The Art Of Leading Well: 5 Ways To Be A Boss People Don't Complain About After Work
Laura Mogollon | Canva If you’re a manager, I’ve got some bad news: You’re probably the villain in someone’s Friday-night rant. Most people spend more waking hours with their boss than with their family. Complaints are inevitable.
And if you’re the person calling the shots, a lot of those complaints will be about you. As a leadership coach, you hear a lot of gossip. Honestly, some coaching calls can quickly devolve into venting sessions. Sometimes it feels more like therapy than coaching.
A lot of what I help clients with is about taking ownership and avoiding blame. After all, blame can act as a shortcut, giving us an out that avoids us having to change. But I’ve learned to focus on what I can control. And it boils down to two things: My actions and my reactions.
The good news? Knowing what people complain about makes it easy to make a list of things to avoid. So while you can’t stop people from venting, you can lower the odds and be proud of how you lead. It starts with these simple habits.
Here are 5 ways to be a boss people don't complain about after work:
1. Treat people fairly
Playing favorites isn’t always obvious. Sometimes we don’t even realize we’re doing it. We might have an unconscious bias that we’re not even aware of. I had this issue myself. I used to manage a guy called ‘lemon face’ (yes, that was really his nickname). Everyone picked on him, so I started giving him preferential treatment to try to balance things out.
It was amazing. Everyone saw how well I treated him and stopped bullying him. They all became angels. In upside-down land. Because, of course, the opposite happened. They picked on him worse, and eventually he left. Learn from my mistake: Treat people fairly based on their effort or attitude. Don’t play favorites, even if you think it’s for the right reasons.
2. Put the team first
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People are really good at recognizing a selfish boss. You might think you play the game well. That you’ve hidden your intentions like a pro. You haven’t. The team will feel like nothing they do matters. That they’re just lining their pockets and varnishing the reputation of someone else. Expect rebellion, apathy, and ‘quiet quitting’.
Eventually, they’ll ask: Why bother? And here’s a little secret: There’s a common assumption that most bosses are selfish. You’re a boss, ergo you must be selfish too.
One of the best and easiest ways to avoid this is to embrace servant leadership. Steve Kerr, former NBA title-winning Chicago Bull and current coach of the Golden State Warriors, is known for sharing credit with his players. He even lets them call plays.
He builds trust, listens to feedback, and makes sure the team feels some ownership over their success. He empowers players instead of acting like the all-knowing emperor. And studies back this up, showing that such an approach: “significantly increases employee loyalty, organizational commitment, and individual productivity.”
Ask yourself, “What does my team need to thrive?” Then put this at the top of your agenda. As Steve Kerr shows, leading this way improves employee performance by fostering a supportive and appreciative work environment.
It could be something as simple as better equipment, flexible schedules, or performance-related bonuses. Maybe it’s just free coffee or a shared premium tool account like Trello or AirTable. Even if you can’t get exactly where you want to be right away, move in the right direction. Something is better than nothing.
3. Recognize effort
Effort, talent, commitment. Your job is to spot and highlight the moments — big and small — when employees contribute. And it matters. One Gallup study found that employees who strongly agree that recognition is an important part of their organization’s culture are 3.7 times more likely to be engaged at work and are, on average, half as likely to experience frequent burnout compared to those who don’t.
Criticize in private, praise in public. We know this. But do we do this? As a manager, you’re probably busy. Your cup is full to the brim with deadlines, targets, and problems to solve.
It’s forgivable if giving John in accounts a pat on the back for getting the salary slips out on time slips your mind. But it matters to John. Getting home after a long day and feeling like nobody realizes, especially the boss, how much you put in. It’s gut-wrenching. When it keeps happening, you have a fork in the road:
- Keep doing it and learn to accept not getting any credit or recognition.
- Care a little less and slack off a little more.
And you already know which one usually wins. But most people don’t admit they’ve stopped trying. Instead, they find a scapegoat. You. And all this can be avoided by simply paying a little more attention to what people are doing and giving credit where it’s due.
4. Pull your weight
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Doug was the type of manager who lived by the mantra: “Managers should do what nobody else can do.” And he’s right. Managers have to stand back and observe from a distance so they can make more effective decisions, better allocate resources, and spot and resolve issues before they get too big.
If they’re mired in day-to-day busywork that could be delegated, they waste their energy on non-essential work and lose focus on what matters. And yet, unless you’ve held a management position yourself, you’d be forgiven for missing this crucial detail.
To the line worker, it might look like the boss is just sitting in their office, slacking off. Or distant because they don’t care. Or not doing the daily busywork because they think they’re better than others.
So a leader must live by another principle too. As Doug puts it: “Never ask anyone to do something you wouldn’t do yourself.” You can’t always do other people’s work. You shouldn’t have to. But they should feel like you can, would, and could.
So then, when you’re off doing the managing stuff at a distance, they see you’re not acting superior, you’re just doing your job. You’re doing your bit for the team so they can do theirs.
5. Follow the rules you set
Some people treat their promotion as a chance to finally stop behaving like everyone else. “Rank has its privileges.” I had a corporate executive position where the entire C-suite, including me, never needed to clock in or out or apply for time off. We were trusted to do the work, as ultimately it was our neck on the block. If work didn’t get done, we’d get the chop.
I chose to post in the group chat when I was in or out, though, just like everyone else. Not because I wanted to show off or anything. But I wanted to make it clear that I was following the same rules as them.
One of the quickest ways to annoy your team is to be a hypocrite. There should not be ‘one rule for thee and one for me’. You may get some perks when you step up. That’s fair enough. But never forget that the biggest privilege you get is the pressure.
Imagine how frustrated you were when you were a lower-level employee and were at the mercy of company decisions. Now you’re in a position to take action, improve systems, and have an impact. That’s huge. Don’t let your status go to your head. Set an example and follow your own rules.
Disclaimer — there’s no way to fully avoid becoming someone else’s gossip. Sorry. Sometimes, despite all your effort, you will end up getting the wrong person rubbed the wrong way and boom — you’re the new story they tell over Christmas dinner, and the whole family joins in on the booing.
But if you want to avoid practically guaranteeing you’ll be everyone’s ‘bad boss story’ every Friday night in the pub, follow these habits
- Treat people fairly
- Put the team first
- Recognize effort
- Pull your weight
- Follow the rules you set
Tobias C. Shaw is a writer, leadership coach, and corporate executive. He's had articles featured in Medium and Business Insider, as well as many other sites, and has been working in and around leadership for the best part of two decades.
