Benevolent Boss

"A good boss gruntles the disgruntled."

— Michael Scott, The Office

The Benevolent Boss is a superior who is actually superior, a kind person who actually listens and attempts to resolve employee problems and really cares about the issues of those beneath them, going against the Mean Boss stereotype. If in a drama or dramedy, often will suffer from a long-term illness or similar psychological malady, which might be presaged by a Not Himself episode where everyone wonders what the heck is going on. A character that is The Captain is likely, but not required, to be a Benevolent Boss.

Given how often managers and leaders tend to be older, expect this trope to frequently overlap with Cool Old Guy and Cool Old Lady.

In The Army, they're often The Captain, Majorly Awesome, Colonel Badass, The Brigadier, or even the Four-Star Badass and may be A Father to His Men. In more fantastic works, this character usually comes in the form of Big Good. On the other hand, some Affably Evil (or simply pragmatic) villains can defy the usual Bad Boss tropes by being kindly and supportive to their mooks, as well. Even a terrible society can have a Sympathetic Slave Owner to work for.

This is also ripe for subversion, where a Mean Boss puts on a friendly façade initially, but then proves to be a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, and going the other direction an apparently Mean Boss might actually be a Good is Not Nice type with personal demons. Can be played with a lot of ways.

Whether the boss is a hero or a villain, their benevolence often inspires Undying Loyalty in their employees.

For some lucky workers, this is Truth in Television.

A Super-Trope to My Beloved Minions, for examples where the boss is a villain. Contrast with Mean Boss (impolite), Bad Boss (downright cruel) and Pointy-Haired Boss (incompetent). Compare Reasonable Authority Figure, who may be sympathetic to others (including those that don't work for them), and the Clueless Boss, who means well, but is out of touch with his organization or too incompetent to run it properly. See also Lady and Knight, where the knight is dedicated to the lady because of qualities such as benevolence. Nice to the Waiter is related, but is about the relationship between customer and service provider, rather than employer and employee. See also Putting the "Pal" in Principal and Honest Corporate Executive.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Baccano!:
  • The President of the Daily Days newspaper comes off as extremely polite and understanding to his employees. He often shows great respect and patience with Rachel, who suffered going through the ordeal of the Flying Pussyfoot hijacking, and will often criticize Nathan, another employee, whenever he either mocks Rachel or obtains/reveals information in a way that could harm innocents, and even then he is still respectful about it.
  • Similarly, the Vice-President, while not as soft-spoken and understanding as his superior, is still careful to be sure not to hurt his assistant, Carol's, ego whenever correcting a mistake she has made.
• Black Lagoon:
  • Balalaika, both to her own gang and her outsourced labor, the crew of the Lagoon.
  • Dutch also has pretty good HR skills and an eye for keeping morale up among his people.
• Maine from Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a hard, but fair boss to his team, as David is quick to learn as he becomes part of the gang. He ensures everyone gets a fair cut on the job, covers everyone's skin, owns up to his mistakes, and even tries to help David get closer to the team (which directly leads to David and Lucy becoming a pair as a result). It's clear he's beginning to slip past the point of no return in his cyberpsychosis when he stops actively doing these things and is more hostile to everyone around him, especially in punching Kiwi unconscious and actually backhanding David for real when he's concerned about him.
• Mamoru Onodera of Deadline Summoner, as it's implied that summons are equivalent to slaves in that universe. His girls are very loyal to him because he treats them well, unlike the rest of the world.
• Detective Superintendent Yagami in Death Note comes off as something of a father figure to the other task force members, or at least Matsuda.
• En from Dorohedoro is one scary guy, but otherwise quite nice to his subordinates.
• Dragon Ball:
  • Great Demon King Piccolo from Dragon Ball. He's A Father to His Men and is one of the only villains in the entire franchise who cares about his minions, never kills them for failing, and will avenge them if they're slain. Then again, they are his actual children. It's a completely different story, however, once he becomes king of the world to his human subjects.
  • As opposed to his crueler brother Frieza, movie villain Cooler treated his Armored Squadron well, and will help out if they're having trouble.
    • Frieza himself fell into this come Dragon Ball Super: Broly where he becomes more pragmatic after the Tournament of Power.
  • Likewise in Dragon Ball Z: The Tree of Might, while he makes it very clear that he feels no sadness when they fall in battle, fellow movie villain Turles allows his Crusher Corps soldiers a life of freedom and luxury, and openly encourages them in their efforts to grow stronger.
• Dungeon Friends Forever: Mino-san, one of Wyrm Hell's top executives, does not like low-level monster Succy the Succubus due to a combination of a general dislike of succubi and because her actions inadvertently get between his shipping of Van and Ryuuka. However when Succy, oblivious to how Mino-san feels about her, confesses to feeling inadequate to the task being a monster of Wyrm Hell, he gives her sincere advice on how to turn her abilities, pros and cons alike, to her advantage. As Mino-san does this, there's a note next to him explaining that he doesn't allow his personal feelings to interfere with his work. The chapter ends with Succy seeing greater success, using her attempts to seduce incoming adventurers as a distraction to help other monsters rather than as an attack in and of itself.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • Greed, who (while he denies it fervently) is rather pleasant to and pretty protective of his underlings, making him all the more sympathetic a character. He justifies it by saying that if word gets out that he is good to his subordinates, more people will want to work for him.
  • Likewise, Ling gets dangerous whenever his underlings are in danger. It should really be no surprise when these two join forces... so to speak.
• Section 9's Chief Aramaki in Ghost in the Shell is the archetypal Cool Old Guy who uses his political connections and clout to support his team rather than exploiting his team into supporting him. More than once he even puts his job on the line for their sake.
• Ichaicha Suru to Okane ga Waichau Futari no Hanashi: Haru's boss at the restaurant cares about his employees, even paying for a cab to take her home when she collapsed from overwork.
• Gundam:
  • Dozle Zabi of the original Mobile Suit Gundam is A Father to His Men and even chooses to fight beside them in the Big Zam rather than evacuate with his wife and child, despite knowing full well he won't survive the battle.
  • Paptimus Scirocco of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam is a Dark Messiah with some bad Manipulative Bastard tendencies, but he is always polite and encouraging to his subordinates, even the downright losers like Jerid. When most of the other Titans officers are punching their soldiers left, right and center, it's not hard to see how Scirocco rises in power within the organization.
  • Colonel Ulube Ishikawa of Mobile Fighter G Gundam appears at first to be one of these, being the Reasonable Authority Figure to Domon compared to Obstructive Bureaucrat Karato. As it turns out Ulube is actually the man responsible for the Ultimate Gundam becoming the Devil Gundam, and by the end, he has succeeded Master Asia and Prime Minister Wong as the Big Bad of the series.
  • Much like Dozle above, Big Bad Treize Khushrenada of Mobile Suit Gundam Wing is a Father to His Men who is all-but-worshipped by his subordinates (indeed, a scheme by the Romefeller Foundation to strip him of his power backfires when his supporters launch a civil war in his name). By the end of the series, it's revealed that he can recall the precise number, to the digit, of the men who have died fighting for him.
• Haruo Niijima Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple who has shown from time to time to care for his subordinates, even if it meant resigning himself to certain peril.
• Nanoha Takamachi of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS. She cares about her trainees. She works hard to make sure they don't overextend themselves while learning everything she can teach them. She never screams at them. She is, however, capable of blasting you into unconsciousness as a learning experience.
• Make the Exorcist Fall in Love: Mammon may be a sexist and racist monster who treats women like property and tries to spread discrimination and inequality, but he considers his subordinates his friends and refuses to let them come to harm. Tachibana displays Undying Loyalty toward him for all the pleasures he helped her attain by stamping down on others, showing that he generously rewards those who act in service to him. He also prevents her from committing suicide to join him in Gehenna because he doesn't want to see her hurt.
• Kohta's boss in My Balls takes him out for drinks several times and one time even takes him to a brothel (the boss pays for all of it each time). Unfortunately, Kohta having sex would result in The End of the World as We Know It, so all his attempts at being nice almost cause Armageddon.
• Naruto:
  • Tsunade toward Naruto; among other things, letting him call her "Tsunade-no-baachan" (Grandma Tsunade) instead of the formal "Hokage-sama" and letting him officially go on missions to find Sasuke (who is officially a rogue ninja with a death penalty on his head) whenever Naruto asks for it.
  • All the Hokages seem to have been this, even the one who was a necromancer since he willingly sacrificed himself to save his subordinates; this goes hand in hand with their "Will of Fire" ideology. A good portion (though not all) of the Kages from the other great ninja villages seem to have embodied this trope as well.
  • Pain/Nagato honored the deaths of the fallen Akatsuki members. Even though most of his original cohorts died, Pain acknowledged their defeat, even if he didn't have to. It's most likely a trait he and Obito had in common.
• One Piece:
  • The most successful crews are the ones with benevolent captains (at least to their crews). Monkey D. Luffy is the most obvious example of this, given that his True Companions are his very reason for living at this point, but at least one villain, Arlong, gets into this. The more recent crews exemplify this, and even the series' probable Big Bad Blackbeard likes this one.
  • Surprisingly, Doflamingo is this to members of his inner crew when he had easily dismissed and gotten rid of Disco and Bellamy once they outlived their usefulness to him. But after Vergo and Monet's defeats at the hands of the Straw Hats and Law, he solemnly thanked the former for their work and was seen to be saddened when Monet was about to blow up Punk Hazard. And later on, upon finding Baby 5 and Buffalo's heads (thanks to Law's ability), he didn't do a You Have Failed Me and even said they did the best they could. However, he only treats his closest crew members like this and as long as they don't betray him.
• Reborn! (2004):
  • Tsunayoshi Sawada, mostly because he sees his subordinates as his friends rather than subordinates since he doesn't actually want to be a mafia boss.
  • Also Dino, to the point that he's at his strongest if his subordinates are around and he's also completely useless if they're not around. Fuuta's rankings also show that he's the #1 boss that cares about the well-being of both his subordinates and civilians.
• Sailor Moon: Although the show's other bosses are spectacularly Bad, Professor Tomoe stands out as the one decent employer. True, he may not care about his Dragon or Quirky Miniboss Squad, but the worst any of them get is a scolding. (Though what they give each other is another matter entirely.) Hell, he even gives Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain Mimet a Rousing Speech when she's down.
• Saint Seiya: Saori Kido does whatever she can to support her saints in both battle and otherwise (such as subtly suggesting that Seiya spend some alone time with Miho in the Sanctuary arc). She also considers the loss of any of them to be more painful than an arrow through her heart, and this is Not Hyperbole, because at the time there really was an arrow going through her heart.
• Kenzou Momoi in Servant × Service, his stuffed bunny avatar notwithstanding, speaks nicely towards his subordinates, invites them for merrymaking, and leaves his desk often just to see life at work in his subordinates' shoes.
• Shirobako:
  • Musashino Animation's President Marukawa spends most of his screentime making food for his employees. The rest he's spending on is encouraging his employees in various ways or to give his former colleagues some food.
  • AC Tsuchinoko's CEO Isokawa founded his studio to give animators a place to work and to help them improve their skills, so they can eventually get the recognition they deserve.
• Omega from Tekkaman Blade counts. Sure he might be trying to take over the Earth, but he actually seems to care about his troops to the point of listening to Evil explain the rivalry between him and his brother, as well as imprisoning Evil to keep him from undergoing a Deadly Upgrade. Note that Darkon, the English Dub version, is the exact opposite. Justified. Omega's human identity is Conrad Carter/Kengo Aiba, Blade and Evil's oldest brother.
• 'Tis Time for "Torture," Princess:
  • Despite looking every bit the Evil Overlord, the Hell-Lord is a kind and considerate leader to his subordinates. When one of his Hell Marshals ends up unable to get information from the Princess for a second time, he notes that her failure must be dealt with and declares that... he and all of his followers should be extra supportive so that she doesn't get discouraged.
  • When the Hell-Lord gets a secret about hidden locations in the human kingdom, he tries to get Dark Ninja Nin-nin Gekkou to provide his services. However, when he hears that Gekkou wishes to quit the Hellhorde to pursue his dreams of being a picture book author, and has doubts that quitting and doing so at his age would work out, the Hell-Lord encourages him to try anyway and lets him go.
• Dr. Karigari in Tomica Hyper Rescue Drive Head Kidou Kyuukyuu Keisatsu towards his two subordinates. Though he makes it clear that he considers the two idiots, and can be abrasive towards them, he's also shown to have genuine affection for them and a desire to protect them. In turn, the two adore him.
• Kotori from Tonari no Kashiwagi-san is shown to be very flexible when it comes to giving Yuuto time off for his studies and is supportive of his crush on her little sister.
• Although he does make a rather worrying decision regarding the main characters' privacy in the omake, the producer of Chou-Hayaoki from The Weatherman Is My Lover comes off as this sort of boss.

