The boss is the fulcrum of the organization because he or she has to create a balance between his company’s needs, his or her own needs and the needs of the employees.

It is a balancing act that is difficult to achieve but there are guidelines to becoming one. Here they are below:

1. Know how to lead

A boss must have that quality which inspires his employees to do something that in his judgment is good for the company. He must sell his mission to the employees.

2. Cut your employees some slack

A good boss accepts the fact that as employees are humans they too will make mistakes. So he or she would not be angry when mistakes are made. That way, people won’t be afraid of making mistakes which is only a natural thing to do.

Being big-hearted is one quality that pays off in winning your employees’ loyalty.

3. Guts and responsibility

A good boss must have the guts to inspire, hire and fire. More importantly, a boss must take responsibility for things going wrong.

Two opposite examples come to mind. One, the fat cats on Wall Street. Many like Nero were partying and boozing while America burned. They caused the economy to tank.

More recently, Captain Philips of the container tanker Maersk Alabama leapt into a lifeboat full of Somalian pirates in exchange for the lives of his crew. He was rescued of course but the point is that this poorly paid captain (in comparison to the Wall Street bosses) saw responsibility as an obligation.

He would have made a good CEO in many of the finance houses.