What made it a lot of fun was that I got to work with a former manager of mine. This was the manager who trained me a year ago. She started working at another location shortly before I left to start college and worked at my store this Sunday.
I love this manager. She's so upbeat and optimistic. Almost never says anything negative. She is absolutely amazing at her job and continuously demonstrates the epitome of "above and beyond" in her work. She shows appreciation for my work and makes me feel like I'm good at my job (which isn't always the case, but I appreciate it regardless). She treats me like a best friend and lets me do office work and stocking in the back, something typically only managers do, because she knows I enjoy that. She lets me make my job likable. Ahhhh. Too bad she doesn't work at my store anymore.
I was so happy on Sunday with this manager that I got to thinking about what makes her such a good boss, and what makes a good boss in general. Good is a subjective and relative term, of course, but I feel like good managers have a couple of common qualities.
Above all, they need to trust you, and you need to feel that trust. I feel like that's so important because one of my past managers definitely didn't trust me much. I'd catch her eye across the store and I could tell she had been watching me very closely, making sure I was doing everything right. It gave me such an uneasy feeling. I never felt like I was doing anything right, and dreaded working with her because I constantly felt like a victim.
Another big quality I feel that a manager should have is the ability to be relatable. I am happiest and work best under my managers who make me feel like their friend, or at the very least, an equal. It's also another way of showing that they trust you, in a sense. My boss at my old gym always threw around the superiority act with all of her employees. She was only relatable with a few of them, and got extremely cocky with the rest of us. Sometimes she'd tell me to do something, and then would add, "I can make you do that because I'm your boss." Geez. Okay. I was going to do what you told me to do anyway. No need to be so damn pretentious.
Oh and another thing. She almost always forgot to pay me. So as if it wasn't awkward and painful enough for me to tell her she hadn't payed me, she wouldn't just apologize and pay me. She would, without fail, take a second to say something that insinuated that I was lying, before reluctantly paying me. Uggh. You don't fully appreciate direct deposit unless you have ever asked your boss to pay you.
Anyway, my final good boss attribute is knowing your strengths and weaknesses, and responding to both appropriately. I made so many mistakes the first few months in my job, and my manager I worked with Sunday was always particularly tactful when addressing them. She never made a big deal out of my many mistakes, but she was also serious in a nice way about them. She knows how bad I can be at getting customers to sign up for the store card, and sometimes lets me get away with it and pushes me a little harder at other times. She also understands how introverted I can be, and she trusts me enough to let me work in the back at times, probably because she knows I can work faster when I like what I'm doing.
I guess a great bonus quality is praising your employees from time to time, too. I understand that you shouldn't need praise to do good work, but it really makes for happier and more confident employees. I am very rarely told I do a good job, and if I am, it's from the customers of all people. Managers telling you that you did something really well makes you feel like you're appreciated and valued. To me, that's critical for employee satisfaction.
From my small experience in the working world, I realize how important it is to have a good manager. Your manager can really make you love or hate your job. I feel like it's good that I'm figuring this out now before I take more serious positions in the future, and maybe before I become a boss myself.
