I’ve worked for a lot of bosses, both good and bad. Who hasn’t? It’s a universal constant of the workplace, no less immutable than gravity.

Maybe my experience is a bit different in that my good bosses have outnumbered the bad. What’s more, I’ve never faced the prospect of quitting a job that became so intolerable there was no better alternative. Thank God.

The memories have been just as indelible either way.  And the lessons learned about what to do — and what not to do — have been equally instructive. I suspect a lot of good bosses have endured bad bosses themselves and vowed if they were ever afforded the opportunity, they wouldn’t make the same mistakes.

What distinguishes good bosses from bad? There are probably as many different factors as there are employees who’ve worked for bosses. Everyone has a story to tell about the boss who brought out the best in them and for whom they’d walk though fire. Just like everyone has a story to tell about the boss who made them feel woefully inadequate and left them wondering whether or not they could withstand one more minute.

Robert Sutton, the Stanford University professor who literally wrote the book on good bosses and bad bosses, distilled countless stories and considerable research into what he identified as five key behaviors of good bosses:

Maintaining a balance between managing too much and too little.

Focusing on long-term goals rather than short-term circumstances.

Ensuring small victories for employees by breaking down problems into bite-size objectives.

Avoiding the toxic tandem of behaving selfishly and ignoring what employees need.

Protecting employees and fighting on their behalf.

Marcus Straub, a success coach and consultant in Grand Junction who shares his good advice in columns in the Business Times, contrasts the important differences between the management styles of what he terms leaders and bosses.

Leaders, Straub says, empower employees, help them become more competent and foster a collaborative effort in a shared mission. Bosses, on the other hand, dictate what employees do, demoralize them and perpetuate a culture of fear. Who would you rather work for? I thought so.

My first boss at a newspaper was a nice enough guy who ran the weekly in the tiny town in which I grew up in Eastern Colorado. He not only gave a high school student with exactly zero experience an opportunity to cover sports, but also paid me the princely sum of $10 a week to do so. I would have worked for free.

My boss wasn’t aware of it at the time. Neither was I. But he sent me down a path that led to a rewarding career, one so much more so than others I’d contemplated. At one point, I wanted to grow up to become a scientist. In retrospect, I probably would have been a poor scientist.

I’m grateful to this day, but also bitter about one thing my first boss did. He pulled my sports coverage one week for his photo spread of holiday lighting he headlined 76 pictures of Christmas ’76. Newspaper production is much better now than it was in 1976, so what appeared in print was essentially a bunch of black boxes with white specks. That’s got to constitute a cautionary tale of some sort: Don’t discard the work of others for the promise of personal glory.

Then there was the newly hired managing editor at the daily newspaper for which I worked in Northwest Colorado. He began his first staff meeting by enumerating all the things that would get reporters fired. That went over well with a small staff I’m unapologetically proud to brag accomplished big things on a regular basis. He was one of the worst bosses for which I’ve ever worked.

As it turned out, the publisher at the paper was one the best bosses for which I’ve ever worked in terms of protecting employees. One time when a particularly obnoxious caller complained about something I’d done, the publisher was just as vociferous in my defense. I’ll never forget his facetious retort: “Then we’ll take him out back and shoot him. Is that good enough for you?” By the way, that same publisher fired the managing editor and promoted me to take his place.

I believe I was a good boss. At least I hope I was. Blessed with a talented and hard-working staff, I never had to threaten to fire anyone, much less actually do so.

And I never, ever published a bunch of black boxes with white specks.