ACRIP
How to Become a Great Boss
Book

How to Become a Great Boss

The Rules for Getting and Keeping the Best Employees

Jeffrey J. Fox
Hyperion, 2002
Buy book or audiobook

Read offline

Amazon Kindle

Editorial Rating

8

Qualities

  • Applicable

Recommendation

Jeffrey J. Fox has a talent for pointing out the obvious, but often forgotten, basics of business and management. Like Fox’s previous books, How to Become a Great Boss contains almost nothing that is entirely original. Instead, it compiles what should be common-sense guidelines for effective leadership and presents them in a manner that is both educational and inspirational. Fox has the ability to get you thinking about what you are doing as a manager and about the things that you have allowed to fall by the wayside. For that simple but valuable lesson, getAbstract.com strongly recommends this book to all bosses, managers and leaders.

Summary

The Boss as a Leader

A great boss plays a critical role as a leader. To become a leader, you need to motivate people. You must make your employees believe in themselves and feel empowered. In order to do good work, your people must feel good about working for you and your company. Follow these principles to become an effective leader:

  • Hire the best people.
  • Hire the right people for the right jobs. If they don’t work out, weed them out.
  • Tell people what you need done and why.
  • Once you choose people to do a job, leave it up to them.
  • Train people and listen to them.
  • Get rid of any sources of frustration and obstacles that hold people back.
  • Check on people’s progress and say thank you both publicly and privately.

Recognize that you serve as an example to your people, since they will look to you for cues on how to behave. Thus, as you act, so will your employees, since the boss sets the tone and standards for the organization.

The Customer is the Real Boss

All employees, even the boss, work for the customer, since the customer’s money is what funds everything the company does. Thus, design every...

About the Author

Jeffrey J. Fox, the bestselling author of How to Become a Rainmaker and How to Become a CEO, is the founder of Fox & Company, a marketing consulting firm. Before starting Fox & Company, he was the Vice-President of Marketing and Corporate VP for the Loctite Corporation. He was the subject of a Top 100 Harvard Business School case study that is widely used in marketing classes and is a frequent speaker to large organizations and groups of senior executives.

Comment on this summary