job, a great boss ensures s/he gets the credit for it and doesn't
try to hog the limelight.
8. A great boss remains calm and composed
A boss is the emotional radar of the organisation.
S/he shows grace under pressure and is an insulator between her/his boss and her/his
team.
A great boss is like a shock absorber who will protect his team from all the troubles
above him and won't hit the panic button all the time.
9. A great boss has commonsensical approach
Management and creativity are nothing but different words for common sense.
A great boss is someone who is able to discern the main purpose of what s/he and
her/his team is doing.
A great boss also has a 'jugaadu' instinct and is street-smart.
10. A great boss always simplifies things
A great boss is someone who has a clear vision of what is needed.
S/he has to have a strategy that is so clear that if needed s/he can explain it to even an
uneducated person in a village... without PowerPoint presentations, without graphs,
without the bells and whistles.
Are you that boss?

People don't quit jobs, Virender Kapoor says, they quit bosses.
Kapoor has been the director of Pune's Symbiosis Institute of Management and the
founder of Management Institute for Leadership and Excellence.

He has authored several books on topics as varied as management, technology and

workplace issues.
His latest, A Wonderful Boss, narrates true stories about bosses and their teams offering
insights into the minds of the decision makers as well as their subordinates.
Speaking to Rediff.com, Kapoor lists out the 11 things that bad bosses do wrong:
1. Bad bosses encourage politicking
Politicking always starts from the top.
No subordinate will ever backbite a colleague before their boss unless the boss is
encouraging it.
The easiest way to stop it is to tell such a subordinate to shut up because remember you
are the boss!
Only bosses who are insecure play politics.
They aren't sure of their jobs and competence and so they divide their people into
groups and let them fight.
Bad bosses also don't realise that it is this very culture that will come to bite them in the
back.
2. Bad bosses work in black and white mode
A bad boss is one who has strong likes and dislikes.
S/he will either hate you or love you and depending on it, you will either be in the black
bucket or the white one.
Once you're in the black bucket, you are written off and if not, you can do nothing
wrong.
Now, imagine the horror of working for such a person if you've rubbed them the wrong
way!

3. A bad boss is a 'Banana Boss'

Like dictators of banana republics, a bad boss will never pass down the perks he
receives.
If it's a club membership or a junket or a lucrative seminar or even a foreign posting -- a
bad boss will either keep it to herself/himself or only hand it down to his coterie of blueeyed boys.
4. A bad boss becomes a bottleneck
Boss has to be a facilitator; s/he should not block the way of progress.
A bad boss causes a bottleneck by being indecisive.
Let us take an example of someone seeking an approval of to finalise a dealer from their
boss.
A bad boss will not bother to respond to the email and keep not just his colleague on
tenterhooks but also the entire supply chain.
A good boss will decide and respond. Or if s/he cannot do it immediately, will let his
colleague know that.
Several of us do not acknowledge receipt of the emails we receive. It is crucial to let the
other person know that you've read what they want you to read and that you are working
on it.
Remember, a bottleneck is at the top of the bottle not at the bottom! :-)
5. A bad boss expects a perfect subordinate
Not all five fingers are alike. So don't expect all your subordinates to be superheroes.
If they were, what would be your job as a boss?
Your acumen as a boss is to understand each person's strength.
As a boss you have to learn to make the most of that.

Don't demand for your team to be changed; instead work towards making the most of
your team's positives!
Remember, bosses get paid to manage people not crib about how bad they are.
Which brings us to the next point...
6. Bad bosses hurt people emotionally
Don't insult your subordinates. Apart from being a terrible thing to do, you will have
several disgruntled people around you.
It is one thing if you hurt someone unintentionally (if you do, apologise immediately)
and another thing altogether to do it on purpose.
If you humiliate someone in public, they will never forget the incident and they will
never forgive you.
7. A bad boss over-centralises and micromanages
A bad boss likes to control the smallest things.
It is one thing if it is a turnaround period or if you've joined an organisation with the
express purpose of sorting out a mess.
But centralisation and micromanagement should not remain a permanent style
Let go of control; let people start working on their own.
Delegate, brief and monitor; don't micromanage.
8. A bad boss doesn't have faith in her/his team
This is an extension of the previous point. Learn to give your team more autonomy;
groom your second in command.
You are not going to be around for ever; you may want to take a few days off or you may
fall sick. Surely you cannot expect all work to wait in the interim?

Put your faith in your team and keep the second string ready.
9. A bad boss expects zero errors
It is one thing attempting to reduce errors but it is not possible to have absolutely zero
errors simply because there are many things that are not in your control.
The key here is to have a contingency plan.
Yes you need to minimise errors but don't hang people for small mistakes.
Don't let a mistake be repeated; instead learn from it.
The best way to identify mistakes and learn from them is by drawing up an after-action
report -- a docket that will list out the learnings and mistakes so the next team that takes
up a similar project doesn't repeat them.
10. A bad boss confuses the team
I cannot stress how important this is.
It is crucial that you are first clear about the direction you want them to take.
It is equally important that you explain that to them just as clearly.
Brief them to the last comma and full stop so there is no mistake.
A bad boss is someone who is unclear of the goal, unclear of how to go about achieving it
and ambiguous while explaining it to her/his colleagues.
11. A bad boss is someone who promises and doesn't deliver
If you've been at the receiving end at a promise that was never kept, you'd probably
know what I am saying.
Don't be that person.
Don't promise a promotion to a colleague unless you're sure you'll be able to swing it for
her/him.

Don't promise her/him that junket or that lucrative posting unless you actually can.
That being said if you believe s/he deserves it, go all out to get it for them.
Be that boss.