Do you work for a Fezziwig or a Scrooge?

	Anita Dufalla, Post-Gazette Click on illustration for larger image. Related article Good boss tips from readers

Is your boss more like Michael Scott of "The Office" or the Chief in "Grey's Anatomy"?

Bad/quirky bosses are legendary: The sexist and sexually harassing Mr. Franklin M. Hart of "9 to 5" infamy; the heartless and homophobic Mr. Burns from "The Simpsons"; the miserly misters -- Mooney and Krabs from "The Lucy Show" and "SpongeBob SquarePants," respectively.

For the most part, however, good bosses are somewhat less renowned in popular culture.

But what makes a good boss good, and a bad boss bad?

Steve Chandler, co-author of "The Hands-Off Manager: How to Mentor People and Allow Them to Be Successful," believes hands-off, mentoring bosses are good and hands-on, micromanaging bosses are bad.

Studies show that when hands-on, micromanaging bosses go on vacation, their workers' productivity increases, says Mr. Chandler of Phoenix, who in the past 15 years has trained people at more than 30 Fortune 500 companies and coached more than 200 small businesses on how to increase productivity.

"You'd have a hands-on manager, micromanaging in the old-school fashion, and that simply isn't appropriate to today's worker," he says. "It's inappropriate to boss them around the way you would a factory worker ... It gets the opposite response that you want -- a really creative, committed worker coming up with her own solution to the company's problems."

Bob Poropatich's best boss ever, Jon Brown, knew how to avoid micromanaging.

"He would give me an assignment and tell me to go from Point A to Point B and however I got there, as long as it was done on a certain day within a range of results, it was my job, my project," says Mr. Poropatich, 55, of Stanton Heights. He worked with Mr. Brown at the former Joseph Horne's from 1984 to 1991, starting out as a display trimmer and ending up as design director. "He allowed me to feel a sense of accomplishment. He allowed me to make mistakes and learn from them, and he insisted when I did make a mistake that I didn't view it as a brick wall, but just a turn in the road."

When Dale Hayden did human resource work for a Minneapolis bank, he interviewed a job candidate who knew one of the company vice presidents. He rejected the applicant, who then complained to the vice president.

"The VP called my boss and said you have a problem with Hayden," says Mr. Hayden, 58, of Franklin Park.

In a subsequent meeting with his boss, Rian Tellor, and the vice president, his boss asked why he didn't hire the applicant. Mr. Hayden gave his reasons and his boss turned to the vice president and said, "Dale's right. This guy isn't worth [expletive]."

"You're right. You're absolutely right," the vice president said.

"Damn right, we're right," his boss said.

"That meant a lot to me, that loyalty," Mr. Hayden says. "He trusted me. I can't tell you how wonderful that feeling was. I still stay in touch with Rian, and I'd run through a wall for that guy."

Mr. Chandler says employees respond better to hands-off managers.

"The minute someone gets micromanaged, they stop being creative and taking responsibility for the company's mission and they just try to anticipate what the boss wants -- living in a kind of nervous anticipation," he says. "When's the next e-mail? When's the next temper tantrum? When's the next new directive going to come down?"

He believes the best bosses are those who communicate as much as hands-on micromanagers, but in a mentoring, supportive manner, not a judgmental way.

"Mentoring replaces the old paradigm of meddlesome, nagging management -- which, by the way, is the way 80 percent of managers do it," he says.

Mr. Hayden also remembers relocating to Wilkes-Barre, Luzerne County, for a human resources job with another bank. The day his family moved into the house there, only moments after the moving truck left, the bank president's wife pulled into the drive with two big picnic baskets.

"Here's your dinner," Glenn Forney's wife told them. "Welcome to Wilkes-Barre."

"Can you see a theme here?" Mr. Hayden says. "I like people who care about me."

His boss paid him well, respected him and was sensitive to the importance of his family.

"I'd do anything in the world for him," Mr. Hayden says.

Mary Mannella, a Bath & Body Works beauty specialist, says her boss, Leah Lang, is fair with everyone, believes in her abilities and has given her the chance to take on other responsibilities.

"She treats everyone with respect and really lets you learn from her," says Ms. Mannella, 44, of Penn Hills. She went from just working the register to doing makeovers.

"This just may be a part-time job, but it is so great because of her," she says. "When I go to work, it's just a really happy place."

Employees want bosses who are competent, honest and fair, keep promises, keep confidences, have good interpersonal skills and who don't act defensively when they're challenged, says David Huffner, a principal consultant of Avid Learner Inc., a workplace productivity consulting firm in Upper St. Clair.

"In our society, people generally are expected to challenge authority, but that doesn't work everywhere," he says. "Managers need to work very, very hard to create a fair and stable work environment. Where people perceive unfairness, they'll grow to resent that or they'll leave."

Bosses who jump to conclusions without asking many questions and make decisions without gathering the necessary facts can cause resentments, too, Mr. Huffner says.

The best boss Pamela McCall ever had was Louis Browder. He interviewed her for her job at RISO Inc. via a teleconference because he was based in South Carolina.

"He always treated you as an equal," says Ms. McCall, 42, of McKeesport, who is a branch administrator at the high-speed digital printer company's Whitehall office. "He would call and ask me how to do something just like I did with him. He taught me so much. It wasn't just about being a great boss. He also became my friend."

Although he was based out of state, he never micromanaged, she says. He encouraged her to challenge herself and take advantage of career development opportunities.

In training sessions, Mr. Chandler has people write down the name of the best boss they ever had, then discuss why that person was a good boss.

Inevitably, the qualities they describe -- he/she was honest with me, believed in me, trusted me, helped me grow -- is what he and co-author Duane Black discuss in their book.

"Mentoring is based on the old craft idea of being an apprentice to a craftsman or learning at the elbow of an artist where you're really being taught to be even better, your potential is recognized," he says. "That's the true hands-off manager, he interacts with the employee, showing him how to realize his potential."