Comic Books

• Batman:
  • Bruce Wayne as the head of Wayne Enterprises. In keeping with his clueless rich guy persona, he's generally considered a bit ditzy and clumsy but generally well-meaning and likable by his employees. He takes good care of the people who work for him, from executives like Lucius Fox all the way down to the mail boy whom he knows by name and offered a scholarship when he couldn't afford college. Probably has something to do with the fact that he was raised by an employee of his family. He's considerably gruffer as Batman, though he still means well.
  • Surprisingly, The Penguin. As long as you do your job and show him respect, he'll treat you pretty well. In Gotham Underground, Penguin thought he was about to be killed, so he gave his mooks a generous severance package, thanked them for their help, and then dismissed them so they wouldn't be slaughtered alongside him before willing the Iceberg Lounge to The Riddler and awaited the killers (he ended up being saved.) During Batman: No Man's Land, in which supplies are limited and food and water are at a premium, Penguin isn't shy about taking in employees and making sure they have plenty to live off of while he uses them to stockpile goods that are worthless in Gotham now but will become priceless when Congress reverses its decision to abandon the city (goods such as art pieces or jewelry).
• Depending on the Writer, like always, Doctor Doom. When written as a Noble Demon, he is very protective of his people, and rewards those who show loyalty. For example, Doom's heir is Kristoff Vernard. Who's that? The son of one of Doom's maids who died protecting him.
• Mr. O'Clock, the owner of the dairy in Reid Fleming, World's Toughest Milkman, seems amazingly willing to overlook the way Reid regularly destroys milk trucks, flakes off, and generally wreaks havoc. Though Reid can be a persuasive bastard when he puts his mind to it.
• Dark Times: Kai Hudorra is very generous and kind towards the employees of the casino he purchases after Order 66. After less than a year of working for him, his entire staff is willing to risk their lives for him once they find out he's a Jedi. Hudorra is both touched and distressed by his staff's willingness to risk their lives for him, and Force persuades them to get out of harm's way.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: Scrooge McDuck ranges from Jerk with a Heart of Gold in comics by Carl Barks and Don Rosa to Jerkass in some of the Italian stories and is subject to countless jokes about how little he pays his employees — Donald Duck and the boys frequently lament how they only get 30 cents an hour when they assist him on his treasure hunts around the globe, and his newly hired secretary says in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck that she spent a week's pay buying a pot of coffee for the office. Despite all this, job spots for his business empire always seem to be in pretty high demand, since he's always fully staffed and has no trouble finding employees. The thing about Scrooge is that he doesn't believe in luxuries for himself or anyone else period. So while he won't spend a cent on break rooms or heating for his employees, he presumably will pay them very well for their jobs, with the jokes about him underpaying them mainly treated as throwaway gags. One incident that stands out is from his days running the Whitehorse Bank in the Klondike when Scrooge loaned money to prospectors to use for equipment and land claims in return for half their earnings. One loaner was a smarmy business wannabee who intended to hire workers to do all the prospecting for him, rather than do ANY work himself. Scrooge promptly changed the terms of the loan so that half of the earnings would go to him, and 45% of the rest to the workers doing the actual prospecting, leaving the lazy bum taking the loan with the crumbs.
  • Another incident from his days running the Whitehorse Bank is when he bought a heater for the office, with his own money, as while he could take the cold his workers couldn't, and they're shown to be very grateful as the previous owner had not installed a heater.
  • Some Italian stories show why his two most trusted employees, his personal secretary ms. Quackfaster and his butler Quackmore, tolerate the insane working hours (nothing more than Scrooge expects from himself, but still insane) and his worst moments with barely a witty remark: Ms. Quackfaster is explicitly well paid ever since she quit over an insane demand and found a job elsewhere, only to discover she was still working for him indirectly and, when they both found out, Scrooge admitted the office was in chaos and got her back to the Money Bin with a raise (and toning down his stinginess); as for Quackmore, one of his duties is to test Scrooge's new luxury goods, and, being allowed to keep them afterwards, once his job is done for the day he lives like a billionaire, complete with his own robotic butler.
  • That said, all of the above applies only to his good workers: while Scrooge is willing to tolerate troubles caused by inexperience he has absolutely zero tolerance for laziness, habitual screw-ups, and unethical managers. The first two are ground for being fired and expelled from the Money Bin through the chute for unwanted visitors (though he tries to instill work ethics in lazy employees first), and unethical managers will discover that the visitor at their workplace that has been critizing what they've been doing is an inspector sent from Scrooge or Scrooge himself the moment they get fired.
    • In one amusing instance, the manager of a project had started using various cost-cutting measures that were damaging the environment of a forest, and when the Junior Woodchucks showed up and found evidence of what he was doing he smugly told them he worked for Scrooge McDuck so he was safe... Only for the Woodchucks to reveal Scrooge had sent them there as they knew the relevant laws better than him, and he was on the phone. The manager had barely the time to realize he was screwed before Scrooge shouted "You're fired!" from the phone.
• Spider-Man:
  • J. Jonah Jameson is a downplayed version. He's a great (yet gruff) boss who protects his employees from various supervillain attacks (namely that guy who takes the great photos of Spider-Man) but hates Spidey's guts. Unfortunately, the two people are one and the same.
    • Depending on the Writer, most continuities make Jameson a Mean Boss, firing Peter Parker (and other employees) any time he loses his temper and only reinstating him when he must. The fact that he stands up to supervillains only makes him a brave Mean Boss.
    • He also anonymously pays for his employees' defense attorneys if any of them are ever charged with a crime.
  • In some issues, Norman Osborn a.k.a. The Green Goblin has shown remarkable concern towards his henchmen, even sincerely asking if Venom/Mac Gargan wanted out of the game.
  • Peter himself when he took over as CEO of Parker Industries. He's less concerned with personal gain than he is with human progress. Deconstructed in that his benevolent exploits keep profits down, and that he intentionally limited his salary to that of a pencil pusher to counteract that (in fact, he's referred to In-Universe as a "poor man's Tony Stark" for that reason). Pete's big on second chances, as well. He has Harry Osborn (now Lyman) working as his VP, and Clayton Cole, formerly a low-level flunky known as Clash, on his payroll. And to him, it makes more sense to hire low-level offenders like Cole to work for him, rather than putting them back on the streets, jobless, where they may have to relapse to their criminal acts just to make ends meet. Unfortunately, an unintentional look by an Inhuman who Peter was helping (the one with precognitive abilities) ends up causing Cole to regress back into Clash (though that's also due to Cole's psychological state as well.)
• Superman:
  • Perry White, the Daily Planet's editor. Despite his tough-mindedness and grouchy personality, he has always been a kind and fair boss.
  • Depending on the Writer, sometimes Lex Luthor can be this, though namely to employees who work hard. He has little tolerance toward slackers.
  • While ruthless as a businessman, pre-Crisis Morgan Edge generally treated his employees well. Then Post-Crisis, he was hit with Adaptational Vilainy and became a Corrupt Corporate Executive.
• Captain Haddock towards Nestor in Tintin. While Haddock tends to nag him a little, he otherwise holds Nestor in high regard and is absolutely furious when Nestor is accused of theft.
• In Transformers: More than Meets the Eye, this is revealed to be why Deathsaurus broke off from the Decepticon military; he was A Father to His Men and thus became disgusted with how Decepticon High Command callously threw away the lives of soldiers to get the job done.
• X-Men:
  • Genocidal maniac though he may be, Apocalypse is surprisingly consistent in his good treatment of those who serve him well. Adaptations such as his film version sometimes do away with this, but in the comics, it's as close to a constant as character traits in comics get.
  • Arcade is, in his own words, "crazy as a loon," but for the employees who can tolerate working for him, he's apparently quite generous. How generous? His severance packages include private islands.
  • Exodus of Magneto's Acolytes is A Father to His Men and has inspired a remarkable degree of loyalty in them considering his occasional tendency to degenerate the other way (Depending on the Writer, of course). Being a Superpower Lottery winner, he has even gone so far as to resurrect fallen Acolytes after they died in battle, which might account for some of that Undying Loyalty.
• Sunspot buys out Advanced Idea Mechanics while working with the The Avengers, and is shown to be a highly generous boss who pays his employees handsomely, remembers them all by name, and rewards them with extravagant gifts when they have a particularly good idea. His acquisition of A.I.M. worked in part because the employees liked him a lot more than their previous boss.
• Wonder Woman (1942): Golden Age Phillip Darnell cares deeply for his subordinates and frequently gives his secretary Diana Prince and top operative Steve Trevor time off at the drop of a hat, asks after their health and families and worries that their interactions with Wonder Woman and other superheroes are going to get them injured or worse.

Comic Strips

• Retail:
  • Marla tries to be this, much to the ire of Stuart and the rest of Grumbel's corporate, who'd rather she'd be a Bad Boss like them.
  • Cooper and Lunker's old Gas-We-Got boss was also this to a certain extent, though much of that could be chalked to his lower standards.
  • Cooper himself temporarily became one of these when he was in charge of the closing South Heights store.

