Welcome to Pressing Questions, Fast Company’s mini-advice column. Every week, deputy editor Kathleen Davis, host of The New Way We Work podcast, will answer the biggest and most pressing workplace questions.

Q: How do I become a better manager?

A:  If you are asking yourself this question, Congratulations! The fact that you care puts you well on the path to being a good boss.

Being a manager is tricky because it can be difficult to get honest feedback from your employees, so it’s difficult to know if you’re doing it right. But while it’s unlikely you’ll be gifted a “World’s Best Boss” mug (seriously who is buying those?), if you’re trying to improve, you are on the right path.

Let’s start with what makes a good manager:

In a Fast Company article titled “How to be the boss everyone wants to work for” contributor Shanna A. Hocking put it this way:

“It’s an incredible privilege to lead people. My goal as a boss is to support employees in being the best version of themselves (as defined by them) and help them reach their potential. As a leader, I want to bring out the strengths already within my team members and help them live their why.”

Pretty inspirational, huh? Where a lot of managers go wrong is looking at the role through the old fashioned idea that a “boss” is the ultimate source of knowledge and your job as a manager is to try to optimize productivity and compliance. Hopefully I don’t have to tell you how that approach turns out. There’s also the other extreme where a manager tries to overcompensate by attempting to be the “cool” boss who is everyone’s friend (think: Michael Scott in The Office).

While being a good manager isn’t easy, it isn’t hard to figure out what employees want. Chances are the people who work for you want the same things from work that you do:

1. To feel their work is meaningful
2. To feel challenged and like they are learning
3. To be rewarded and recognized for their work
4. To have some autonomy
5. To have good relationships with their colleagues
6. To have a path for advancement
7. To have a good work-life balance

Let those be your guiding principles in your management approach. From there, the simplest and most important thing you can do as a manager is talk to your employees and ask them what their goals and challenges are, how they like to work, and what they value. Advocate for them when needed, give them honest and actionable feedback, check in on a regular basis, and be as clear and transparent in your communication as possible.

And here’s the hardest lesson to be a good manager: Not everyone should stay at their job for the duration of their career. Sometimes part of being a good manager is guiding your employees to the next best opportunity for them, even if it’s not with you.

Want a crash course on being a good manager? Here’s some more reading: