You’ve probably heard it said that people don’t quit jobs, they quit bad bosses.It’s a common leadership maxim””often issued as a word of warning to those stepping into leadership: a bad leader can ruin even the best of jobs.
But is the opposite also true? Can a good boss lead to less turnover? And what are the qualities that employees think make for a good leader””or a bad one?
In a study among Americans in the workplace, done in partnership with Leadercast, Barna Group found that two in five people work for someone they consider a “bad” leader. When asked to attribute positive and negative characteristics to their supervisors, these 40% of workers assign at least four of the six negative attributes to their boss. Another two in five workers (40%) say their leader displays one to three of those negative attributes, classifying that leader as “average.” In contrast, only one in five workers (19%) assigns only positive attributes to their leaders, qualifying them as “good” bosses.