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 that employees must comply with. 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 with their own actions. They provide the team with inspiration based on their own working methods and how they take responsibility. The leader guides their employees to achieve the same objectives together.
A boss doesn't usually empathise with the specific problems a worker might encounter when completing a job. In fact, one of the most typical phrases from a traditional boss is “not my problem, find the solution yourself”.
One of the essential keys to being a good leader is empathy. A leader makes their team feel that the problem can be solved together. In fact, if the first-person plural is included in the response given to an employee, the message of cooperation is even clearer. This way, “it's not my problem” will become “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 praises their team for a job well done, which will motivate them and foster commitment to the company. This genuine recognition from the leader will make the employee feel supported and secure following their successes, encouraging them to continue working in the same vein.
A boss points out the employee's mistakes, looks for scapegoats, and on numerous occasions uses the opportunity to reprimand the employee as a veiled warning to the rest of the team against future errors or attitudes.
A leader sees errors as an opportunity for learning and communicates this to the team. They aim to solve the problem, turning failure into a future success or, at the very least, into a mistake that won't be repeated.
To successfully run a company, the profile of the traditional boss, 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.
