Are You Being the Best Boss?

Nearly every expert on employee engagement agrees there is a single, most impactful, means of increasing employee engagement and performance: their manager.

Are you being the best boss? Does your organization have the best managers?

In a recent post, I discussed the five common traits of effective managers that people want to work for. Here are the five simple ways to elevate the effect your managers have on your corporate culture and employee engagement.

1. Ask all of your managers to think of who their best boss was throughout their entire career. Have them write that person’s name down on a piece of paper.
2. Have all managers write down the three key qualities that made that person their best boss.
3. Encourage all managers to pick up the phone and let that person know that they were their best boss—if they’ve never done so.
4. Have all managers look back at the three best boss qualities they wrote down and aspire to become excellent on all three of those qualities.
5. Challenge all managers to become someone’s best boss.

After contacting hundreds of managers who I helped navigate through this best boss exercise, I heard nothing but positive feedback. I encourage every manager to leverage the strategy of becoming someone’s best boss to boost employee engagement. It works.