Most advice on being a good boss reads like a list of things you already know. Say good morning. Don’t shout. Keep the kitchen clean. None of that is wrong. It’s just not the difference between a boss people tolerate and a boss people stay for. The eight below are the ones that actually move the needle, and each comes with a British business owner who either got it spectacularly right or learned it the hard way.
What makes a good boss?
A good boss gives people the clarity, tools and room to do their best work, then takes responsibility when it goes wrong. That’s it. Everything else is detail.
The hard part is that all four of those things cost you something. Clarity means making decisions and helping people understand how their role supports the goals of the organization. It also means you communicate clearly enough to reduce uncertainty and mixed messages. Tools mean money. Room means letting go of control. Responsibility means admitting you were wrong in front of people who report to you. Plenty of managers do the easy bits and wonder why the good ones keep leaving. But if you’re dedicated to being a good boss to your team members, then the following 8 tips will show you how to be a great boss in an ever changing business world.
How to be a good boss: 8 key things you need to do today
1. Trust people to do the job you hired them for
The instinct when something matters is to keep a hand on it. Resist it.
James Timpson ran the Timpson Group for 22 years on what he calls upside-down management. Shop colleagues set their own prices, hand out discounts and run their branches largely as they see fit. Head office exists to support them, not the other way round. Across more than 2,000 shops, that’s an enormous amount of authority handed to people on the front line.
It works because the people in the shops know more about their customers than anyone in an office ever will. You don’t need 2,000 shops to use this approach either. Pick one decision you currently sign off that somebody closer to the work could make instead, and understand that person’s strengths and goals so you can put them in the right position. Be a coach from the side, not someone hovering over every call. Trust them with real responsibilities, not just minor tasks. Tell them why, and why they’ve been chosen to replace you. Then leave it alone, even the first time they do it differently to you. It could be that different is better. When you help someone complete important work well, it builds confidence and helps them succeed.
2. Hire on character, not on CV
Skills can be taught. Almost nothing else can.
COOK, the frozen food company founded by Edward Perry and Dale Penfold, runs a hiring scheme called Raw Talent for people who struggle to get hired anywhere else: prison leavers, people recovering from addiction, people who’ve been homeless. It has taken on hundreds of people this way since 2014.
Perry’s view is that it hasn’t just been good for those individuals. He’s said it made the whole company kinder and more compassionate, and that this has been good for business on all fronts – helping employees develop productive relationships beyond job title and experience, and instead allows employees to connect to their fellow human beings.
Most hiring processes filter for polish. A confident interviewee with a tidy CV is not the same thing as a good colleague, and people are more likely to stay when they can see a career path at the company. Before your next round, write down the three things somebody genuinely has to arrive with, and treat everything else as trainable.
And if you’re promoting from within, promote the person who’s right for the role. Promoting from within can lead to higher employee retention, and creating a new role where needed can help too when the person fits both the work and the company’s mission, rather than just looking right on paper for upper management.
3. Be straight about what you expect
Vague expectations are a kindness that isn’t kind. People end up guessing, getting it wrong, and finding out they were wrong at their review.
But there’s a line, and Revolut found it. In 2019 Wired reported on a culture at the fintech of unpaid work trials, heavy turnover and staff being told that missing targets meant being let go without discussion. Founder Nik Storonsky accepted parts of the account were true while arguing much of it described the company’s early start-up days, and Revolut spent the following years rebuilding its people function.
High standards aren’t the problem. High standards with no support attached is just fear, and fear gets you compliance rather than good work. The test is simple. Can everyone who works for you say, in one sentence, what a good job looks like this quarter? If not, that’s your fault rather than theirs, and you need to set clear expectations to ensure the well being of all your staff, communicate with them regularly rather than only at reviews, and make time to check progress. Effective leaders make that contact a habit: around six hours a week across one-on-ones, check-ins and day-to-day work discussions, and employees should get roughly that much time with their boss because regular communication improves engagement and motivation.
4. Guard people’s time like it’s yours
Tired people make bad decisions, and then you spend your week fixing them. Talented people can only achieve under a great leader who has their best interest at heart, and one of the most valuable things to any employee is their time.
Atom Bank moved its entire workforce to a four-day week in November 2021, cutting contracted hours from 37.5 to 34 with no reduction in pay. Chief executive Mark Mullen argued the five-day week was no longer fit for purpose. After a year of it, job applications were up by around a third, staff departures were down by a fifth, and the bank made the change permanent.
You may not want to cut a day. That’s fine and for many businesses it isn’t a viable option. The principle still holds though: treat your team’s hours as a finite resource you’re responsible for spending well. Good bosses realize people have a life outside work and need balance if they’re going to manage stress well. every good manager does and you’ll be recognised by your team for doing so.
Start by auditing what you take up yourself. Recurring meetings nobody needs, work requested late on a Friday, “quick calls” that eat an afternoon. Most overwork is created by the person at the top without them noticing, and empathy helps you spot pressure before it can break people. You might have even received constructive criticism about this in the past. If so, it’s more important than ever that you listen.
5. Teach people things they can’t learn anywhere else
Training budgets get cut first and regretted later. New hires shouldn’t be your only training focus. A leadership course or other structured training is a practical way to build managerial knowledge and strengthen leadership ability. You need to invest in the talent you already have too.
