Sydney Finkelstein has a story at Harvard Business Review about job satisfaction often hinges on the quality of the relationships we have with our bosses.

Here are some take aways:

Manage individuals, not teams. When you’re under pressure, it’s easy to forget that employees are unique individuals, with varying interests, abilities, goals, and styles of learning. But it’s important to customize your interactions with them.

Go big on meaning.  Most employees value jobs that let them contribute and make a difference, and many organizations now emphasize meaning and purpose in the hopes of fostering engagement.

Focus on feedback. A 2013 Society for Human Resource Management survey of managers in the U.S. found that “only 2% provide ongoing feedback to their employees.”

Don’t just talk… listen. Employees tend to be happiest when they feel free to contribute new ideas and take initiative, and most managers claim they want people who do just that.

Be consistent. Who could be happy with a boss who does one thing one day and another thing the next?

Read the details here.

Sydney Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management in Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and the author of Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Manage the Flow of Talent (Portfolio/Penguin, February 2016) from which this article was adapted.