45 Six Keys to Being a Great Boss

If you’re responsible for leading a team, your impact shows up in how your people perform, grow, and experience their work. This episode of Joyfully Unstoppable breaks down six practical ways to strengthen your leadership as a boss so your team can operate at a higher level with clarity, trust, and consistency.

Becky Hamm walks through what it looks like to invest in your team’s growth, communicate with intention, and lead in a way that builds both performance and trust. She also shares how to approach accountability, give better feedback, and remove barriers so your team can stay focused on meaningful work.

This is a grounded, practical conversation for experienced leaders who want to elevate how they lead others day to day.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to:

•  Support your team’s professional growth in ways that actually move their careers forward 
•  Communicate priorities, expectations, and context so your team can execute with confidence 
•  Build trust by recognizing your team as people, not just producers of work 
•  Improve the quality of feedback by asking better questions before evaluating performance 
•  Create a culture of shared accountability that strengthens performance across the team 
•  Remove obstacles that slow your team down and keep them focused on what matters most 

When you lead this way, you create an environment where people perform well, take ownership, and stay engaged in their work. That is what strong leadership looks like in practice.

🎧 Listen now and start applying these six keys in your own leadership this week.

👍 If this episode was helpful, follow the show and share it with a colleague who leads a team

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Transcript

0:46

Welcome to Joyfully Unstoppable, the podcast for women who are ready to succeed without the stress. Whether you are leading a team, a classroom, a boardroom, or your own big, beautiful life, I am so glad you found us. I'm your host, Becky Ham, leadership coach, speaker and founder of Women Lead Well. Okay, my friends, today we are going back to the basics. We're gonna talk about how to be a great boss. You know, we spent a lot of time on this podcast developing you as a leader, but an obviously key part of successful leadership is showing up for your team as a boss who empowers, encourages, supports their best work. So let's talk about it. I was thinking about like, what are all of the elements of a great boss? element number one. Invest in your team members' growth. Your team is is there Absolutely. You hired them to do a particular job and everyone's got their own specific position descriptions and their own specific role on the team. But a good boss, a great boss, knows that one of their fundamental responsibilities is growing their team members to leave. And I know some of us have organizations where we've had people who have worked for us for a decade, two decades, maybe even more their entire career. Okay, great. That might be good for them. But as their boss, your responsibility is to encourage them to grow and to think intentionally about what their next step is. And if they say, well, I want my next step to be that I retire out of this position that I'm in, that I've been in for a decade. Okay, great. They are grown people that make their own choices, but for you as their boss being very intentional about where are they today, what is the next logical step for them in their career, and how can I help them get there? And you've got a few things at your disposal to help with this. You've got your regular annual performance review where you probably at the beginning of the performance year, set some expectations and some goals. In that initial standard setting conversation, you can ask the people on your team, how do you wanna grow this year? What's your professional growth goal for the year? And if they don't have one, well then you can have a conversation with them about what a good one might be for them given their current skill level and their current position within your organization. Once they come up with their goal, well then you've got some options. Does your organization offer any resources for professional growth? And that might be, pursuing a graduate level degree. That could be a certification or some kind of certifying exam that the individual could complete and would have to pay out of pocket for. Well, does your organization offer any support, financial support? For people to pursue their professional development. And certainly your organization probably does support, like conferences, that kind of thing. But here I'm talking about an actual degree, an actual certification. So like A-P-M-P-A project management, or, you know, I've completed coaching. Some organizations pay for their team members to become certified coaches. I, in the past have endorsed, um, a PhD, so a graduate level degree for a team member of mine where it made. Sense, and I've endorsed master's level work for team members where it made sense and the organization helped to fray the cost of them pursuing those degrees. Wonderful. You as the boss, get to then work with your team member and how you can support them financially while they are improving their skillset, getting that advanced degree or that certification. And even if your organization doesn't support that financially, you don't have a budget for that. Okay. I mean, that you might wanna have as a, if you're a senior leader in the organization, you might wanna have a conversation with