Fan Works

• Address Unknown (Remedy) has Post Haste, Derpy's boss at the Ponyville Post Office. After she's put on probation by the Cloudsdale office and then almost immediately fired — over an accident that was actually Twilight's fault — Post wastes no time in offering her a job, expressing his disgust at her previous boss's actions (the aforementioned firing, along with the pleasure he took in filling Post in on her "miserable failings") and makes it clear that he has a considerably greater tolerance for mistakes.
• Along Came a Spider has several of these, particularly Caradoc Trevana who takes over the tough job of managing Kai's insecurities from Dave Jewell. Admittedly he does this by teasing him, drinking with him, and setting him up with women, but the results are inarguable.
• The Bridge (MLP):
  • A villainous example. The true Big Bad, Bagan, gets the loyalty of numerous evil kaiju not only by a show of force but by offering and giving them exactly what they wanted most. Most pledged their loyalty without hesitation. However, it's all an act. Bagan is an Omnicidal Maniac and the only reason why he recruited the kaiju is that he requires help to replenish his strength enough to leave his realm. As soon as he is strong enough, he plans to wipe out all life in the universe, including them.
  • Captain Blueberry Frost is a heroic example, watching out for the well-being of the guards and taking a personal interest in them being stable. Her own boss Princess Celestia excels at this, functioning as a well-loved diarch who personally gets involved when the safety of her subjects is put in danger. She assists the allied kaiju in settling in and gives Godzilla Junior advice on numerous occasions to help him get used to his role as 'king'.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami is kind and gentle to all her minions (whom she insists on calling "employees"). Of course being a Dungeon Keeper and basically a designated agent of darkness, she has tremendous trouble getting people to actually believe that. She also has to give most of her minions the impression that she's a faithful servant of the dark gods, or they'll turn on her. Within those constraints, though, she really does try to make her Dungeon as livable as possible. It pays off in a big way with Jadeite, who likes her service much better than Queen Beryl's, and becomes genuinely loyal to her as a result, rescuing her from multiple situations — such as being possessed by Tiger — where a more mercenary underling might have backstabbed her.
• Equestria Girls: Friendship Souls:
  • Hydia's helped her servants build up an immunity, or at least a heavy resistance, to her poison so she can use it without harming them. She also cares more about loyalty than appearances.
  • It's partially Pragmatic Villainy, at least outside of her inner circle, but Adagio treats her subordinates well, judging more on loyalty and results than just strength. She even splits up the Seed equally with her inner circle.
• Guilt of Innocence: Tsunade is already this in the canon, but even more so in this story:
  • She not only acknowledges Sasuke Uchiha is a flight risk but acts to solve the problem before it's too late. Namely, at a very vulnerable moment in Sasuke's life. Even while buried in paperwork and directing the village's reconstruction, she takes her time to have a personal talk with Sasuke.
  • Regarding Sasuke's mission, Tsunade gives him a special scroll that acts basically as a text messaging app through which he can report whatever he learns, get some news about the village and his friends, and vent when the horrors of Orochimaru's lair become too much. Additionally, she made sure to include Kakashi in the briefing since he is the only adult in charge of Sasuke.
  • Later, when Sasuke's mission finally comes to an end, she gradually releases the news of Sasuke's mission so as to avoid unnecessary panic, prevent Sasuke to get attacked by an uninformed ninja, and let the village acknowledge him as a hero. Finally, she promotes him to ANBU operative as a reward.
• The King Nobody Wanted:
  • Tytos Lannister might have exasperated his children and was mocked by his bannermen, but he was pretty popular with his household for being a pleasant and generous employer, especially in contrast which Tywin's much more draconian policies.
  • Bloodraven was surprisingly this for the Raven's Teeth, being known to help their family members get better chances at social advancement.
• The Legend of Spyro: A New Dawn depicts its Big Bad, Deadlock, as this. She in fact overthrew the Naga's previous queen and took over herself because said queen was an abusive tyrant; she treats her minions well and makes sure everyone is paid for their services, and some of the Naga even admit that she's the best queen they've ever had.
• Natural Liberated: Clemont is depicted this way. He treats all members of the Net, no matter how new they are, with equal respect and listens to everyone's ideas. This happens despite the fact that all of the members are older than him.
• Seto Kaiba of all people is one of these in The Power of Friendship (And This Gun I Found!). He enforces mandatory paid time off, lots of sick days, free childcare, high wages, and blind hiring. There are rumors of employees fighting over Kaibacorp positions
• Power Rangers Mythos: The villain Avanth appears to be this in a sense, as he shows understanding about Shelby’s initial failure to acquire the Green Mythos Morpher and doesn’t punish her for losing to Z, although his status as "benevolent" is undermined by the fact that he conquered the world, killed the contemporary team of Power Rangers and has brainwashed Shelby and Adam to serve him in the first place.
• Queen of All Oni: Jade fits this trope (at least compared to the previous bosses the Dark Hand has ended up with, like Shendu and Daolon Wong). Not only does she pay them regularly (and apparently quite a lot), she doesn't punish them NEARLY as harshly as she could for their mistakes. The Enforcers feel that she's a MUCH better boss than Shendu, and they even help her overthrow Ikazuki since HE treated them like slaves. Hell, even when she ultimately fires them, she does so with generous severance packages.
• The Rise of Darth Vulcan: While the term "benevolent" is pretty loose in regards to the titular Villain Protagonist, the reason that his Diamond Dog and changeling minions serve him so loyally is that he takes better care of them than any previous master they've had, something that Shining Armor reluctantly admires. Later on, he's also able to start recruiting ponies who have suffered from the flaws in Celestia's government system, by genuinely offering them a chance to improve their lots.
• Rosario Vampire: Brightest Darkness Act VI: Talon Ryashen has this kind of relationship with Rin Otonashi and Jovian and Jacqueline Kikion, whom are assisting him in his Roaring Rampage of Revenge on Fairy Tale. In chapter 53, he comes right out and says that he sees them as his equals, not his underlings.
• Zero 2: A Revision: Despite being one of the surviving two Evil Overlords of the Dark World, and often threatening his minions for incompetence, Demon never once considers abusing or executing his Black Generals for failure, just having high expectations from them (He is noticeably upset when Skullsatamon is killed in battle). When Umbradevimon is about to use his Doomsday Viper to escape from Gravemon's dome, Demon instinctively orders his minions to protect themselves from the attack. And when he finds out that his Bakemon are starting to tire themselves, Demon orders them to rest in his castle until the time has come. Contrast this with Dragomon who calls his Scubamon minions as Deadmon and upon retrieving his intended target, orders them all to die.
• Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Planes of Existence: Before the Dark Blessing convinced him to change for the worse, Paras was very caring toward his minions, considering them family rather than workers.
• Cissnei's Path: Tseng. It's noted that he covered for the other surviving Turks that left after the events of Before Crisis, as well as prepared arrangements for Crimson (Cissnei) to leave with Cloud after they found Zack's corpse when the only way out of the Turks is usually in a body bag. He's even patient with Elena despite her constant failings.
• The Second Try: After the Final Battle, Sub-commander Fuyutsuki becomes NERV’s Commander. His subordinates think that he’s way kinder, more understanding, and more reasonable than his predecessor ever was.
• Last Child of Krypton: Misato replaced Gendo after the latter was relieved of duty, and she was a nicer, more caring commanding officer than him.
• Evangelion 303:
  • Misato is a stern commanding officer, but she's also fair and cares about her subordinates greatly.
  • Gendo leads NERV and he actually looks reasonable compared with his canon counterpart.
• A Crown of Stars: Daniel y Rayana, rulers of Avalon, care for all their subjects and do their utmost to look after them and protect them.
• Ghosts of Evangelion: Misato leads HERZ and is Shinji's boss. She is pretty reasonable and understanding.
• Once More with Feeling: Unlike Commander Gendo, Sub-commander Fuyutsuki tries to be fair and is pretty reasonable. Shinji and Asuka go to him when they need something because they know that he’ll hear them out at least. For that matter, he didn’t want to handle the task of reprimanding the pilots after their quad bike race, but he did anyway because he knew that Gendo would be harsher.
• Giovanni in Common Sense, though both James and Meowth note that his forgiveness and generosity have limits. He won't forgive failed operations due to incompetence but will overlook failures caused by completely unforeseen circumstances (such as dozens of trainers fighting them at once).
• Harry Potter in The Havoc Side of the Force is regarded as the best boss ever by several of his employees. When his Hux bodyguard is nearly killed trying to save Shmi and Kalu'minari from slavers, Harry saves his life and gives him new duties: visiting the best brothels on every planet, moon, and space station they land on for the next twenty years before reporting to Harry which is the best one. Though Harry technically pays his crew exactly what he should, because their bonuses are supposed to be a (very small) percentage of the profits of any job they complete, he pays them millions of credits due to just how large the jobs he pulls off are. Combined with the fact Harry will quite literally fight an entire army to save any of them, he's earned the Undying Loyalty of all his crew.
• Dragon Ball Z Abridged turns Lord Chilled into this. He's an insane galactic conqueror like his descendants, but he honors the deaths of his men... even if he has a funny way of showing it.
  Lord Chilled: Outrageous! In honor of their deaths, my men shall now and forevermore be given the names of fruits!
• The Self-Insert son of Robert Baratheon in No Promises makes a point of treating his subordinates well, if only because it causes fewer headaches. Notably, because he's forgiving of failures, they'll come to him when they screw up (or at least admit it when confronted) since he's made it clear they won't be executed or imprisoned for it. When two of his distilleries burn down because the water pumps weren't filled, he only punishes the three directly responsible for making sure they're full^note  The underling who admits to it is given half pay for two months, the underling who tries to deny it is fired and blacklisted, and the supervisor who didn't check that they inspected the pumps is demoted with a possibility of being re-promoted in a year if he doesn't screw up again. As a result, he's quite irritated when a lord flees with everything he can rather than admit his wife sold off several of the prince's spyglasses to pay for her lavish tastes.
• Kyon: Big Damn Hero has Tsuruya's father, who crosses this over with Screw the Rules, I Have Money!. Whenever he comes across someone who tells him he can't do something, he buys out their company and then gives them a raise for enforcing the rules.
• Pink Diamond in A Pink Planet is revolutionary in the Empire not only because she is actively looking for a means of using gem production without harming the ecosystems of her colonies, but she is also very fair and kind to her subjects. She allows her gems off-time, she insists on informal conversations with her subjects and she has insisted on scientific projects that provide benefits to both gem kind and humanity. She also insists that her gems refer to her as "Pink" instead of "My Diamond." By the time Steven is born, gems from yellow and Blue's court are lining up to be transferred to Earth.
• Seventh Endmost Vision has two examples: Lucrecia and Barret.
  • Lucrecia is one of these for entirely practical reasons; she offers the best hours and best pay in Shinra, in return for her workers being very, very loyal and very, very obedient. She's not afraid to bring out sticks with the carrots, though; one rumor Heidegger thinks about at one point is that she keeps someone alive in her labs, tormenting them and that she takes her hires to go see that eternal victim as a warning. It's implied to be Hojo.
  • The other, more honest example is Barret Wallace, to such an extent that one of his chapters is literally titled Good King Wallace in a Shout-Out to Good King Wenceslas. He pays well, and does whatever he can to mitigate the harm working at Shinra inevitably inflicts on those beneath him. His department knows it, too, and loves him for it; when he thinks he's going to have to do something that might risk all their lives, he cuts them all huge checks and sends them on their way to keep them safe. Seven of them who stayed even prove willing to fight Lucrecia when she shows up to kill him!
• Ar-Rom from Kara of Rokyn is kind, fair, patient, and incredibly tolerant with his employee Kara's tendency to drop everything suddenly when she is needed back on Earth.
• In Black Wings, Black Sails, becoming a pirate hasn't dulled Laurence's Father to His Men tendencies at all — he personally sees to it that all of his men are treated fairly, and early on becomes concerned for the safety of the alarming number of women joining his crew. This stands in contrast to Dayes, who has thus far proven to be a short-tempered, sullen captain with a budding obsession with stopping Laurence. Later on, when Laurence takes the Allegiance and all of its crew and passengers as prisoners for the Tswana, he gives them the option of either becoming prisoners to the Tswana or joining his pirate crew for a year. Should they join him, they will be treated like any other member of his crew, given fair wages, and will be granted safe passage to any port of their choosing at the end.
• The Chosen Six surprisingly presents Fenrir Greyback as this to his pack of werewolves; when one of the group openly questions Greyback's current strategy of seemingly random attacks, Greyback explicitly states "No questions are stupid" and takes time to explain his reasoning to others.
• Boldores And Boomsticks: Mr. Stone, to the point Yang explicitly says he's the A Father to His Men type. It actually upsets Weiss to realize that Mr. Stone proves one can be both successful and kind when her own father isn't.
• Valhalla's Angel: Dana, the woman who runs the bar Hajime works at, was willing to allow an underaged boy to work for her purely because he was going through some rough times (helps that he knew how to make really good drinks), and has no problem with him using equipment from the bar to throw a party for his classmates at Hope's Peak, provided he doesn't damage it.
• A number of Star Wars fanfic treat Darth Vader as this, as long as one does their job:
  • In Food Scandal his reaction to finding out his Stormtroopers had received tainted rations due to a scam against the Imperial military amounts to tracking down the responsible parties and launching a planetary invasion to make sure they're captured, while also ensuring that the Navy officer who discovered the situation is both rewarded and protected from the consequences of her discovery causing the death of two other officers who had failed to report the situation because it was Stormtroopers who were getting the tainted food.
  • In Eros Turannos, Padme and Darth Vader are each noted to be this in their own way. While Vader is harsh when punishing failure, it is explicitly noted that he also rewards success and competence, and never punishes anyone just because he feels like venting his frustrations on somebody.
  • In Vader's Own Veers notes that Darth Vader promotes exclusively based on skill, and while he has a reputation for killing his subordinates he only does so when said subordinates fail him too many times, even asserting that by killing such officers he's saving the lives of anyone who could get under their command without him around to stop them.
  • In Wilhuff Tarkin, Hero of the Rebellion is noted that he doesn't care about what his soldiers do in their own time or if they follow every regulation to the letter (Stormtrooper corporal TK-90210, AKA Candace, wears long hair that would not be tolerated outside his command) as long as they do their job during their work hours.
• Oprah in Viva La Vida is portrayed as being very kind, even re-hiring Olive onto Precinct 13579 despite it going against most every single Odd Squad rule in existence due to realizing that she never completely joined Odd Todd willingly and was instead partially coerced into joining by Odd Todd himself.
• Full Circle: Olive and Otto fit this trope to a T. Olive in particular takes the time to befriend a timid young Maintenance agent named Oliver, even gifting him a badge that grants him the same Proportional Aging abilities that other agents have thanks to their own badges.

