The 4 differences between a bad boss and a good leader 02 February 2016
The time has come to have a team in charge of you. You don't know exactly what role you should adopt. We explain the main differences between a boss and a leader. You decide which is best.
Being a boss is not necessarily the same as being a leader. If we consult their definitions, a boss, according to the Real Academia Española de la Lengua, is the superior or head of a corporation. However, a leader is a person who directs or leads a political party, social group or other collectivity.
The traditional boss model is becoming obsolete. That is why it is necessary for these professionals to increasingly take on the role of leaders. Only in this way will they become truly relevant in decision-making and lead a motivated and effective team.
Bosses give orders to be carried out by employees. They have the power to command their subordinates to perform certain tasks without allowing their orders to be questioned or debated. They are based on the concept of authority.
However, true leaders set an example by their own actions. They provide the team with inspiration based on their own working method and the way they take on their responsibilities. The leader leads his employees to achieve the same goals together.
A boss does not usually empathise with the specific problems that an employee may encounter when solving a job. In fact, one of the most typical phrases of the traditional boss is “it's not my problem, you find the solution”.
One of the essential keys to being a good leader is empathy. A leader makes his team feel that the problem can be solved together. In fact, if he includes the first person plural in his response to his employee, the message of cooperation is even clearer. That way “it's not my problem” becomes “let's find the solution together”.
A boss often fails to recognise a job well done by his or her employees, or often resorts to superficial and material gestures to reward them. A large percentage of workers do not feel truly recognised in their jobs.
A good leader always congratulates his team for a job well done, which will motivate and engage them with the company. This true recognition on the part of the leader will make the employee feel supported and secure after their successes and continue to work along these lines.
A boss points out an employee's mistakes, seeks blame and often uses the occasion to reprimand the employee as a veiled warning to the rest of the team about future mistakes or attitudes.
A leader sees mistakes as a learning opportunity and passes this on to the team. He or she seeks to solve the problem, and to turn failure into future success or at least into a mistake that will not be made again.
To manage a company successfully, the profile of the traditional manager, as we have seen, must be redirected towards a leadership based on inspiration, empathy and the ability to get the team to work in harmony, feeling that they share the company's objectives.