the C-Suite to talk about the benefits of supporting that kind of professional growth financially. But if it's just not in the realm of the possible, okay. Can you support them with time? And what I mean by that is you've got a team member who is pursuing their doctorate or their master's or whatever's the PMP, whatever that certification is. Can they use a certain percentage of company hours to do that? So they're not doing everything after hours and on the weekends can some of that count as their regular workload consult with hr? Different organizations will have different policies on this, but what I mean by how to be a great boss. Like number one is that you are intentional in telling the members of your team. I want you to grow, and that's not just like a thing that I say and then walk away from. I am showing you that I'm committed to your professional growth by funding it in the organizations that have the ability to support financially and carving out work hours for you to pursue your degree or your certification. Because I know two things. I know thing number one, when you go and you get that degree as you are learning, and then once you've completed it, you are gonna be a better employee. You're gonna return greater value to the organization. It is a worthwhile investment to me as your boss and the representative of the organization for you to go get this degree. And then thing two, it signals and I care about you and your professional growth. You are more than just a doer of tasks to me. You are someone who I think is significant and important enough that I'm gonna put my energy behind financially in terms of time and in terms of just having those conversations to identify what their next step is and where their growth is. And then if you wanna really push it forward, then as they continue to grow. You support them as their professional growth might take them to a new position, right? How to be a great boss. You encourage them to leave, to join your alumni association, as I always like to call the people who used to work for me and have now gone on to new and greater things. We want that for them, right? You wanna grow people. People have supported you in your own growth journey, so you wanna be a great boss. You do that for your team. That's thing number one. Thing number two, has been a personal struggle for me, I will self-identify that this has not come naturally for me, but if you wanna be a great boss, you have to over communicate. Let me, let me tell you what I mean by that. What I mean is we live in such an information saturated environment and we, all of us are so overstimulated all the time. That we can forget things or because we're processing so much information at once, somebody might say something, but it just doesn't get into our brain. And so a good effective boss consistently communicates priorities, mission, values, appreciation, right? With as much transparency. As is appropriate, the bosses can't always share everything. Discretion is an important part of leadership too. And you gotta be discreet to be a good boss, but you wanna communicate more than you think you need to more often than you think you need to. So the Marine Corps has this great little mantra, which is, what do I know? Who needs to know it? Have I told them? And so I would encourage if like me, you struggle with this over communication. Anytime you come out of a meeting or anytime as you're like processing at the end of the day and getting everything closed down or at the end of the week and you're getting everything closed down, anytime a deadline comes up, anytime there's a change in policy or guidance or anything that might impact the work of your team, you ask yourself those three questions. What do I know? Who else needs to know it and have I told them they might hear it from somebody else, fine, but you are their boss. Have I told them, have I given them what they need in order to be effective? Critical. And then again, over communicate the mission, the values, your priorities. Every meeting, find a way to tie what you're doing back to the mission, to the values, to the goals. And if you can't, well, I'm gonna argue, probably is a good indication that you've got some work on your plate that doesn't need to be there. You've got some work that is disconnected from the core work of your organization and your team. So thing one, invest in your team's growth. For realsies with money and with time and with your intention thing. Two. Communicate more than you think. You need to just communicate more and be consistent about it. Thing three, how to be a great boss. You wanna care about the person, not just the work. And I'll tell you, I have worked with, with women in particular, but I've talked to men about this too. There can be this reluctance to show deep concern for employees as people out of fear, that it will create an overly familiar relationship. And then the individuals will stop performing and look. I'm, I'll tell you, good boundaries, professional boundaries between you and your team is essential to effective functioning of the team. You can get too familiar and that absolutely will cause problems. So I'm not saying you buddy, buddy with your team, but what I'm saying is every person on your team is a human being. And they've got families that probably look different from each other, right? Everyone's family is different, but they've all got families. They all have obligations. They all have personal challenges that you might not know about, and that's okay. You don't have to know everything. But