Films — Animated

• In Aladdin (Golden Films), Aladdin is stated to be "the kindest man any servant would ask for" after he becomes rich and marries the princess.
• Gru from Despicable Me. He may experiment on his Minions occasionally, but he treats them well and cares for them, even kissing all of them goodnight. And he knows all their names! In return, the Minions all love and adore him. Prior to adopting the girls, Gru was discomforted upon witnessing one of the Minions floating into outer space after drinking an anti-gravity serum made by Dr. Nefario, though the Minion is shown later to actually breathe in outer space. He even asked Dr. Nefario if the serum's effects have worn off with the other Minions who drank it, to which Dr. Nefario replied that they haven't as the Minions who drank the serum are still floating up on the ceiling.
• The Emperor's New Groove: Yzma, despite being The Caligula, is quite benevolent to her underlings. When her entire group of guards are turned into animals, the one turned into a cow asks to leave, a request she grants, and even asks if any of the others would like to leave.
• Ursula from The Little Mermaid is a villainous example. In spite of her reputation as a notorious sea witch who performs faustian bargains with seafolk before collecting their souls (in case they fail to uphold their side of their bargains) to become more powerful, she deeply cares for her two pet eels Flotsam and Jetsam like her own children; even placing a lot of great trust in them as they share her sense of deviousness. She even goes into a gigantic Roaring Rampage of Revenge when they end up accidentally killed them by the trident's, thanks to Ariel throwing off Ursula's aim off from Eric.
• Mulan: Surprisingly enough for a villain who qualifies as a Complete Monster, Shan Yu is very respectful towards his army. He constantly praises their abilities, never treats them harshly, and is quite outraged when the majority of them are killed in an avalanche. He even politely declines one of his generals when they suggest avoiding the Chinese army. It makes sense when one takes his Genius Bruiser tendencies in mind and remembers that an army that hates its leader isn't an army that will function well.
• Buster Moon from Sing. Despite stealing electricity/water for his theater and being a total Control Freak, he's still a nice guy who gives his utmost support to his contestants (even Mike).

Films — Live-Action

• Aquaman: This incarnation of Orm is, as megalomaniacal villains go, a pretty decent boss. He insists on paying Black Manta for his services even when Black Manta insists he doesn't want payment. When Black Manta decides to make an attempt on Arthur's life, Orm provides him with intel and cutting-edge Atlantean weapons and equipment at no cost. And finally, when Orm reveals he knows about Vulko's betrayal and even the audience would consider him fairly well-justified in having Vulko killed, he refuses to do so, instead having the latter merely imprisoned.
• Dark Waters: Kim Burke, Rob’s direct superior at the firm, never obstructs him, listens to what he has to say, and gets along well with him even before Tom has gotten onboard with the case. Terp also gradually turns into one of the tough but fair kind.
• From what little we see of him, Joe Takagi from Die Hard seemed to be this. He threw a Christmas party for his best employees, paid for the limo that took John McClane from the airport to the company building, and refused to sell out his company even when threatened with a gun. Too bad that last one got him a bullet to the head.
• Rose from Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead. Despite fashion being a cutthroat business, Rose encourages Sue Ellen and her talents. Even after discovering that Sue Ellen lied on her resume, she still remains impressed with her hard work, even offering her a permanent position.
• Joe in Empire Records. He's basically a father figure to all his young employees, and a legal foster father to one of them.
• The CEO in Exam. He is a scientist genuinely interested in bringing good stuff to the world but has trouble dealing with people.
• The Exception: Wilhelm is an extremely caring employer to Mieke, viewing her like a daughter. He noticeably overrules anyone who wishes to dismiss her for her affair with Brandt and just tells her to be discreet.
• The Golden Voyage of Sinbad: Big Bad Prince Koura never indulges in a Kick the Dog moment with his henchman Achmed, and as the final confrontation with Sinbad approaches, actually sends him away to safety rather than put his life at risk.
• Hang 'Em High: This trait is the one thing that keeps Captain Wilson from indisputably crossing the Moral Event Horizon when he decides to murder Cooper to stop his pursuit. Wilson gives his cowhands Loomis and Tommy a chance to back out, telling them that they're both young men who wouldn't be ruined by a prison term and that he'll understand if they turn themselves in.
• Independence Day: Marty (Harvey Fierstein) — Jeff Goldblum's Camp Gay boss at the satellite TV company. His immediate reaction on hearing of the potential danger of the UFOs is to tell everyone to stop work and get to safety in the basement now. This is a media company that is covering the event: shutting off transmission long before others even guess of any danger would cost them millions.
• The Journey of Natty Gann: The logging foreman Sol works under gives him time off work to look for Natty, and while he allows him to take dangerous work after she's presumed dead, he tells Sol that "it won't bring her back."
• A very downplayed example with Arthur from Kingsman: The Secret Service. He's still a high-class jerkass who believes working-class candidates like Eggsy and his father have no place among the Kingsmen, but he cares deeply for those who fit his standards. For example, he congratulates Roxy in person after she passed the final test and shows a genuinely shocked expression on his face after seeing Valentine executed Harry/Galahad. Even after he is revealed to be in league with Valentine, he's still willing to give Eggsy a second chance to become a Kingsman to replace the deceased Galahad and protect him from Valentine's Hate Plague, despite his distaste for Eggsy's social status. Granted, he semi-forced him to agree by trying to poison him, but still, he did give him another chance, something he didn't do with Charlie, the candidate he preferred.
• Harlan Thrombey from Knives Out is very friendly with his personal nurse, Marta, treating her more like a friend that happens to be qualified to give him his medication than an employee. The two play a game of Go every night before she leaves, he confides in her and seeks her advice, and he also keeps the secret that her mother is undocumented. He's so fond of her, he willingly dies to protect her from going to jail for accidentally giving him the wrong dosage of medication... and makes her the sole beneficiary in his will. How's that for benevolent?
• Franz Sanchez, the ruthless Big Bad of The Cartel in Licence to Kill, starts off this way (as long as subordinates are very loyal to him). However; when James Bond becomes The Mole and manipulates him into paranoia, he becomes a Bad Boss who kills his subordinates.
• McLintock!, a John Wayne Western comedy. After G. W McLintock, the titular hero, hires Devlin, he recognizes how the young man had to swallow his pride to beg for a job and assures him, "I don't give jobs, I hire men," and if Devlin will put in a fair day's work, "For that I'll pay you a fair day's wages. You don't give me anything, I don't give you anything, we both hold our heads up." Seeing that Devlin's family is in dire financial straits, he then gives his friend Drago some money to give to Devlin, saying, "Tell him I pay my men a month in advance." Throughout the movie, he treats his employees fairly and is friendly to them, especially Devlin whom he learns to respect as a fine young man and a hard worker; when Devlin and McLintock's daughter Becky announce their engagement toward the end of the movie, he's overjoyed.
• Mr. MacMillan from Big will listen to honest criticism and complaints about his toys and when a good idea is brought forth, he will go with it. He also does chop sticks for fun.
• Red Water: John is considerate of Emery's status, prospects, and employment when the bank is poised to foreclose on his boat, and takes a detour from the expedition he's been hired for so Emery can visit his family.
• In Richie Rich, Richie's dad is a firm believer in not firing employees, claiming that job security makes better and happier workers. The one exception he eventually makes is the Big Bad.
• Scott Calvin in The Santa Clause series as Santa Claus. The Elves love working for him and the Legendary Figures mention that kids around the world have been happier during the time he took on the role as Santa Claus. Even back when he was a toy executive, he would forgo giving long, self-congratulatory speeches in favor of letting everyone else enjoy the Christmas party.
• Spider-Man: Homecoming: Adrian Toomes, aka the Vulture, runs a tight ship with his goons. He's understanding and patient with them all and he even kept them under his employ when they were all run out of (legitimate) business. When the job at the boat goes bad, Toomes makes it a point to come to Schultz's aid when Spider-Man defeats him and even airlifts him out. His benevolence does have its limits though, as he fires Brice after his insubordination and unnecessary risks put the rest of the team in danger. Toomes does end up killing Brice after the latter makes threats against his family, but even that turns out to be an accident.
• Star Wars:
  • Watto in The Phantom Menace was a Sympathetic Slave Owner and Jerk with a Heart of Gold who treated his slaves with far more kindness than others on Tatooine (like Jabba), especially the Skywalkers. When Anakin visits him as an adult in Attack of the Clones, he holds no ill will towards him at all since Watto was the closest thing he had to a father before meeting Obi-Wan.
  • Princess Leia. Less so in the Continuity Reboot than in the original trilogy, but even when Poe deliberately disobeys her, all she does is rebuke him instead of having him court-martialed.
• El Guapo from ¡Three Amigos! is a villainous example of this trope, shown receiving a sweater from this henchman for his birthday and wearing it for the remainder of the film. He even treats his birthday celebration like a party for everyone. Of course, he also shows no qualms at all when he shoots one of his henchmen during target practice.
• Josh Kovaks, from Tower Heist, truly cares about the workers in Tower. Ultimately it is this level of empathy that drives him to plan the aforementioned heist.
• Tremors 2: Aftershocks: When Graboids start eating his workers, Ortega shuts down the oil field until they can be dealt with and hires the most experienced person he can find to handle the job. While this could be mere Enlightened Self-Interest, he also has a friendly conversation with the lowest-ranking employee of the skeleton crew watching the refinery. Based on a line from the third movie, he also pays Earl, Grady, and Burt their promised wages even though they inadvertently destroy the refinery in the process.
• UHF: George Newman steps in as manager of channel U62. Despite his brief depressed moment when the station seems to be going nowhere, he snaps right back to his cheerful self the moment Stanley Spadowski becomes a hit with his show. His willingness to put anyone on the air doing anything brings a contagious energy that quickly spreads to the entire station and makes them the highest-rated channel in town.
• Lord Summerisle in The Wicker Man (1973) is also a rare villainous example.
• The Wolf of Wall Street: For all that Jordan Belfort is a corrupt decadent asshole, he genuinely cares for his employees like they're his own family.... To a point. It's subverted at the end of the film where Jordan, when faced with the possibility of real prison time for his laundry list of white-collar crimes, sells every member of his staff down the river in exchange for a stay at a minimum-security tennis prison.

