How to Be a Great Manager (or at Least Avoid Being a Terrible One

At one point in my life, I found myself managing a small team responsible for serving a network of 1,000 churches. That sounds impressive until you realize that managing people is often more like herding caffeinated squirrels than directing a well-oiled machine. In the trenches of leadership, I learned some hard-earned lessons—not from a business seminar or a motivational LinkedIn post, but from actual failures, awkward confrontations, and the slow realization that most people don’t quit their jobs; they quit their managers.

So, in the spirit of sparing others from the mistakes I made (and the ones inflicted upon me), here’s a guide to being a great manager—or at least avoiding the slow-motion train wreck of managerial incompetence.

1. Don’t Be the Micromanaging Sociopath

There’s nothing quite like having a boss who treats every task like an episode of CSI: Office Edition, where every email must be dissected and every decision must be pre-approved by the committee of Their Own Overinflated Ego. Micromanaging doesn’t just make people miserable—it actively erodes their ability to function like adults. If you don’t trust your team to do their jobs, either you hired the wrong people or you have a pathological need for control that a therapist should probably explore.

The best managers set clear expectations, provide the necessary resources, and then—here’s the radical part—get out of the way. Your job isn’t to babysit. It’s to make sure your team has what they need to succeed.

2. Stop Hiding Behind Emails Like a Coward

If your version of leadership is lobbing passive-aggressive emails into your employees’ inboxes like grenades and then ghosting them when they have questions, congratulations—you’ve achieved peak managerial failure.

A great manager actually talks to people. In real life. With their voice. Preferably face-to-face, or at the very least, over a call. People shouldn’t have to decode cryptic emails like they’re reading ancient Sumerian tablets just to figure out what you actually want. Communicate like a human. It’s not that hard.

3. Own Your Mistakes (Because Everyone Knows Anyway)

Here’s a universal truth: everyone in the office already knows when you’ve screwed up. Trying to cover it up just makes you look insecure, and blaming your team makes you look like a narcissist. The best managers admit when they’re wrong, take responsibility, and then—shockingly—move forward.

I once made a decision that, in hindsight, was the equivalent of setting my team’s workflow on fire and then asking why there was so much smoke. Instead of pretending I had some master plan, I admitted the mistake, worked with the team to fix it, and we actually became stronger as a result. People respect honesty. They despise self-preservation at the expense of others.

4. Don’t Weaponize “The Vision”

Every bad manager I’ve ever had hid behind a grandiose “vision” that somehow justified making everyone’s life a living nightmare. The vision is great—unless it’s being used as an excuse to ignore burnout, cut corners, or expect employees to sacrifice their personal lives for the greater good of The Brand™.

A real leader doesn’t just pitch an inspiring vision; they actually care about the people executing it. If you’re using “the mission” as a reason to underpay, overwork, and undervalue your team, you’re not leading—you’re running a cult with worse benefits.

5. Be the Shield, Not the Sword

Bad managers love playing corporate Game of Thrones, where they throw their employees under the bus the moment something goes wrong. Great managers, on the other hand, absorb the blows from higher-ups and protect their people.

When I was managing my team, I had to learn the hard way that leadership means shielding your team from unnecessary stress, not amplifying it. If your first instinct is to blame your employees rather than advocate for them, you should probably not be in charge of other humans.

6. Actually Care (Or at Least Be Good at Faking It)

I get it—you’re busy. You have meetings, reports, and a never-ending pile of Slack messages haunting your existence. But if you can’t take 30 seconds to ask your employee how they’re doing (and actually listen to the answer), you might be the reason they’re polishing their résumé.

Great managers don’t treat employees like interchangeable cogs in a productivity machine. They recognize that people have lives, struggles, and aspirations outside of work. If you don’t actually care about your team, they won’t care about your leadership. It’s that simple.

The Bottom Line: Don’t Be a Disaster

Managing people is hard. It’s messy, frustrating, and occasionally makes you question your life choices. But at the end of the day, it’s not about being perfect—it’s about being someone your team can trust.

If you lead with integrity, communicate like a functional adult, and treat your employees like human beings instead of productivity units, you’re already better than 90% of managers out there. And if all else fails, just remember: nobody wants to work for the person who made them cry in the break room.