Over my long career I have had bad and good managers. I have tried to take the good aspects/qualities out of the good ones and make them apart of my management style. So far according to my yearly team surveys I'm a good manager. I attribute my greatness to three things.

1. Fairness

Managers should be extremely fair with their people. They shouldn't hold people accountable to a different standard than they would hold themselves to.

2. Communication

Managers should make a point to communicate with their people on a regular basis (monthly). Set aside time during the month to listen to your individual team members questions, concerns or complaints.

3. Vision

This is important and goes along with communication. Managers should have a vision. Some utopian (long term) goal that you want your team to reach. The goal should have a clear and huge benefit to the team, not the manager. The reward to reach it should be communicated also. The manager should consistently communicate this vision and keep it in the memory of their team.

Conclusion

In my career I have had hard demanding managers but if they were fair and listened then I appreciated them. You can work for the best company in the world making a whole lot of money but if you have a bad manager it will be miserable. That goes the other way also. I worked somewhere where the pay was low but because I had a good manager I stayed (until the end at that).

If I missed something, please comment.