Literature

• Alpha and Omega has two examples.
  • Yoram Louvish, the head of Eric's archeological dig, looks out for his team and will not tolerate bigotry or infighting.
  • Saul Buchbinder, the producer of Gabriela and Brandon's show. When Gabriela wakes up from her roofie-induced sleep, she has no problem convincing Saul that Brandon had drugged her to steal her story.
• In Animorphs, Visser One has this reputation, at least by Yeerk standards—she'll kill you if you fail her, sure, but she also shows favor to the competent. Compare her to her rival, Visser Three, who executes subordinates for even the tiniest annoyances.
• Hank Rearden and Dagny Taggart of Atlas Shrugged treat their employees with the utmost respect and consideration. Dagny is quick to thank and promote employees like Owen Kellogg who distinguish themselves well with their ability and effort, and Rearden pays higher wages than any union would ever demand... in exchange for the most talented, competent, capable workforce money can buy.
• With a twist in a story by Heinrich Böll about the (fictional) poet Bodo Bengelmann. After finishing school, his practical parents insisted that he started an apprenticeship. Which he did, in a shop for wallpapers. As the author comments, the job was an ideal environment for him: The shop owner, his boss, was most of the time so drunk he passed out, and Bodo wrote poems on the back of wallpapers. Then he used his first wage to send copies of his poems to all newspapers and magazines, and since a good part of them answered, he became rich and famous.
• The Bone Wars: For all of his paranoia, occasional academic dishonesty and possessiveness of dinosaur finds, George Babcock is usually jovial and encouraging to his subordinates during his dinosaur excavations and often encourages their passions or forgives mistakes.
• In A Brother's Price, the royal family are good employers, who actually heed the advice of Captain Tern (who is responsible for their safety), and have absolute trust in the moral integrity of their house servants, implying that they treat everyone so well that they have earned absolute loyalty.
• A Christmas Carol:
  • A classic example is Fezziwig — the good-natured employer of Ebenezer Scrooge in his youth. This memory becomes the first step in Scrooge's path to becoming a better man.
    He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.
  • Scrooge himself becomes this to Bob Cratchit in the end.
• The Count of Monte Cristo is this (although he combines this trope with quite a bit of Fair for Its Day), as was his master, Monsieur Morrel. When Edmond was framed for Bonapartist collaboration and imprisoned in the hellish Chateau D'If, Morrel was the only person who tried to save him, though it was extremely politically dangerous to do so. Edmond rewards this compassion with Undying Loyalty to Morrel's family, and this is the source of many heartwarming moments throughout the book.
• Discworld's Commander Vimes is repeatedly proven to be a much better boss than his attitude suggests. Although he doesn't like anyone much, his men are willing to put up with his roughness because they know that when the chips are down, he's got their back; in fact, after most of them leave during Fred Colon's time as Acting Captain, the only way Carrot can convince them to come back is by telling them he and Commander Vimes are back.
  • One of the reasons many of the Guard left during Fred Colon's tenure was because he made racist comments while members of said races were standing feet away from him. When it's pointed out to them that Vimes makes similar comments all the time, they say that they don't mind when Vimes does it, for the reason mentioned below.
  • As far as Sam Vimes is concerned, the race of any Watchman is Watchman.^note It gets something of an Ironic Echo in The Fifth Elephant when Detritus, a troll, shakes the hand of the Low King, a dwarf. He muses that it's the first time he's done that with a dwarf. When another (dwarfish) watchman points out they've shaken hands, Detritus simply says 'but you're a watchman, same as me.'
  • Moist Von Lipwig cares deeply for the people the work for him and is genuinely concerned for their well-being, despite being a (very recently) reformed con artist and swindler.
• In Gene Stratton-Porter's Freckles, McLean is this.
  The men of his camps never had known him to be in a hurry or to lose his temper. Discipline was inflexible, but the Boss was always kind.
• From the Harry Potter series is Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, a firm believer in second chances. He will defend his staff members to anyone, even the Ministry of Magic if need be, and don't you dare try to eject anybody from the school building while he's in charge.
  • Also, when Dobby (A Non-Human Sidekick of sorts) comes to work at Hogwarts and asks for both holidays and paid work (something that has never happened before), he actually offers him so much, Dobby demands lower pay and fewer days off!
  • The Black family, apparently. They were bigoted and involved in all sorts of dark magic, but they treated their house-elf, Kreacher, so well that he remains loyal to them years after their deaths (of course he's also extremely bigoted, which helps). Heck, Regulus went so far as to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to avenge an attempt on Kreacher's life! Ironically, the White Sheep of the family, Sirius, hates Kreacher for idolizing his family so much, and winds up getting killed when The Dog Bites Back.
  • He may not look it but Severus Snape was a very strict yet fair head of Slytherin. When students (like for example Harry, Ron, and Hermoine) were generally annoying or up to no good he'd berate and punish them, like a teacher from the old days. But shows actual concern (though secretly) for students in genuine danger (like Draco was and even Harry). Even students that he didn’t like, Snape would risk his life for them if they were in danger. In the end, Snape wasn't a nasty professor, just a tragically misunderstood one.
• Journey to Chaos: Part of Eric's problem in Transcending Limitations is that Gruffle's new boss is protective of his subordinates and especially of his Wish Reapers. The fact that Wish Reapers are a thing in the first place is another facet of Lord Death's benevolence.
• From Charles Stross's The Laundry Files, Angleton is an interesting example: he sits square in the Uncanny Valley and manages to frighten the hell out of nearly everyone he works with, including the narrator, Bob. He is also scarily competent and intelligent at his job and respects the same traits in others, has been known to occasionally pull a few strings for Bob's sake, and holds up well in high-stress situations. This is explained in the third novel, The Fuller Memorandum: Angleton is actually a Humanoid Abomination, summoned in the 1930s, who has effectively "gone native". Bob believes that the reason Angleton is directing the Laundry as well as he is is that he sees it as his personal best chance of survival, not to mention his own acquired senses of morality and fairness.
• Lord Dreadgrave the Necromancer in Mogworld got an unpleasant surprise when the horde of zombies he raised turned out to be free-willed but rolled with it (partially to avoid being ripped apart by said horde, admittedly, but he follows through on the promises he made). Jim appreciatively mentions how he acts on their ideas, remembers their names, and gives them props when gloating to adventurers.
• The captain in the Phule's Company novels. He not only throws large quantities of money into shaping up the Omega Mob, but devotes much time and thought to figure out their needs and meeting them, even to the point of ignoring his own.
• In PartnerShip, Fassa is the Anti-Villain of the Nyota Five - not as benign as the Token Good Teammate, but without the sociopathic malice of the other three. She inspires fanatical loyalty in her employees - one of the others sneeringly believes this is loyalty garnered through sex, but in fact Fassa tends to employ people on their Last-Second Chance and offers them stock options and high financial incentives for good service.
• Scavenge the Stars: As the new top crime lord of Moray, Romara is much more benevolent to her employees than her father, rewarding them when they do well and paying them high salaries, which helps ensure they're much more loyal to her than her father.

• Star Wars Legends:
  • In The Thrawn Trilogy, Grand Admiral Thrawn is far too remote from his troops to really qualify as a father figure. His image is of an alien genius, strange but far too skilled to be brushed aside. But he isn't unnecessarily cruel to the people on his side, he rewards quick thinking, his Commander Contrarian pretty much adores him, and Thrawn is respected and trusted. Thrawn uses a small measure of fear, certainly: the Grand Admiral realizes that fear of failure is a powerful motivating force in a military the size of the Empire. But Thrawn's ability to invoke a sense of pride in his troops is his most powerful asset. Palpatine inspired arrogance and callousness in his officers; Thrawn makes his men proud to be Imperial soldiers. Thrawn's officers would willingly die for the Grand Admiral.
    
    Repeatedly, some of his crewers are incapacitated by Joruus C'baoth. Thrawn always has more bridge staff take them to sickbay. Sure, it's the pragmatic thing to do; they're not dead, just useless for a while. But you never have Daala or Krennel or any other Imperial who doesn't switch sides saying this. If they give any orders about a fallen crewer, it's "Clean this up".
    
    This goes into Moment of Awesome territory when he promotes a subordinate who failed to capture Luke Skywalker, but both admitted his failure and showed innovative thinking. Thrawn's XO Pellaeon notes immediately afterward that the crew of the Chimera had respected Thrawn before, but now they'd die for him. And what's more, come the sequel series Hand of Thrawn, that decision paid off and the subordinate was able to successfully counter the maneuver that had beaten him before.
  • Emperor Palpatine is the epitome of a Bad Boss, except where Darth Vader is concerned—inasmuch as he can care about anyone, the Sith Lord cares for his apprentice and the power he represents. In Dark Lord—The Rise of Darth Vader, Palpatine does everything he can to snap Vader out of the depression brought on by his Emergency Transformation and the loss of Padmé Amidala. Not because he cares about Vader's mental well-being as such, but because he finds it counterproductive and annoying.
• Hellion from Super Minion. She does everything she can to keep her employees safe and provides both legal and medical services to everyone in her organization, including the unpowered henchmen who other gangs would treat as expendable.
• Dirk Struan from Tai Pan is a self-made man who started out as a cabin boy under a tyrannical captain. When he becomes a ship owner, he pays wages on the day, in silver, and equips his ships with the best of everything. He has also banned all forms of punishment on board his ships other than blacklisting, i.e. if you screw up, you are dropped of on the pier the next time the ship makes port, and will never sail on a Struan ship again. Sailors fight for the chance to work aboard one of his ships.