my point is, they're all actual human beings, right? They don't just produce results for you. They have full entire lives. Even the ones that over identify with their job and with their role, they too have full lives. They just might be prioritizing one aspect of their life. And so the great bosses, the really good bosses acknowledge that humanity. And don't punish the team members for that humanity. What do I mean by that? Well, maybe there's a parent whose kid is sick, or maybe there's a parent whose kid is performing in the school play and they need to be there during work hours. Or they wanna meet, uh, the kid for the soccer game at three o'clock in the afternoon. Okay. You can have a conversation with your team member about how they can still get their work done and be present for their family, right? You don't have to guilt them. You don't have to make'em feel bad. You don't have to threaten them. You don't have to make'em take leave. In order to go to the event, you can just figure out with your team member how to get the work done. The work still gets done, but it gets done now by an individual who feels valued, who feels seen, and who feels trusted, and people who feel valued, seen and trusted, outperform people who don't. So I'm not just saying do this in order to be a good person, although, like I, I do believe when you treat other human beings with respect, that that is one of the things that makes you a good person, a good human yourself, but you're gonna get better performance outta your team. It makes you more effective as their leader. It makes you more effective as their boss, and it makes them more effective in terms of the results that they're gonna produce for you. It just will. It just will. It just does. So that's number three. Care about the person, not just about the work. You can absolutely care about both without becoming overly familiar, without blurring the professional lines. Think number four has been another growth edge for me. I will self-identify with this one too, and that is. Really good leaders inquire. They question before they evaluate. What do I mean by that? Well, I will use myself as the example I, when I was new to leadership, I would receive a product from a team member. And if it didn't meet my standard or if it was late or if it was sloppy, I would get annoyed. You know, how dare they turn in something that wasn't up to standard or, um. It just wasn't good. Right. And, and I would react to the deficiency in the quality of the product when I would give them feedback. Right? And so I would focus on what they hadn't done and. Probably, if I'm being honest with myself, I was making some assumptions or some judgements about why the quality was what it was and what that meant about them and their competence as a staff member. And as I led, you know, as, as I was a leader for longer, as I, I supervised people for longer, I came to realize, Not everybody is a strong performer. That's just life. But what I realized was oftentimes. There was some form of a misunderstanding that I wasn't seeing something, or going back to point number two about over communicating. I had not clearly communicated expectations, or I had not clearly communicated essential parts of the task, right? I had a lot of implicit knowledge about what needed to show up in the work product, and I hadn't communicated that clearly to the individual who was gonna be doing the work product. So then when I saw the product and I was dissatisfied with it. Yeah, no, they didn't hit the mark, but I, I didn't set them up to succeed either. I didn't give them what they needed so they could hit the mark. So what I mean here by number four is before you judge a team member or even the quality of the work that they produce, get curious and ask yourself, if I'm not pleased with this, if it doesn't hit the mark, why might that be the case? Did I actually communicate everything that they needed? Did I provide the support that they needed to get it done? Did I imbue the authority in them so that they could collaborate with others to get the information they needed to produce the product? what are all the innocuous reasons why this product might not be of the quality that I would expect? Don't race to the assumption or the judgment or the conclusion that it is a failure of the individual who produced it, of your team member. Get curious before you judge. Inquire before you evaluate, because again, when you go to the team member to say, this didn't cut it. If you go with the attitude of you ain't cutting it, that will have an effect on them and their future performance. It just does. If you go to them with the attitude of, this isn't what I need, here's why. You explain Nonjudgmentally, but objectively, here's what I needed to see here, and this wasn't here. Let's have a conversation about it. When can you get this back to me? You're dealing with it collaboratively as a problem to be solved, as opposed to a judgment of an individual's character or ability. And now over time, as someone consistently underperforms and you're doing that, you are being good about communicating what they need to know and providing the support and, and imbuing the authority and all of those things, and they still ain't getting it done. Well, that's a different conversation, right? Then we have a conversation about being a good boss really does mean accountability. And I didn't mean that to be a good segue, but that is point number five. So let's talk about accountability there. Good bosses, great bosses, share accountability. So