In my relatively young career as an accountant in the financial services industry, I've worked for five different employers in less than eight years. I can perhaps attribute my spotty resume to an endemic restlessness among Generation Y, but I can proudly say I wear all of my experiences well.

I’ve had the honour and misfortune of working for a medley of managers throughout my career, here are my musings on some of them.

Experts at delegating

The most salient characteristic my past managers possessed was that they were all ridiculously good at delegating to subordinates. Sure this is the prerogative of a manager – to think things through and disseminate the dirty work where necessary. But the natural consequence was relying heavily on everyone else, while they freed up time to work on their golf swing, enjoy company-funded client lunches, lazily surf the internet and making certain the team performed extremely well, which helped fatten up their own bonus.

The toothless tiger

In all fairness, not all of my managers were like that. I’ve had managers who were so technically gifted, that they had the natural ability to be in the thick of the details, simultaneously seeing the big picture and getting things done thoroughly, efficiently and without fuss. Some managers with technical excellence, however, had no clue how to lead people, no matter how many management leadership courses they attended – poor in leading, uncomfortable in taking charge and even poorer in exerting influence. The image of a toothless tiger comes to mind.

Say what?

The flip side of that, was having a manager who’s genuinely likable with qualitative managerial skills, but who looked blank and confused whenever a technically specific question came up. I counteracted with an equally blank look thinking “how did you become manager again? You’re supposed to know the answer to that!”

What I did appreciate from a good manager was communication. Performance appraisals were a great window to be told I was inefficient, I had a lot of room for improvement and basically how crappy I was at my job. So, if I was doing such a poor job, why wasn’t I told as it happened and not at a one-hour meeting at the end of the year? Constructive feedback requires little to no effort from a manager, but for a young worker I found it went a long way.

The rag doll

In my opinion, there is nothing worse than managing your own manager.  A certain boss was so poor in time management, it took an eternity to sign-off urgent documents, which meant missed deadlines and me getting the blame. Also weak in all aspects of decision making, at times I felt like shaking her like a rag doll screaming, “Just please make up your mind!”. A horrible manager – the bane of an employee’s existence – is a powerful impetus to drive an employee away or in some cases, the single source of formal complaints as espoused to HR.

Does a good boss even exist?

A great boss comes few and far in between. They’re basically someone who inspires, is tough but fair, and brings out the best in you on a professional and personal level because there’s this constant need to prove yourself and even aspire to be like them. I knew of a manager who provided admirable mentorship. The team was motivated to work hard, became very loyal, got rewarded accordingly, and as a result stayed within the company. Before you know it, the boss became part of the after-work social circle and the guest of honour at his employees’ weddings. Unfortunately this was not my boss and I have yet to find one such as him.

But searching for the perfect manager would be like searching for the fountain of youth. From my experience, I don’t know if one truly exists. Each manager has challenged me to think about their influence in my career path and direction at a certain point in time. The only thing I could safely deduce is the importance of never burning any bridges no matter how disappointing they may be as a boss. After all, I may need a reference from them one day.

The Angry Accountant is a financial services professional in Australia.