Live-Action TV

• Just about every serial crime drama and occupational drama on English-speaking television, such as Law & Order, CSI, ER, etc. Even the designated-asshole superior officer turns out to have a heart of gold by the series' end.
  • Capt. Donald Cragen of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit is portrayed as a somewhat stern but understanding father figure who gives the detectives a great deal of leniency because he trusts their ability to get results.
  • Conrad Ecklie in CSI grew into the role over time. When he first got promoted to Assistant Director in season 5, he had a very rocky relationship with Grissom and his crew (especially Grissom), which eventually led to Ecklie splitting the team up. It begins to change in the season 5 finale when Nick gets kidnapped and buried underground, as he becomes vital to the investigation and eventual rescue. Since then his relationship with the crew has become more cordial and he's given them far more leeway than he used to.
  • Sometimes Mac seems to think of his team as family of sorts on CSI: NY; he did tell Christine the job had become his world. It's obvious how close he is to them all. He is no-nonsense on the job but makes up for it by doing things like having heart to heart talks with his subordinates and letting Sheldon live with him for a while when he's between apartments.
• Deconstructed by Max in the 2 Broke Girls episode "And the New Boss". She's not comfortable hiring an intern to work for them for free, nor with firing said intern when she starts taking advantage of Max, despite Caroline's repeated entreaties to do so. Only when she finds that Ruth (the intern) referred to her as "the dumb one" in a text does she finally do it.
• Jack Donaghy, from 30 Rock cares about main character Liz Lemon and obsesses over staying a hero figure to NBC page Kenneth Parcell. He may be more of a Trickster Mentor to Liz and the TGS crew. His secretary Jonathan, on the other hand...
• Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.: A villainous example is "The Clairvoyant", a.k.a. John Garrett, who is surprisingly friendly towards those who work for him (even though he was much less friendly before he was exposed as a member of HYDRA) and likes to see them enjoy their work.
• Siegfried Farnon from All Creatures Great And Small is a kindhearted guy underneath his brashness. The time when he defends Herriot's decision to put down an expensive, and mortally ill, horse for his first case bears that out.
• While Angel was usually a pretty bad boss in the fifth season, openly despising and occasionally executing employees, he does have a moment of this towards his ditzy vampiric assistant Harmony. After unexpectedly being a pretty good assistant most of the season, she betrays him to his enemies. When he confronts her about this, reveals he saw it coming, and fires her, she asks him for a recommendation. He not only says yes but when she brings up that he might well not survive, he reveals that it's in her desk. Meaning that at some point he realized that Harmony was going to betray them and leave him to die, and he responded by taking time out of planning his assault against the forces of evil to sit down and write her a letter of recommendation. That's class.
• Arrow's Ray Palmer, so much. He's generous, friendly, and works as hard as, if not harder than, anyone. He appreciates his employees and goes along with all of Felicity's quirks, such as her taking two different - highly suspicious sounding — calls while she's in a meeting with him. He also lets her take a sick day to spend time with her mom, even though he knows full well that she's fine.
• Barney Miller on Barney Miller. Best of all dream bosses.
• The Beauty Queen Of Jerusalem: Mr. Zacks is Luna's boss, but he's also a good friend, always looking out for her, and letting her take time off if she needs it. He fears for her safety when David starts becoming more possessive of Luna, and seems to view her Like a Daughter to Me.
• Cam Saroyan on Bones, pretty much. She's professional at work but is still pretty engaged with the lab team at the same time. Goodman wasn't *too* bad, but he was more stern than Cam.
• Paul Lewiston of Boston Legal may be the frustrated Only Sane Man in a firm made up of gun-toting, sex-addicted, filibustering, cross-dressing, midget-fetishising Bunny Ears Lawyers, but he still manages to put up with them all. And from season 2 onward, after reconciling with his daughter and meeting his granddaughter, he becomes much more relaxed and pleasant.
  • Alan Shore, one of the aforementioned sex-addicted, filibustering, cross-dressing, midget-fetishising Bunny Ears Lawyers, is good to work for too. Every assistant or secretary he's had went away better for having been hired.
• Gus Fring in Breaking Bad is a tough but fair boss. He embodies the trope to the employees of his legitimate businesses, and to his drug empire employees so long as they follow his orders and don't compromise themselves, to the point that he set up offshore bank accounts in the names of his associates to make sure their families were taken care of in the event of his death. Gus sours on Walt when Walt starts to become a liability.
  • On the legal side of his business, Fring also treats the working-class employees of his Los Pollos Hermanos front restaurants with respect. In Better Call Saul, when his cartel bosses take his employees hostage to intimidate him into a meeting, Fring first dismisses them for the day, promising to compensate them for the missed shift. The next day, he apologizes to them personally, arranges for an extra two days worth of pay for the trouble, and offers to pay for counseling for the employees if needed.
• Mayor Richard Wilkins from Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a swell guy to work for. He's always got a kind word, he asks after your family, he encourages good dental hygiene and good nutrition, and he discourages swearing and encourages teamwork and esprit de corps. He'll even pay for a new wardrobe and an apartment if you happen to be a homeless psychotic slayer in need of an outlet for your violent tendencies! Oh, and he wants to transform into a giant snake demon and eat everyone in the city. But what boss is perfect, right?
• Sam Malone from Cheers is a benevolent boss during the seasons when he owns the bar. He helps Carla out financially when she's pregnant for the fifth time, drives her to the hospital to give birth, lets her breastfeed in his office, accompanies her to her ex-husband's wedding, never bugs her about being late, etc. Before and after dating Diane, he was shown to be very attentive to her as well — comforting her when her cat died, for example. Also, although he romantically pursues more than one waitress, it's absolutely clear that their employment does not depend on being friendly to his advances.
• Rube in Dead Like Me is a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who keeps his Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits running about as tight a ship as can be reasonably expected. He often shows his softer side with George, and once carried Mason to his place to let him sleep off a drug overdose^note Since reapers have a Healing Factor, overdosing isn't such a big deal. Basically, his subordinates love and fear him at the same time.
• Doctor Who: Yvonne Hartman from "Army of Ghosts"/"Doomsday" is the head of the Torchwood Institute, an imperialist, speciesist secret organization that steals alien tech and wants to control the Earth. Despite this, Yvonne makes a point of knowing all of her underlings by name and has no objection to "secret" office romances.
• Adelle DeWitt from Dollhouse is an odd example — her general persona is of an Ice Queen, a tough, non-nonsense businesswoman, and in her particular line of work she is even willing to kill if necessary... but she also cares about her employees, and they know it. (Which is what makes her giving Topher's schematics to Handling in Season Two a rather shocking Moral Event Horizon.)
• Downton Abbey: Lord Robert presents a firm but fair approach to managing his staff, and won't hesitate to defend them with everything he's got. Highlights include sending Mrs Patmore off for eye surgery, defending William from the "white feather girls" who were trying to shame him into enlisting for World War I, using the full weight of his reputation and his personal lawyer to defend Bates from a murder charge, lying to the police to protect Thomas from being arrested for homosexual activity and organising a special War memorial plaque for Mrs Patmore's late nephew. He also encourages his staff to make full use of his library.
• Scorpius, the Big Bad of Farscape, is a great example of a villainous Benevolent Boss. One of the things that makes him such a Magnificent Bastard is that he genuinely appreciates good work and makes sure it is rewarded, which results in loyal, hard-working mooks who can't easily be swayed by the good guys or poached by rival baddies. At one point, he deliberately sent one of his senior minions to a horrible death to punish him for having a We Have Reserves attitude toward the mooks.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Tyrion treats his meek squire Pod quite well. He attempts to be this while overseeing Meereen, with mixed results.
  • Varys sells Ros on entering his employ by mentioning that his "little birds" are paid quite well for their services and not abused on a whim (they are certainly treated better than Littlefinger's prostitutes). There is some truth to it since it's shown they do miss him while working for Qyburn.
  • In "Two Swords", Olenna motivates her handmaidens by rewarding the one who finds the best necklace for Margaery with the second-best necklace.
  • Daenerys is kind and gentle with everyone who serves her. She has been seen braiding Missandei's hair.
• Captain Frank Furillo from Hill Street Blues. He holds his subordinates to a high standard of professionalism and integrity and doesn't hesitate to tear strips off them if they screw up, but as long as they do good work he'll gladly go to bat for them when Chief Daniels is looking for a scapegoat.
• Lt. Al "Gee" Giardello in Homicide: Life on the Street; he's not exactly lovable and cuddly, but he'll walk through fire in order to stick up for his detectives.
• Art Mullen on Justified is a good boss and friend. And considering all that Raylan's put the Lexington office through, he should probably be considered for sainthood.
• Kazumi Sawatari from Kamen Rider Build was a caring boss to his workers, especially the Three Crows, back when they worked on his farm and he made sure that they still have income when his land was rendered infertile. To this end, Kazumi becomes Kamen Rider Grease working for Hokuto government and fakes amnesia so the Three Crows won't follow him into a war. They know better and follow him anyway.
• In Lizzo's Watch Out for the Big Grrrls, Lizzo is searching for Big Grrrls (back up dancers) to join her on stage. She is very encouraging to the aspiring Grrrls, even dropping by the house for a girls' night and awarding spots on a video or photo shoot. Her choreographer/creative director Tanisha Smith has to remind her not to let her "heartstrings" determine what dancers are ready for the stage.
• Mann & Machine: Despite being a ruthless and prolific organ-stealing serial killer, Richards from "No Pain, No Gain" appeared to be a surprisingly nice boss, getting along so well with his henchmen that, during his escape, he actually stops to check and see if one who was knocked out was still alive and alright.
• Jimmy James from NewsRadio. He loves to mess with his underlings but in the end, is always looking out for them.
• David Brent and Michael Scott from the British and U.S. versions (respectively) of The Office think they're being benevolent, but are so bad at it they wind up being the Stupid Boss instead. Michael comes closest, even having moments where he actually is helpful. (Supporting Pam after her failed art gallery show, for instance.) David, on the other hand, gets extremely angry and defensive when his "advice" is rejected or disputed. After Michael left the US version, Andy Bernard started out as one of these. Although it is quite clear that he is new to management, he is still relatively reasonable and kind to the employees and is arguably more competent as a boss than as a salesman.
• Admiral Malkor in Power Rangers Megaforce. Yes, he's the Big Bad and not exactly nice, but unlike previous villains, he treats his subordinates with true respect and as equals. In fact, the worst thing he does towards them is scold them if they fail him too many times or if they fall before their enemies in battle.
• In Primeval, Lester is really a fairly Benevolent Boss hiding behind a Hidden Heart of Gold. However it is clear when he offers to let a temporarily homeless Connor stay at his place, and after he was forced to undergo a 10-Minute Retirement his return is greeted with a standing ovation from the rest of the ARC staff, that he is at most a Jerk with a Heart of Gold (and awesome Deadpan Snarker).
• In Selfie, Henry and Eliza work for a child's pharmaceutical company and their boss Mr. Saperstein is shown to be a nice, almost too nice kind of guy. He believes the workforce should feel like a family and encourages his workers to express how close they are and try to be closer, invites higher-level workers to his daughter's wedding, praises good work publicly, and so on. He is, however, a little too touchy-feely, but this is Played for Laughs.
• Stargate SG-1:
  • General Hammond; as O'Neill once noted, "He's a teddy bear."
    Hammond: As long as I am in command of the SGC, we will hold ourselves to the highest ethical standard.
  • General Landry followed a similar vein in seasons 9 and 10.
• Admiral Forrest, Starfleet's Chief of Operations, in Star Trek: Enterprise. Considering all the crap he had to deal with the Vulcans and all the trouble Archer got into, he did a really good job.
• In most of the early Super Sentai series, most of the Ranger teams were special military task forces led by a commander. Most of the time, said commanders fell into this trope. To list them all would make this list very long. Later Sentai series stepped away from having a superior commander. If the Rangers do have a superior, he or she acts more as a mentor rather than a superior. Also, despite being known for its Black-and-White Morality, the franchise has a fair share of Benevolent Bosses on the villain's side:
  • Witch Bandora from Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger is rather benevolent for a Big Bad. Her villainous group comes across more as a family than a boss with subordinates, with her taking on a rather motherly role. She compliments her subordinates when they do something right and at most hits them on the head with her wand when they mess up.
  • Doctor Hinelar from Denji Sentai Megaranger is this to his minions Shiborena and Yugande. Justified, because Shiborena is created as a Replacement Goldfish for his deceased daughter, while it is implied Yugande is like a son to him. When Yugande was being used as a living shield by Gurail, Hinelar went as far as to poison Gurail, causing him to lose his mind.
  • The three Gaiark Pollution Ministers from Engine Sentai Go-onger are this, most evident in Yogostein. They often praise their Monsters of the Week for doing well, even if they still didn't beat the good guys.
• Sam Merlotte from True Blood is a good boss, a great friend, and a kickass shapeshifter.
• Station Eleven: Leon, Miranda's boss at the shipping office. After he gets infected, he spends his last hours trying to prepare escape routes for his employees so that they can survive The Plague.
• Jed Bartlet, in The West Wing, openly describes the senior staff as family, and there are many instances where one of them offers to resign for some screw-up, but he never accepts. The only time he does fire someone is Toby in Season 7 for the national security leak.
  • Leo McGarry as well, except in Season 5. Particularly his kind treatment of the woman who leaked his drug rehab records to House Republicans, and of Ainsley Hayes when the other staffers were still being hostile towards her:
    Leo: Kid, the others are going to come around. See you've got to remember that the people you're talking about live their lives under siege, 24 hours, every day. At a time when they're trying with all their might to do good, you're in their foxhole. [...] I'm a recovering alcoholic — bam! Radio, TV, magazines, cameras in front of my house, people shouting at my daughter at the ball game. Editorials, op-eds, "He's a drunk, he's dangerous, he should resign."
    Ainsley: I wrote one of those op-ed pieces.
    Leo: I know.
• The Wire:
  • Cedric Daniels protects his subordinates who exhibit numerous displays of incompetence or disloyalty, even when this reflects badly on him.
  • Of the various Baltimore Police Department commanders, Howard "Bunny" Colvin is one of the few who are willing to solve problems and help underlings in need. Best shown when he delivers some compassionate criticism to Carver, which has a positive impact on Carver's career and helps him to become a caring public servant.
  • Jay Landsman appears aloof, but he truly does care about his subordinates, from lobbying Rawls on McNulty's behalf (although this partially comes from Jay's desire to keep the clearances that McNulty brings in), administering Irish wakes for fallen officers, and cutting Bubbles loose after Sherrod's overdose.
  • Deconstructed with Frank Sobotka. His overwhelming motivation was the protection of the dockworkers' jobs, and to this end he got in bed with a smuggling and drug cartel. Tragically, the very things he did to save his union were the exact same things that doomed them to decertification, and the loss of all their jobs.
• Arthur Carlson in WKRP in Cincinnati isn't an effective boss, but he's well-meaning and treats his employees with respect. Even Herb.
• Surprisingly, ruthless gangster he may be, but Tommy Shelby in Peaky Blinders is shown to treat his staff very well and he seems to pay them handsomely too. In one instance in Season Three when Tatiana gets drunk and gets increasingly crazy with her antics, in the middle of the night she starts trying to wake up the household, orders a maid to light a fire and then wants her to watch them have sex - Tommy instantly shuts this down despite needing intel Tatiana has and thus it's high priority to appease her, but he insists to the maid to go back to bed and ignore what's happening. In another instance he barely bats an eyelid when he walks in on Johnny Dogs having sex with one of his maids and when she starts apologising profusely, he casually assures her he isn't going to fire her.
• Heart/002 of Kamen Rider Drive is this to his fellow Roidmudes, as well as being A Father to His Men who supports them on whatever way they use to reach the Promised Number. On that note, however, there are certain lines that he will not allow himself or others to cross in order to do so, like when Medic sacrifices her own kind.
• Aruto Hiden, the eponymous protagonist of Kamen Rider Zero-One. As the president of one later two companies, he's nothing but kind and considerate to his employees. A running theme of the show is how not to treat your employees, human or otherwise. This is directly contrasted with his enemy Thouser, a greedy tyrant if there ever was one.

