The Manager Who Drove Me Across the City
And the leadership lessons that followed me for life.
I once had a manager who smoked like a chimney and lived on instant coffee.
He wasn't perfect, but he cared like few managers do.
He was the first to arrive at the office, the last to leave, and always seemed to sit upright on just the front half of his chair—as if he was too focused to lean back.
He knew the tools inside out, the systems in place, and the politics behind the scenes. But more than that, he understood people.
At the time, I was young, single, and struggling. I had no car, no bike, and public transport was my only option. One day, I had an appointment on the far side of the city—a journey that would’ve taken me three hours by bus. Without hesitation, he offered to drive me there, even though it was in the exact opposite direction from his home. He got home late that night but thanked me for the company.
His leadership wasn’t performative. It was quiet, consistent, and deeply human. When someone on the team got a call for an interview elsewhere, they didn’t hide it. We told him. And he’d ask, “Want help preparing?” No guilt-tripping, no possessiveness. Just genuine support.
None of us left until we absolutely had to. And even then, we left with his blessing. Years later, I’m still in touch with him. That should tell you everything.
Looking back, I didn’t fully understand what I was witnessing. I just knew I wanted to show up for work. I felt safe. Valued. Like I was part of something more than just a job. But as I stepped into leadership roles myself, I began to see what he was doing.
He wasn’t just managing tasks. He was creating trust.
What Makes a Great Manager?
Stories like this aren’t just sentimental. They reveal the foundation of what research consistently shows about effective leadership. According to Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report*, managers account for at least 70% of the variance in employee engagement scores.
Put simply, most people don’t leave companies—they leave managers.
So what separates the good from the great?
1. Trust and Psychological Safety: Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson popularized the concept of psychological safety—an environment where people feel safe to speak up, admit mistakes, and be themselves. Great managers create this.
2. Emotional Intelligence: Daniel Goleman’s work shows that emotional intelligence—self-awareness, empathy, social skill—is a stronger predictor of leadership success than IQ or technical skills.
3. Support for Growth: According to HBR, high-performing managers act as career coaches. They help their teams navigate internal politics, gain visibility, and grow—not just inside the company, but beyond it.
4. Consistency and Integrity: People trust what’s predictable. Consistency in behavior, fairness in decisions, and alignment between words and actions build lasting credibility.
5. Service-Oriented Leadership: Servant leadership, a term coined by Robert Greenleaf, flips the traditional power hierarchy. These leaders see their job as enabling others to succeed, and they earn loyalty not through authority, but through support.
What I Learned
Years later, I realized that the best managers aren’t trying to prove themselves. They aren’t obsessed with being liked, feared, or followed. They focus on something more meaningful, creating an environment where people can do their best work and grow in the process.
From him, I learned that leadership is less about charisma and more about care. That the best way to retain a team isn’t locking people in—it’s building relationships strong enough that they don’t want to leave.
He didn’t micromanage. He didn’t posture. He listened, guided, and trusted.
And when I finally had the opportunity to lead, I kept asking myself—how would he have handled this? That question has saved me from many poor decisions over the years.
How Can You Become One?
You don’t have to be perfect. My old manager certainly wasn’t. But he had something that’s becoming increasingly rare: integrity, humility, and a genuine investment in others.
Here are a few ways to start:
Conduct regular one-on-ones where the agenda is about ‘them’, not just the work.
Celebrate growth, even if it means someone leaves your team.
Build feedback loops where your team can challenge you without fear.
Share your own vulnerabilities. It makes you more human, and more trustworthy.
Be the kind of manager whose people stay in touch long after they’ve moved on.
We talk a lot about strategy, KPIs, and tools. But the greatest force multiplier in any organization isn’t a dashboard or a framework. It’s a manager who gives a damn.
If you’ve had one, thank them. If you haven’t, maybe you can be one for someone else.
The world needs better managers. And you don’t need to be perfect to become one.
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References:
Gallup. (2023). State of the Global Workplace Report.
Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly.
Goleman, D. (1998). What Makes a Leader? Harvard Business Review.
HBR Editors. (2022). Great Managers Are Also Great Coaches.
Greenleaf, R. K. (1977). *Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness.
If I ever get back into the workforce I hope I get a superior like you had, or someone even like you.
I've been kind of unlucky in my past experiences. My guess is that good managers are few. It's a really hard skill and when I was a manager I for sure had a lot of flaws. But I kept trying to suck less at it.
It is a point of pride for me that many of my old nurses and medical assistants use me as a reference when they are applying for jobs elsewhere.