Last week I mentioned that over the past few months I’ve caught up with a few dozen managers to hear about their management journeys. For some of those conversations, when extra time allowed, I asked them:

“What qualities did your best managers have? What qualities did your worst managers have?”

Here’s a summary of the responses:

Best Managers

• Empathetic. Supportive. A real person. Has a good sense of work/life balance
• Clearly defines goals and strategy. Understands the team’s needs and wants. Advocates for team and team members
• Invested in team members’ professional growth. Cares about you personally & shows you respect
• Good teacher & coach. Challenges people by giving them feedback and also being open to receiving feedback
• Keeps communication lines open. Leads with consistency & transparency
• Isn’t judgmental. More likely to ask “what can we learn from this?” You can fail and know you’re not going to be punished
• Can sense when you’re struggling or down. Asks “how are you doing? How can I help?”
• Deals with everyone a little differently. Understands what gets different people excited about their work

Worst Managers

• Uninvested in team members as people. Treat them as cogs in a machine
• Micro manage or are completely hands off > viewed equally as poorly
• Perception that they’re worried more about their own promotion over their team members’ professional growth
• Don’t manage their emotions well, stress people out, or lead with fear
• Lack of empathy. When people make mistakes or personal things come up they’re not understanding. They may sometimes be perceived to view career/job > everything else
• Similarly, they lack awareness around people’s personal lives. For example, don’t respect “after hours” time and may interrupt with emails or calls
• Flaky, unprepared, and miss things. Ask questions that have already been answered or don’t know the answers to anything. Often don’t know what’s going on with the team
• Opaque. Protective of executive info and will not share broader strategy with the team either because they can’t or they won’t
• Tell people what they want to hear. Give faux feedback or lip service
• Consistently inflexible. Steadfast in their approach and only adapt “10%” to the other person. Miss social cues
• Play favorites or, worse, discriminate. Give preferential opportunities to some over others and treat team members differently

Couldn’t have said it better myself. Hopefully you can learn a thing or two. Take notes!