Podcasts

• Wooden Overcoats: In Season 2, Georgie gets a part-time job working as the Mayor's secretary. The Mayor, while doddering and preferring to let Georgie do all the actual work, is a very kind man who treats her with respect, and always makes her feel appreciated. When her grandmother dies and it seriously effects her ability to concentrate, he's extremely understanding and encourages her to take some time off. They become close enough friends that she stands up for him at his wedding.

Pro Wrestling

• Theodore Long spent most of his career as a heel manager and though he wouldn't hide his disappointment when his clients lost and was merciless when they turned on him, he was a benevolent boss to most of them, to the point he'd get fan mail in WCW from fans who expressed contempt for his Tag Team, Doom, but liked him.
• Slick was especially supportive of his men while he was a manager. He rarely (if ever) berated anyone for losing a match. In fact, he hugged The One Man Gang in mid-ring after The Gang lost to Randy Savage in the WWE Title tournament.
• TNA Power Stable Aces And Eights were based on the motorcycle gang of the same name and thus had some policies that pushed him into Mean Boss territory, particularly the initiation, until the president of the club was revealed to be Bully Ray and one realized he put himself through everything every other member had to endure, making him a benevolent boss. He remained good to his men until his brother, who was incidentally the second most successful member of the group, was forced out of the company. Then he gradually became a Bad Boss.
• Despite both of them betraying their previous boss Natsuki☆Taiyo, Kyoko Kimura was the good boss to her Monster gun that was seeking to knock over World Wonder Ring STARDOM and Act Yasukawa eventually became one after she joined and usurped Kimura, to the point Kimura still served her willingly and mimicked her samurai gimmick. Yasukawa at first showed overly cruel tendencies towards her stablemates but after settling into a managerial role both were willing to wait hand and foot on their underlings if necessary.
• Christopher Daniels and Frankie Kazarian were such to Kamaitachi in Ring of Honor. Yes, they did use him as a diversion in their many schemes to get ahead in the Tag Team division, and they refused to make him an official member of The Addiction right away, but it was clear they loved him. They promoted him heavily at every opportunity, they fed him personally, they took violent exception to any perceived slight against him and insisted he was going to rule the world one day. This didn't stop him from leaving for the less benevolent Los Ingobernables de Japon under Tetsuya Naito, though.
• Among the many women to lead a variation of Rain's Army(Rain herself, Jessicka Havok, Serena Deeb, Allysin Kay, SoCal Val, LuFisto), Ivelisse Vélez is the only who can be called benevolent. She neither manipulates nor torments stablemates and is not complicit in such (unlike Deeb, Kay, Val, and LuFisto), doesn't mind when a stablemate has ambitions that run counter to her own(unlike Rain, Kay, Val), tolerates absence(unlike Havok), sticks by stablemates when they're in no condition to do anything for her(unlike LuFisto) and accepts failure(unlike Havok, Val), making Las Sicarias look a lot more facey than the others despite having pretty much the same Motive Rant and modus operandi. Velez does have "muscle" in Mercedes Martinez^*who was ironically a target of every other group, but she usually does most of her own dirty work(unlike Rain or Val).
• Chris Jericho was A Father to His Men, heel stable the Inner Circle, in All Elite Wrestling, proud of them when they won, supportive rather than critical of them when they lost, perfectly happy for them to go after championships on their own initiative, and violently protective of them when someone injured them (he was furious when Jon Moxley stabbed Santana in the eye with a car key in revenge for the Inner Circle doing the same to him weeks earlier). This made the group True Companions and paid off in spades when MJF attempted to subvert them into turning on Chris, leading to them sticking with him against the interloper. This also made it easy for the group to collectively turn face when MJF revealed his plan B...

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech is not often known for fair terms of employment, but one case stands out: Chandresakr "Uncle Chandy" Kurita, the setting's Big Fun, major business mogul, and part of the notoriously messed up Kurita family line. The Kurita work model is extremely unfair towards the average worker: wages are low, hours are long, obedience is expected, and conformity is mandated. Similarly, trade involving Kuritan companies is built on duplicity and cutthroat aggression bordering on piracy, and Kuritan non-military products are considered among the worst quality in the Inner Sphere. Uncle Chandy is different in that he actively chooses to do things like shorten his worker's hours down from the expected 60 hours a week while keeping their pay the same, but also trading fairly in reasonably priced, reasonable-quality products. This seemingly sensible line of thought is viewed with incredible suspicion by other Kuritan businessmen and even his own royal house, who can't fathom why he's treating his workers so well and in turn earning their Undying Loyalty if he didn't have some sort of subversive plot brewing.
• Warhammer Fantasy: The Vampire Counts in general, and Vlad and Isabella in particular, are noted to be very protective and understanding of their human servants. Some of it is rooted in Pragmatic Villainy; humans who want to work for vampires are rare, can operate outside in daylight, and (unlike lesser undead) do so independently and for long periods of time, which makes them valuable assets. However, it goes beyond that; while Vlad has no patience for fools and incompetents he rewards success generously, and never punishes anyone for honest mistakes or being forced to go up against opponents who are genuinely better.

