A Good Boss and a Great Boss

Recently I read an article pointing out what a great boss do differently compared to a good boss. I could not get the name of the author of the article but the credit goes to him only. The gist of the article is as below

Goal Transformation - A good boss inspires his team to achieve the company goals while a great boss transforms the company goals to the personal goals of his team members. A great boss makes the team realise that they will benefit as much if not more from achieving the company goals be it in the sphere of professional development, opportunities to learn, grow and prosper. An employee who feels a sense of personal purpose  will outshine the one who only works for company goals.

Support without seeking credit - A good boss supports his team and at the same time seeks credit for the same while a great boss supports and dispenses due credits to the team for their achievements instead of seeking personal glory.

Decision Making - A good boss takes a decision appropriate to the situation while a great boss makes a decision to keep the right person in right location. There is no need that a decision taken by a boss should always be right or correct. The best person to take a decision in any situation is the one who is closest to the issue at hand. A great boss lets the people closest to the issue to take a decision.

Control - A good boss controls his team while a great boss does not care much about control. He is seen more as one who helps people

Learning from Mistakes - A good boss teaches / scolds / briefs an employee to learn from a mistake. A great boss helps the employee to learn from mistake themselves. At the same time a great employee does not need to be scolded or reprimanded. They know what they did wrong.

Ideas - A great boss encourages their teams to come out with ideas to resolve issues at hand or to identify a potential issue, even though they identified and know the solution all along.

Emotions and Motivation - Sometimes employees make mistakes or simply do the wrong thing or they take over projects or roles without approval or justification.They may jockey for position, play political games, or ignore company objectives in pursuit of personal goals. When that happens it's easy to assume they don't listen or don't care. But almost always there's a deeper reason: They feel stifled, they feel they have no control, they feel marginalized or frustrated. Good bosses deal with actions while  great bosses search for the underlying issues that, when overcome, lead to much bigger change for the better.

Self Introspection - Great bosses go home every day feeling that they could have done better and promise to themselves to do so the next day.

Forgive and Forget - Last but not the least, a great boss looks at the whole employee instead of focussing on one    mistake at the same time not compromising on any integrity issues. To forgive may be divine but to forget is even more divine.