Respected the work day ended at 5.

Planned maintenance windows.

Followed through on my advice in a timely manor.

Emergencies were actual emergencies and not caused by poor planning.

Had many great bosses. They listen, cared and gave help when I needed it. My boss today trust me doing whatever I am doing and every time I ask something I get help.

He actually cared about us. Our wellbeing, our professional growth. He didn’t get too stressed about things. He was forever asking for help with his phone or Word or Excel, but it was so adorable when he decided he wanted to learn to do a thing and just wanted our watchful eye to give him confidence. He in turn built our confidence. He had our backs. He was the best boss I ever had. When I was given staff to look out for, it’s him who I tried to emulate. He passed last month, and the service is next month. I’m looking forward to seeing the old gang again even under sad circumstances.

Decades ago I was cook #2 at a retreat center. My boss, cook #1, was a quiet, but kind and competent kinda guy.

He’d show me how to do something, and then give me space to get the job done while he took care of other things.

After a while, we just sort of naturally settled into a rhythm of work. We’d both come in around 5am, get breakfast prepped, and then serve breakfast without needing to say much to each other at all. Then we’d do the dishes, again without needing to talk.

Sometime after that we’d eat, and the two of us would have a good conversation. Rinse and repeat for lunch prep, leaving once the PM crew came in to serve that meal.

The mix of being taught skills, trusted to get things done, and both of us appreciating when to be quiet and when to chat… that was everything. I’ve never had a better boss.

Listened to me when I made recommendations.

Told me that I was welcome to participate in any meeting and that my input was valued, but also told me when a meeting wouldn’t involve me or my work and I was free to sit almost any of them out. Even for regularly scheduled meetings, they’d let each of us know if we were actually needed that week or simply welcome. I appreciated being able to decide best where that time should go instead of wasting away in meetings.

Some weeks would be like 15 hours of meetings for the team, with only like 4 hours directly involving me. But I don’t have to go wherever my team goes, we’re not codependent like that, lol.

Also they listened for input, and actually listened. Even for things outside my expertise, if I had an idea it would be considered and implemented if it was suitable.

Fairly regularly (every other month or so) they’d pop their head in and be like “wanna go for a walk?, I have a gap in 30 min”, and we’d have a 15 min walk-n-talk about the work place, time management, work / life balance, teamwork, suggestions and feedback for management - anything about working there that wasn’t about the actual work.

They were really all about listening to the employees in every area.

I have liked a few of my bosses. One, nobody else liked working for, because he was sort of crazy, came in hours before us, left hours after us, told us he would keep adding work to our schedule and he expected us to tell him when it was too much. Nobody else took him at his word on that, but I did, took my PTO, worked pretty regular hours, and always on my review he’d give me good marks for doing that.

His insane work ethic broke up his marriage, it was not something to emulate. I think deep down he knew that. So part of what he taught me was the value of work life balance, as a negative role model. But I liked that he wasn’t asking us to do more than he did, and he was an absolute genius in a lot of ways, we still hang out sometimes. Rarely, but sometimes.

• Worked for their local team, and was quite happy to challenge/push back on unreasonable top-down asks.
• Quite happy to admit they didn’t know stuff and asked for advice and ideas - and, of course, credited the appropriate team members for things that worked, but took responsibility themselves if things didn’t go well.
• Displayed authentic emotions and enthusiasm for the work, rather that present a bland corporate mask.

I’ve had more than one good boss that did these things:

Encouraged me to seek other opportunities in the company when higher positions opened up. He/she was good at helping team members find positions that matched their talents.

Didn’t micromanage, but instead hired capable people and trusted them to do their jobs.

Shielded team members from internal nonsense and politics so that we could concentrate on our jobs. It was always “If another manager has a problem with you, tell them to come talk to me.”

Good managers also encourage their team to learn new skills and hone their existing ones. Never stop learning. Even if that learning is just how to navigate the system to get things done.

The best boss I ever had:

Let me set my own hours, gave me complete freedom in how I worked, allowed me to not take on jobs I didnt want, allowed me to set my own pay.

That boss was me. I was self employed.

When there was a conflict between employees due to one employee being a complete jackass they dealt with the jackass instead of telling everyone else that they have to accommodate the jackass because ‘that is just how they are’.

One day boss comes in and sees my colleague. Remarks how early he came in. He said he never left the previous day and planned to just keep working (salaried guy). Boss said he needed to take the day off, wouldn’t have him drive, and he drove his car and had me follow to take the boss back to work after dropping colleague and his car at home.

He consistently tried to break that guy’s incessant overworking. Had a lot of respect for him.

Unfortunately he got canned when he kept some stuff from upper management in writing that got upper management in trouble. Not enough trouble to remove their ability to retaliate, but enough to save a few other jobs of folks they were trying to throw under the bus for their mistake.

He was honest with me, and he advocated for me. He would team up with me against upper management and hide his cards from them.

My best boss ever was a very involved and fair professional man (mostly) while on the clock and an absolute pimp the second he was off the clock.

The man drove a clapped out impala with paint chips and 200k miles. He always came in a little early and was always high energy. He was always listening to the different departments issues and he would side with us against customers when it was appropriate, but he would recognize when that wasn’t the best path and he would help explain it to the staff afterwards why he chose to bend the rule in that situation.

He understood human mistakes like randomly being late or forgetting to punch back in from lunch here or there, but he was also very firm with people who were repeat offenders.

One time we had a guy stealing stuff in the back corner of the store and security called it out over the walkie. I watched him sprint up to the front where the cameras were and tell the security to point them somewhere else for a moment. Then he ran back and FLIPPED this thief over his shoulder before telling him to get the fuck out. The guy scurried out and we never saw him again.

Then one day I saw him roll up to work on his day off to pick something up. I shit you not this man rocked up in a MINT black Escalade on huge mirror shined rims. He hopped out with a fur coat on over his immaculate white suit. He walked around and let out his GORGEOUS wife who was like half his size. She wrapped around his arm and he walked in like he owned the world.

We became good enough friends over the years I worked there that eventually I got invited to his house for a party. The man had a 300 gallon SHARK tank right in front of the door to his house. It’s the first thing anyone sees when they enter his house.

He was firm with people, but understanding. He allowed his staff to have fun as long as the important tasks were getting done. He communicated clearly with everyone. He took concerns about issues with other managers and leaders that worked directly under him seriously. He knew what he was talking about and he had a certain charm about him with both customers and employees. To this very day he’s the only boss I ever had where everyone I knew liked him.

When he left the company for a better paying job a lot of us transferred to other locations or just left the company ourselves as well.

I still have him on Facebook and it seems he’s got a beautiful family and that makes me happy. He deserves all of it.

He literally doesn’t care about his reputation. I asked him once why he became boss, and he said “at one point you may notice your boss is shitty at his job so you need to do it on your own”. Also he is an ex programmer doing project management, which is very refreshing compared to ex project manager who are doing project management.