Essay: What makes the perfect boss?

What makes the perfect bosses?
1. Introduction
The word “perfect bosses” can be defined in many different ways as everyone has their own standards to look at what kind of skills, knowledges, experiences, attitudes or behaviour that they think a perfect boss should have. Generally to certain extent, no one is perfect neither the bosses. It all depends on the different understanding of perfection that everyone has. If one believes that he or she is perfect, then they are perfect. However, not all will agree. Therefore, the definition of perfect bosses changes from person to person. Along with the appealing workforce of millennials, the ideas of working for an “ideal” bosses become a demand but what kind of bosses or leaders that are so-called perfect bosses. Although there is no ultimate definition of perfect exists, the majority of definitions of perfect reflects having all the desired or required elements. Hence in this case, our ideal perfect bosses are those who are able to motivate, inspire and lead the employees by having the desired elements such as democratic leadership, visionary leadership and cross-cultural leadership. We believe  perfect bosses should adapt to different leadership styles and use the right leadership styles in the right situation.
1.1 Why do leadership styles matter?
A successful company is made up of a bunch of employees who has the organisational commitment and are all able to understand the main objectives of the company that in a result achieve the goals. The precondition of having good employees to work for the organisation is having a good boss who are able to lead and motivate the employees. A good boss with the right leadership styles is the key element in shaping motivated and committed employees. A research done in finding the relationship between leadership style and organization performance has showed a strong correlation that depending on the types of leadership style being used, the organisational performance would either be positive correlated or negative correlated ( Wang, Shieh and Tang, 2010). Therefore, leadership styles being used in a company matter because of how significantly it can affects the organisation overall performance.
1.2 Why are bosses important?
Organisations need bosses with managerial skills who are able to identify critical issues and able to apply solutions to overcome today’s issues such as globalized economic climate, innovated technology and many others challenges; Good boss is important to an organisation because it decides the levels of commitment that the employees have for their job and the company ( Robbins and Coulter, 2012). Bosses are the critical characters who creates the working systems and bosses have the responsibility to make sure all the employees are on the right track; Research shows relationship between employees and their direct supervisors has a direct effect on organization performance and employees productivity ( Robbins and Coulter, 2012). Thus, on the ground that how bosses can significantly influence both the employees and organisation, it is very important to choose the right boss.
2.1  Democratic Leadership
John Gastil, a professor at Penn State University, defines democratic leadership as “ Distributing responsibility among the membership, empowering group members, and aiding the group’s decision-making process” ( Gastil, 1994). Democratic leadership is also known as participative leadership, is a type of leadership style that shares the decision-making power with the employees by giving them the sense of ownership to be involved in making decisions for the company. In this way, it motivates employees’ daily roles in an organisation because their opinions and thinking are valued by the company. A study of the relationship between democratic leadership and organisational cynicism investigated that democratic leadership has a significant negative influence on organizational cynicism ( Terzi and Derin, 2016). In another words, democratic leadership styles increases employees’ job satisfaction. Organizational cynicism refers to the negative attitudes and feelings that employees have towards their company. When organizational cynicism occurs, it is usually a sign of employees’ job dissatisfaction and it often leads to employees end up leaving the company. Professor Stephen P. Robbins indicates that bosses who adopts democratic leadership to govern an organisation are found to have a greater positive impact on employees’ productivity and satisfaction comparing to the use of other leadership styles ( Robbins and Coulter, 2012). The Apple company, one of the biggest player in the market, further proved Stephen P. Robbins statement. Apple survived because Steve Jobs, the company founder, adapted himself from being autocratic to becoming a democratic leader that he empowered all the employees respectively with different tasks and giving enough trust to his employees that they would come through with their own parts. In this way he said, motivated the employees in creativity and enhanced the responsibility of their jobs which in a result  increase employees’ organisational commitment.