yes, you absolutely hold your team members accountable for their performance. And so if someone is consistently underperforming and you're confident that you're setting them up for success and they still ain't getting it done, then you hold them to account. Why? Because one that is respectful to them, they deserve to grow. They deserve to know where they're not cutting it so that they can improve. You don't want anyone to stay at mediocre that doesn't honor them. You honor them by saying. This is the bar. Here's where your performance is. Here's what needs to change for you to clear the bar. And by the way, I expect you to clear the bar because I believe in you. I believe in your growth. I believe in your potential. I believe in your abilities. That's way more respectful then. Yeah. No, this didn't clear the bar, but I know what you tried. No, they're leaving them wallowing a mediocrity. That's not cool. That is not good boss behavior. So accountability is absolutely you holding them accountable. It is also you holding yourself accountable. And when you mess up on something, and we all do, we get to be human too. Communicating to your team how you messed up, how you grew from that failure and what you're gonna do differently going forward. you use it as an opportunity to model a growth mindset. Accountability is also being humble enough to allow your team members to hold you accountable. And I can't tell you the number of times that I have had that happen, that I have had a team member come to me professionally, respectfully, politely, privately, and say. You know, you said this or you did this, you know, really, you know, X, Y, Z, and they were right. And I appreciate, I showed them gratitude in the moment. I took on that input and I got better. I improved because of it. They showed me the respect of not letting me wallow in mediocrity, and we don't, good bosses don't take that as a hit to the ego or someone trying to tear us down. We take that for what it is. One that a team member trusts us enough to be honest with us, knowing that if we have an ego or if we're insecure, that we could retaliate, right? So that's real trust that they would come to us with something that we have failed in. And two, it's them. Giving us an opportunity to grow and improve. It's brilliant. You want all your team members to do that. And it could be a conversation about how do you do it respectfully and professionally. I am not saying they need to call you out in front of everybody and, and be rude about it, but that shared accountability. Is critical and you creating the culture that allows that shared accountability to happen. Now the last thing that we're gonna talk about here, a good boss, will bulldoze obstacles for the team. What do I mean by that? I mean, your job is to remove obstacles so your team members can meet their goals so that they can achieve their objectives, whatever targets they've got. Everyone's got their individual work that they have to do, and particularly in larger organizations, there're always gonna be friction points. You remove the friction points for them. If it's something that they can do at their level, of course they should do it at their level, but again, particularly in larger organizations, there are plenty of friction points that they won't be able to remove. You, you remove those friction points, and that might be having a conversation with a different section. If their timelines are slow and it's holding up your team's work well, you meet with the boss of that section and you just have a person to person conversation and you sort it out. You remove the obstacles. You pave the way for your team to succeed. If you're conflict averse, that can feel like a challenge. But good bosses, great bosses, do that on the regular. Now again, you don't swoop in to save your team from something that they should be able to do themselves. They should be able to collaborate. They should be able to work across departments or sections at their level. But what I'm saying is a lot of times the obstacles aren't at their level. The obstacles are above their level, and that's where you come in, Hulk smash for your team when they need you to. So. Those are the six elements features of what it means to be a great boss. You invest in your team's growth. You over communicate, communicate a lot more than you think you might need to. You care about the person, not just their work. You get curious before you get judgmental inquire before you evaluate. You share accountability with your team members and you bulldoze obstacles for them. And if you do those six things, I'm gonna guarantee I'm gonna, that's a strong statement, but I stand by it. I'm gonna guarantee that you have a high performing team with strong morale and that is unstoppable. So good on you. Okay, next week. I hope you will join me when we unlock the secret to effective delegation. You won't wanna miss it. Now if this episode spoke to you, I would love for you to share it with a friend who's running on empty. We need more women leading from alignment, not adrenaline. And please don't forget to like and subscribe. And if you could leave a review, I would really appreciate it. Also, you can always grab one of our resources. There's the 90 Day Leader Development Plan available on our website along with free resources, like the weekly reset routine, and the mental load reset. Remember, joyful, sustainable, and authentic leadership is possible, and you deserve to enjoy every minute of it. Until next time, I'm Becky Ham, and this is joyfully unstoppable.