Brompton builds its folding bikes in London using fillet brazing, a skilled hand process that takes up to two years to train somebody in. Rather than hunt for people who already have the skill, Brompton trains its own, and any employee from any department can put themselves forward to try. Under Will Butler-Adams the company has grown output enormously while keeping that in-house, because they’re not looking for team members who have previously worked with different bikes. They’re looking for people who want to learn, and those are the employees that will drive your business further.
There’s a reason people stay in an environment like this too. If your employer is the only place that taught you to do something well, leaving costs you more than money.
You don’t need a school. You need one thing your business knows how to do better than most, and a deliberate plan for passing it on to the people who don’t know it yet so they have new skills that you’ve invested in for them. Part of that means you have to act like a mentor, encourage growth, and keep developing your own emotional intelligence so you better understand team dynamics.
6. Pay and recognise people properly
This may be the most important point on the list. The largest part of any employees compensation package for giving up their time and energy to work at your business is the pay. Get this wrong, and employees will look to employers who will pay them what they’re worth and recognise their talent and ideas as valuable.
Julian Richer founded Richer Sounds at 19 and ran it for four decades. In 2019 he moved 60% of the company into an employee ownership trust and handed staff £1,000 for every year they’d worked there, an average payout of around £8,000. He also ran a long-standing suggestion scheme where colleagues were rewarded for ideas whether or not the idea was used. Public recognition and celebrating achievements can strengthen loyalty and morale when the praise is genuine.
The trust is the headline, but the suggestion scheme is the more copyable bit. It says two things at once: your ideas are worth money, and we would rather hear a bad one than nothing. Recognition without fair pay is hollow. Fair pay without recognition is transactional. The best managers balance positive feedback with constructive criticism, because employees respond better to a mix than to praise or critique alone. For example, tell one individual exactly what they did well, as recognizing specific achievements and strengths shows which behaviors are valued and helps build a trusting environment without being overly critical. You need both, and neither is expensive compared to replacing someone good for lack of either; ultimately, fair treatment tends to earn more commitment in return.
7. Listen the first time someone tells you something is wrong
Problems don’t go away when you ignore them. They gather evidence.
Ray Kelvin founded Ted Baker in 1988 and built it into one of Britain’s best-known fashion brands. In December 2018, over 300 current and former employees signed a petition alleging a culture of “forced hugging” and harassment that went unchallenged. Kelvin denied the allegations and resigned in March 2019 while an independent investigation was ongoing.
Whatever your view of the specifics, the number is the point. It took 300 people signing something for the issue to reach a conclusion. That is a very long way past the point at which somebody should have been listened to. If you want to lead well, then you need to take action the moment a problem is raised. Listen without getting defensive, because active listening improves team dynamics and reduces workplace stress. Regular one-on-ones also give people a safe place to discuss progress and personal support before issues escalate.
Build a route for concerns that doesn’t run through you, because if you’re the problem, nobody is going to tell you. An anonymous survey, an external HR contact, or a trusted manager who’s expected to escalate will all do the job. And then create a culture that allows people to speak up about the issues their facing, so nobody is afraid to raise problems early if the culture is working. Trust only holds if, once concerns are raised, you keep promises and apply rules consistently.
8. Own your mistakes out loud
Your team already knows when you’ve got it wrong. Saying so costs you nothing but could earn you a huge boost in respect from the people you’re leading.
Michael Acton Smith built Mind Candy and Moshi Monsters into one of the biggest children’s entertainment brands in the world, then watched it fall away. He’s been unusually direct about why: the company mismanaged the shift from web to mobile and failed to build a second hit. His own lesson from it was not to get caught up in your own hype, because good press doesn’t protect a business and can distract you from the decisions that would.
He went on to co-found Calm, so his success doesn’t end there.
Founders who can say “that was my call and it was wrong” get better information from their teams for the rest of their careers, because they’ve shown it’s safe to be honest. Owning a mistake and then following through on the fix helps build trust by showing you keep promises and apply rules consistently. Founders who can’t, end up surrounded by people telling them what they want to hear, and that is always a recipe for business disaster.
The things that matter less than you think
A clean, safe, well-run workplace is a legal obligation and a basic courtesy. Being organised, replying to emails, not gossiping about your staff: all fine, all expected, none of them a leadership strategy.
If you get the eight above right, nobody will leave because the kitchen was untidy. If you get them wrong, no amount of team-building bowling will save you.
Frequently asked questions
What’s the difference between a good boss and a good leader?
A boss manages the work. A leader changes what people believe is possible. You need both, and most people find one comes more naturally than the other. Our guide to essential leadership skills covers the leadership half in more depth.
Can you be a good boss and still have high standards?
Yes, and the best ones do. The difference is whether the standard comes with the support, tools and clarity needed to hit it. Standards without support is just pressure.
How do I know if I’m a good boss?
Look at who leaves and why, whether people bring you bad news early, and whether anyone has disagreed with you out loud in the last month. If nobody ever pushes back, that’s a warning sign rather than a compliment.
What should I do first if I’ve been a bad boss?
Say so, to the people affected, without qualifying it. Then change one visible thing and keep it changed. Apologies without a change in behaviour make things worse.