 
3.1 Visionary Leadership
Visionary leadership is transformative and based on the power of inspiration. It is characterized by: a commitment to core spiritual values, with a clear vision, respect for empowering relationship, followed by courageous and innovative action.(McLaughlin, 2001) . As Mahatma Gandhi said, ‘you must be the change you wish to see the in world’, similarly managers need to change their mind-sets in order to improve their company’s future, and work towards a strong vision. Motivation is the key role of every manager to encourage and inspire his team for achieving desired organisational goals. The most significant factor which every boss should consider in order to motivate his employees is his/her relationship and rapport with them. Bosses need to maintain a good and healthy relationship with their employees to make sure they follow their guidance and cooperate with them. The other important factor that lies with boss’s ability to motivate employees is creating the work culture and organisational environment that fosters employee engagement and motivation. All workers needs to be felt valued and trusted, they also require freedom to express their thoughts and opinions, and they need to be involved in decision making process. By doing all this, employee would feel that they are crucial part of the organisation, hence they will be motivated to put their best foot forward and hit the company’s targets effectively. Communication is another important aspect that the managers need to take in consideration while motivating employees for a better future of the company. A boss should be able to properly understand employee’s background and then translate his message so that the employee can understand and interpret correctly.
Motivation by managers also involves supervision and leadership, which is only possible if the manager is honest and fair in his practices, then only he can lead his workers for a better future.
4.1 Cross-cultural Leadership
A successful boss in one culture will not always be successful in another culture. In today’s globalized business and economic, a successful organisation depends on leaders’ ability in managing cultural diverse workforce ( Chuang, 2013). Managing a diverse workforce can be challenging as people with different cultures and backgrounds often causes racial conflicts that global bosses need to deal with. Cross-cultural leadership style is not just about the tolerance in language and appearance, it is more about how bosses are able to lead and motivate employees with different nationalities and cultures. Cross-cultural leadership gives bosses an understanding of how diverse workers cooperate with each other and from there, bosses will be able to master how to motivate employees with different backgrounds. Understanding comes before motivation that without knowing why the employees behave in certain ways or what attracts and motivate your employees, bosses will not be able to manage the diverse workforce successfully. Professor Geert Hofstede  introduced the 6 cultural dimension theory which are known as power distance, individualism and collectivism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long term orientation and indulgence that it helps bosses to develop understanding individuals culture in a deeper level. For examples, power distance refers to the distributed power among a society or an organisation. Employees who comes from a low power distance country are more likely to voice up while employees who comes from a high power distance country, would tend not to participate in giving opinions and making decisions ( Rutledge, 2011); Collectivism and individualism are one of the critical variables that decide where a person’s motivation comes from. Collectivist’s motivation comes from a group reward while individualist’s motivated by personal achievements ( Gorodnichenko and Roland, 2012). If bosses are able to identify these individuals cultural sensitivities and awareness, he or she will master in motivating the diverse workforce.
4.2  Do different countries need different kinds of bosses?
Yes, different countries need different kinds of bosses. All nations have their very own unique way in dealing with businesses or people. Especially when diverse workforce becomes the goal of most organisation these days because of how it can helps organisation to perform better in creativity which companies see it as extremely important in this competitive business world.
Flexibility and adaptive skills are  extremely important to bosses (Biggins, 2018). Employees from different cultures tends to have unique working behaviours. It is due to their background and the environment where they were living in or surrounded by. Bosses should not expect employees to follow and practice his or her ways of working behaviour when the bosses themselves do not at least understand and respect the employees’ cultures. Erin Myer, a multinational boss who work respectively across Brussels, Boston and Beijing, shares his experience in adapting leadership styles to cope with cultures differences in the diverse workplace. In America, he was a successful boss who had been trained to receive feedbacks from his subordinate staffs and employees were encouraged to show initiatives. However, when he was working in China, it was another story that he discovered giving opinions and ideas are an unfamiliar working attitudes to the Chinese workers who are more comfortable in following given instruction from the boss ( Meyer, 2017). Bosses need the ability in adapting their leadership styles or working behaviour to the employees’ cultures while finding the balance in between which can work well for both bosses and employees themselves. From this real life experience, it can be seen that different countries need different kinds of bosses.
5. Conclusion
Ultimately, perfect bosses should have the democratic mind-sets that they are willing to empower employees by giving them chances to voice up and participate in making decisions for the organisations which in a way, increase the job involvement and organisational commitment.