I came across a funny incident recently which was reported on the social news website Digg under the headline - ‘Why you shouldn’t have your boss on Facebook’ - and it set me thinking about broader concerns related to what employees expect from their leaders. In this incident, an employee named Lindsay decided to mouth-off on Facebook one evening after work, as she posted the following tirade (expletives deleted) against her boss, a man named Brian:

OMG I hate my job!! My boss is a total pervvy ****, always making me do **** stuff just to **** me off.

Shortly later, Brian replied:

‘Hi Lindsay, I guess you forgot about adding me (as a friend) on here? Firstly, don’t flatter yourself. Secondly, you’ve worked here 5 months and didn’t work out that I’m gay? Thirdly, that **** stuff is called your ‘job’, you know what I pay you to do. But the fact that you seem to be able to **** up the simplest of tasks might contribute to how you feel about it. And lastly, you also seem to have forgotten that you have two weeks remaining on your 6 month trial period. Don’t bother coming in tomorrow. I’ll pop your P45 in the post and you can come in whenever you like to pick up any stuff you’ve left here. And yes, I’m serious.’

Clearly our Lindsay was not the sharpest tool in the box, but she did get me focused on the important subject of what it is that employees, particularly the more senior ones, are looking for in their leaders.

First of all, research, and indeed basic common sense, tells us that the leader-employee relationship is not an insignificant one. In fact, one interesting study by Brad Gilbreath, a researcher at Indiana University-Purdue University, published in Work and Stress Journal and reported in Psychology Today emphasized just how important that relationship is. He found that ‘a worker’s relationship with the boss was almost equal to his relationship with his spouse when it comes to the impact on his well-being. A rewarding job or even good relationships with co-workers cannot compensate for a negative relationship with the boss’. Frightening really; although not all that surprising when you consider that leaders and employees interact for somewhere around two thousand hours in any given year. In such an important relationship, clearly both parties have expectations from the other side but, for the purpose of this article, I am concerned with what it is that employees look for in their leaders; and I am particularly focused on the more senior, or high performing team members here.

Hoping to gather the opinions of experienced professionals on this important question – and as part of research that I am undertaking for a book that I am currently writing - I conducted a comprehensive online survey of Executive MBA participants at the European School of Management in Paris. Over two hundred and twenty of them participated in the study and these mid-career managers represented a broad mix of nationalities and industry fields. When asked what mattered most personally to them about their immediate boss back at work, the ten most popular expectations of their leaders from the MBA executives, in order of importance, were:

  1. Visionary
  2. Good Communicator
  3. Good Motivator
  4. Charismatic
  5. Inspirational
  6. Determined
  7. Results/Success Driven
  8. Competent
  9. Honesty
  10. Compassionate/understanding

A far more expansive study gives an even greater insight into what employees expect. For over 30 years James Kouzes and Barry Posner, leadership experts and authors, have researched what people look for in their leaders, using their list of twenty ‘characteristics of admired leadership’. At this stage they have surveyed well over seventy-five thousand people from across six continents and they regularly update their findings which were published in their influential book The Leadership Challenge. The Table shown below, covering the period 1987 – 2007, presents the percentage of responses against each of the twenty characteristics. (Individuals were asked to select seven characteristics that they ‘most look for and admire in a leader, so the totals add to more than 100%).

What do employees look for in their leaders? | Percentage of Respondents Selecting Each Characteristic— Photo by HTC ConsultingWhat do employees look for in their leaders? | Percentage of Respondents Selecting Each Characteristic— Photo by HTC Consulting
What do employees look for in their leaders? | Percentage of Respondents Selecting Each Characteristic— Photo by HTC Consulting

It is particularly noteworthy that concerns such as honesty, being forward looking and having an ability to inspire others have always been ranked highly and that these factors have increased in importance over the period. In light of everything that has happened in recent times, integrity is likely to score even higher today.

By means of contrast, in my little study, the MBA participants were also asked to think of a poor leader they had encountered in the past and to identify the things that this individual did that wound them up. The top ten gripes identified were:

  1. Not involving them in decision-making
  2. Micromanaging them
  3. Disrespecting them
  4. Not providing freedom/autonomy
  5. Not giving constructive feedback
  6. Not recognising effort
  7. Not communicating effectively
  8. Not having, or communicating an overall vision
  9. Creating negativity or poor team spirit
  10. Ineffective performance/failure to get things done

In general terms, there is a fair degree of commonality between the MBA executives’ expectations, their gripe list and the qualities identified in the more extensive research by Kouzes & Posner; although rankings do vary, but that is not the significant point. What really matters is that, when examined closely, the vast majority of the top-ranked expectations, or indeed de-motivators, on all lists relate to the people element of work life. This tells us something which is perhaps obvious, but no less interesting because of that, about what employees are looking for. They are less concerned with how well their leaders can strategize, plan, organise the workload or manage finance; what they care more about are qualities reflective of human needs and aspirations. This has particular relevance in a people-based industry such as ours.

Employees want to work for sincere people who can inspire and motivate them but, at the same time, nowhere have I ever seen them express the desire to ‘follow’ someone else; the notion of following their leader doesn’t seem to figure in the thinking of most of the people that I encounter anyway. Whilst on this subject, I intensely dislike the leader-follower dynamic which is widely propagated today, mainly because I think it is complete and utter nonsense. As far as I am concerned, any leader who thinks of their people as ‘followers’ doesn’t actually understand what leadership is all about in the first place. There are, for sure, business leaders out there who possess a messianic quality about them, but they are a minority of a minority. I have been around the block a fair few times and have met some pretty good leaders along the way, but I have never met anyone whom I would ‘follow’. Did I respect and admire them? Undoubtedly, I did. Would I have worked my backside off for them? Yes, indeed. Would I have gone that extra mile for them? Absolutely, I would have done so. But follow them..? In a work setting..? Eh, sorry, I don’t think so. That analogy simply doesn’t work for me and most managers and employees that I encounter think exactly the same, because they are not looking to follow anyone.

If anything - and the snapshot research mentioned above highlights this fact - employees want their bosses to view them as partners, not drones who are willing to line up behind them like lemmings. They expect to be dealt with fairly by their leaders, to be able to respect those who lead them and in turn to feel respected by them. That said, the research also indicates that people are not solely content to work for a leader who, although treated them very well, achieved little or lacked competence; seeing results is important to the majority of employees too.

So, even though employees may not analyze what they want from their bosses in an overtly conscious way, first and foremost, what they are looking for is to work for someone who has good leadership skills, but they also expect their boss to have good management skills as well. Therefore, it could be said that employees have a preference for working with Manaleaders – those who have the talents to both manage and lead.

About the Author | Enda Larkin has over 25 years experience in the hotel industry having held a number of senior management positions in Ireland, UK and the US. In 1994 he founded HTC Consulting, a Geneva based firm, which specialises in working with enterprises in hospitality and tourism. Since that time, he has led numerous consulting projects for public and private sector clients throughout Europe and the Middle East. He is author of Ready to Lead? (Pearson/Prentice Hall 2007), How to Run a Great Hotel (How to Books 2009) which expands on the themes highlighted in this article, ‘Quick Win’ Leadership (Oak Tree Press 2010) and The Impostor Leaders which is due to be published in 2011. He may be contacted via or at [email protected]. Read his Blog at