Video Games

• Batman: Arkham City: While not necessarily a very good boss, Two-Face seems to be the only villain who cares about his underlings, giving inspiring speeches and trying to raise morale among his minions. However, his dual personalities make for wild shifts in character, so whether he's understanding and benevolent or willing to cut a goon in half for screwing up an order is entirely dictated literally by the flip of a coin.
• In The Council of Hanwell, the mayor calls the other Council members many times to remind them to get out of town. She does force essential personnel to stay in the science facility up to an hour before the anomaly outbreak, but it seems that left them enough to escape. She is the only one who stays behind in the facility besides for the Doctor. Doesn't make her less evil, though.
  • The Warden is also benevolent, complaining about how decrepit the jail is and that his employees are disgusted by the conditions there. The lot of them are annoyed that the Council is getting a bigger and bigger budget but that they only seem to use it to make their lives more comfortable. The guards and the Warden also listen to the prisoners' complaints and they're unhappy that the prisoners aren't getting timely trials.
  • The school master, Breit, evacuated the school before the mayor ordered it. This didn't stop him from trafficking some of the children.
  • Taylor Walsh made sure all of the patients in the hospital were evacuated and transferred out of the city before the anomaly event.
• David Sarif in Deus Ex: Human Revolution. He's not perfect: he's guilty of augmenting an employee above and beyond what's needed to save him via a loophole in the employee's contract, stalling the local police to send said employee to deal with a hostage situation to prevent a prototype military aug from being exposed, and installing a backdoor into his company's network so he could secretly investigate the same employee's background. In all other respects, he's an Honest Corporate Executive that treats his employees like family and ultimately cares less about money and more about making augmentation more widespread. Even those shady moments could be considered examples of his benevolence. Sarif has such an idealistic view of augmentation that he may have honestly considered augmenting Jensen to such an extent to be a favor. Sarif spared no expense in doing so too since all of Jensen's augments are top-of-the-line goods. Sending Jensen in to the hostage situation ahead of the police was also something David did for the sake of the company since he's got more faith in Jensen, a capable badass who has augmented to be even more badass than he does in the police. As for the backdoor into his network, David arranged that because he wanted to make absolutely sure that Adam wouldn't be a liability given the fiasco that resulted in him leaving SWAT. If Adam points out to David that the backdoor made the disastrous attack on Sarif Industries possible in the first place during the Social Confrontation, David will likely acknowledge that he endangered the company and its employees and apologize.
• Yamato Hotsuin from Devil Survivor 2 is an interesting play of this trope. He is a Jerkass who calls his subordinates "trash" and considers them mere tools. On the other hand, he is a fair boss. He treats those who can do their jobs well nicely and he doesn't chew out or punish employees that fail to do their jobs, but simply reassigns them to less demanding tasks. He doesn't throw away his subordinates' lives needlessly and he doesn't ask them to do anything he doesn't or can't do himself. It's no wonder the JP's respect him and are loyal to him in spite of his abrasive manner. In fact, his main goal in the game is to remake the world where everyone's station in life is based on their merits, not birthright.
• In the Disgaea series, both Laharl and Mao's fathers were very good to work under. Valvatorez is, too; just ask his Prinnies.
  • The old dean of Evil Academy was so good, in fact, that the evil reputation was used as a defense mechanism to keep idiot heroes out. The one hero it should have kept out, however, was far more worthy of this forged reputation.
    Champloo: Hyahyahya! That whole tale of a vicious Overlord was an urban legend we passed around to protect the Netherworld from stupid heroes. A bright red lie, redder than the ripest tomato! He simply wanted a peaceful Netherworld, a place where demons could live a carefree life. He was indeed the strongest Overlord...but at the same time, he was also the greatest Demon King!
  • The royal family of Toto Bunny is this to the last; since the entire purpose of Toto Bunny is to be a Netherworld to house peace-loving demons, affording respect to even the Prinnies is inherent to the design. This also extends to the current heiress, Usalia; she is sincerely grateful to the Prinnies for aiding her in her current crisis, and they reciprocate in kind.
• Dragon Age:
  • In their origin stories, depending on player choices, both the Human Noble Warden and the Dwarf Noble Warden of Dragon Age: Origins can be portrayed as being this to their respective servants. The Human Noble interacts with their family's cook and also, if visiting the treasury, comes across some guards playing cards. The Dwarf Noble has their second, Gorim, to whom they can be this trope.
  • In Dragon Age II, Hawke can be played this way. They can double the wages of the Fereldan workers in the Bone Pit, as well as protecting the workers from dangerous creatures that threaten the mine. Hawke lets Bodahn and Sandal stay at their estate, despite insisting that Bodahn doesn't owe them for saving Sandal's life in the Deep Roads. They can also free Orana from slavery and offer her paid work as a maid. The Codex later mentions Hawke encouraged her musical talents and paid for her lessons out of their own pocket.
• In The Elder Scrolls, the Daedric Prince Azura is generally this. While certainly not always nice, she is generally regarded as one of the most benevolent of the Daedric Princes toward mortals and is known to treat her worshipers well. A book in Skyrim, written by one of her followers, notes that Azura very much wants the love of her followers. Regardless of the interpretation of her actions, she is this toward the Nerevarine in Morrowind, being nothing but pleasant towards and protective of the Nerevarine, just as she was to the original Nerevar thousands of years before.
• Etrian Odyssey: Most town leaders in the series are decent people, but the Outlands Count from Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan is an even better boss, as he knows full well of the responsibilities of his office, frequently issuing orders intended to improve Tharsis and remove potential hazards for adventurers, acting as a capable diplomat with the Vessels and Sentinels, and making a decent effort to stand The Empire's demands. Sure, he's a pampered aristocrat with his fluffy lapdog, but when the chips are down, he considers his own life to be expendable if it will help protect Tharsis.
• EXTRAPOWER: Attack of Darkforce: Surprisingly, Big Bad Dark Force himself towards his own minions, insofar as a universal conqueror leaving a wake of ruined planets can be. He gives absolute trust and praise two his Co-Dragons Undata and Mensouma, and the worst he gives the repeat incompetence of Goldfish Poop Gang Sunny Day and Funny Face is mothership cleaning detail to build their pride in their work and themselves. In turn he receives their best efforts (relatively, in the case of Sunny and Funny) and undying loyalty.
• Mr. House in Fallout: New Vegas. He's an Insufferable Genius at first, and occasionally snarks when the Courier asks what he thinks is a dumb question, but he treats them with exactly as much respect as he is shown in turn. He is open and honest about his plans, trusts the Courier to make their own tactical decisions, and provides them with full access to a refurbished luxury hotel suite and cocktail lounge.
• Fatal Fury: Would you believe Geese Howard is like this? His Dragon, Billy Kane, is treated like a friend more than an employee, and he even treats his minions to drinks on occasion.
• Final Fantasy:
  • In Final Fantasy VI, General Leo qualifies for this trope, though he is not a boss in the video game sense. When he is first seen by the party he shows his benevolent nature by refusing to let his soldiers charge recklessly at the enemy, determined to minimize casualties on both sides. He later shows modesty when he tells Terra he is no better than Kefka (the main villain in the game) because he allowed him to get away with his crimes. He is killed by Kefka during his short time being controlled by the player.
  • Final Fantasy XIV has Godbert Manderville, the owner of the Manderville Gold Saucer and member of the Syndicate of Ul'dah. He uses his considerable wealth to try to improve the lot of his countrymen and pays the Ala Mhigan refugees in his employ competitive wages.
• Galaxy Angel: Tact Mayers is a Brilliant, but Lazy example, as he's often found wandering the Elsior and interacting with the crew than being found in his office or on the Bridge. Since he's pretty lackadaisical in letting the ship and crew run itself outside of combat situations, he often has to be prodded by his subcommander Lester Coolduras into doing his non-combat duties, like paperwork. It carries over to the Galaxy Angel II trilogy when he's put in charge of the Luxiole, and when Coco succeeds him as commander, she pretty much maintains the same carefree but effective leadership style as him.
• The Arbiter in Halo. Prior to his Heel–Face Turn, he takes full responsibility of the destruction of the first Halo ring, even if it wasn't his fault, to spare all his men under him from any repercussions. During gameplay, he can potentially rescue units that are in trouble. Notably, several Grunts outright praise and thank him when they are around him. Some even join the Elites' side during the Great Schism purely because they would rather follow the Arbiter than the Prophets or Brutes. The Arbiter even shows mercy to those that oppose him, to the chargin of some of his subordinates, though the Arbiter doesn't have much patience for traitors, such as his cousin who found out the hard way.
• Yuri from Infinite Space. Bastian even notes this is the reason why he is a better captain than his rival since Yuri forms a bond with his crews rather than simply treating them as the power to run his ship. In terms of gameplay, choosing the "benevolent" options will usually give pretty nice stat bonuses.
• In Jak and Daxter, Osmo is to Daxter what Samos is to Jak, in a way: he compliments and praises Daxter for his excellent work.
• Like a Dragon:
  • Goro Majima, as shown in Yakuza 0, is a pretty great boss, but only when working in legitimate business with civilians; he listens to his employees and will give them time off with pay if they're too stressed, steps in to calm rowdy customers to protect those under him, and will settle disputes himself rather than let them fester and drag down morale. He's a legend among the Sotenbori nightlife, with both his workers at The Grand and Club Sunshine praising him for being kind, gentle and highly business savvy. When working with other yakuza in criminal enterprises, on the other hand, Majima is a Bad Boss who will threaten his underlings to get results and will beat the crap out of them if he's feeling bored. And yet somehow the Majima family loves him and would never think to betray him, likely because he's a legendary figure who brings money and prestige to those he surrounds himself with.
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon has Ichiban Kasuga who becomes this in his own way in Ichiban Holdings that he's throwing yen like it's the 80s all over again, able to recruit a menagerie of some of the best employees who have nothing but the best things to say, including the above Mad Dog of Majima, and the previous series' main character, Kazuma Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima.
• Salieri in Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven is the more benevolent counter to the more violent and vindictive Morello, at least until the end.
• The Illusive Man of Mass Effect is an Affably Evil boss who is genuinely supportive and helpful towards his subordinates in every way possible and is never largely supportive and trusting of Shepard's actions and decisions, even when don't completely align with his interests (until a certain one comes up in the end, however). Hell, he contacts Shepard just before Shepard launches what is by all accounts going to be a suicide mission to offer moral support and show concern for Shepard's safety. Just don't betray him. Bad idea. However, by the third game, he has Jumped Off The Slippery Slope and any compunctions he may have had are now gone in place of mass-indoctrination and "Contract Terminations" of scientists after they're finished with their assignments. He continues to respect Shepard regardless, however.
  • Shepard him/herself can be played as a Benevolent Boss. S/he can look out for each newly recruited team member and can make side trips that help each member with what are really personal issues. When people are kidnapped by the minions of the Big Bad, Shepard is able to make a suicide run to try and save them. And if you're a good enough boss, you can save most of the kidnapees and your entire assault team. Of course, Shepard can also be played as a massive Jerkass.
  • Admiral Hackett from the first game also counts. He compliments Shepard upon successful completion of certain side missions, and in the second game, it's revealed he's the sole reason the Alliance isn't trying to arrest and interrogate you.
• Metal Gear:
  • Big Boss arguably qualifies for Outer Heaven and Zanzibar Land, as many of the soldiers seem to praise him. His army in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker is consisted of defeated soldiers and volunteers, and he never gave them much trouble (The worst thing he did is fired them, usually if Mother Base is overcrowded), and in Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, he even helps and recruits his former enemies. You can't get a mercenary who is more benevolent than that.
  • This also holds true in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain with Big Boss' body double. Even after his staff find out the truth, their respect for the man is such that they follow him to the bitter end, regardless of his true identity. This includes Quiet, who was an assassin sent to kill him twice, and Kaz, who feels like the real Big Boss has betrayed him. Granted, he can heap piles of physical abuse on them as long as it doesn't kill them, but apparently they like being handled rough.
• Inspector Chelmeyfrom the Professor Layton series, reveals himself to be this in the third game. He admits to Layton that his right-hand officer, Constable Barton, makes a metric ton of mistakes and probably should have been fired — but Chelmey will not allow him to be, because Barton tries hard and means well and Chelmey trusts and is fond of him.
• The Boss in Saints Row may be a crime boss, a psychotic killer, the person who installed a rack of RPG launchers in the Oval Office, and a terrible driver who even gets XP for going along the wrong side of the road, but if you're a loyal and trustworthy underling, s/he will move heaven, earth, space and time to protect you. Sure, if you're not trustworthy you can probably expect to do some bleeding, but loyal homies are almost always safe.
• The Overmind in StarCraft is a horrifying alien abomination that wants to consume or assimilate all other life into the Zerg Swarm. But from the Zerg's point of view, he's a very encouraging, benevolent leader, calling the swarm his children and recognizing and rewarding success.
  I am well pleased young Cerebrate, and so long as my prize remains intact, I shall remain pleased. Thus, its life and yours shall be made as one. As it prospers, so shall you. For you are part of the Swarm. If ever your flesh should fail, that flesh shall be made anew. That is my covenant with all Cerebrates.
• Darth Jadus of the Imperial Agent storyline in Star Wars: The Old Republic is this by The Empire's standards. He is properly meritocratic, caring only if someone can get the job done with little to no bias against aliens or the Force blind. Additionally, he harshly punishes failure and disobedience just enough to remind you he's still a villain but is equally rewarding of success. In fact, he's (ironically) the only person the Agent works for who doesn't double-cross them in some way; Imperial Intelligence, the Dark Council, and the Republic all backstab the Agent throughout the course of the storyline while Jadus respected them and gave them a rank and title to ensure others do as well if you side with him.
• Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town: Misaki, the owner of the eatery in which Blaire, the marriage candidate who is Waiting for a Break, works. Misaki is shown to have come to know Blaire better than her own parents do and is a Shipper on Deck for Blaire getting together with the Player Character. Misaki also insists on going to the nearby town along with Blaire when she suspects Blaire is obliviously walking into a Casting Couch situation.
• Bowser of Super Mario Bros. is this in the RPGs. He's generally beloved by his troops who follow him out of genuine admiration and loyalty rather than fear, has a True Companions-like bond with them and in Super Mario RPG is actually very forgiving of them (letting two deserters of his army live in the Monster Town where they've found happy lives rather than forcing them back into his service). Of course, his temper is still something to be feared, and he has no qualms fighting his other mooks who have defected to Smithy's side (though sometimes they'll just run away if Bowser is in the party). Apparently, turning pacifist is okay in Bowser's book, but turning coat is not.
  • At the end of Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, Bowser lets Private Goomp, Sergeant Guy, and Colonel Paraplonk stay even after they betrayed him for Fawful, whereas Kamek wanted to kick them out of the castle.
  • Speaking of Fawful, he himself is this to his right-hand man, Midbus. A large spiny pig, this brute serves as the brawn to Fawful's brain and matches strength with Bowser. Fawful is kind and respectful to Midbus and in turn, Midbus is completely loyal.
    • Best seen in Midbus' last battle. Fawful is uneasy and considers joining the battle out of concern for Midbus. However, he decides to let Midbus go at it alone out of respect for the pig's pride, but not before using a ray gun to give Midbus some extra power and even ice abilities.
  • Count Bleck from Super Paper Mario is surprisingly nice for someone having a Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum. Much like Bowser, his minions follow him out of personal loyalty and genuine affection, and he never punishes any of them for their failures (instead leaving that to his secretary, who gives rather harmless punishments like "write a 1000-page essay"). Then again, if you're planning on wiping out all of existence anyway, including yourself and your mooks, threatening them with death seems rather pointless, even if you've convinced them that they'd be spared and would get to live in a newly created paradise afterwards.
• Zepheniah Mann from Team Fortress 2 hated his family (he didn't give a damn when his wife died giving birth and he loathed his sons) but he seemed to be fond of his employees. In his will, he gave his maid Elizabeth his personal estate and his tracker Barnabus Hale his business empire, while he gave his sons a worthless piece of land to fight over for the rest of their lives.
• Verand from "Witch Hunter Izana" surprisingly. Despite spreading a curse which forces absolute loyalty and being a blood thirsty vampire, she cares deeply for her subordinates and will instantly forgive the heroes once they have been converted to her side.
• Kil'Jaeden in World of Warcraft is this, especially when compared to his co-dragon Archimonde, who is the definition of a Bad Boss. While Archimonde in most cases would instantly kill an underling who failed a mission, Kil'Jaeden is more than willing to give second chances, especially if it's not the underling's fault, and will only exterminate the poor mook if he is a complete failure. That's pretty damn decent for someone who is the temporary replacement for the whole franchise's currently missing Big Bad, and thus one of the most powerful and evil beings in the universe, barring Sargeras himself and the Old Gods.

Visual Novels

• The protagonist of Daughter for Dessert drinks (and frolics) with his employees, understands if they need time off, and gives second chances to employees who put out shoddy work.
• Much of In Your Arms Tonight takes place in and around the protagonist's workplace at an interior design firm, where she has not one but two benevolent bosses:
  • Kippei Ebihara, the manager of the design department, is strict and demanding of his employees but also fair; he's a hands-on manager who does a lot of fieldwork himself rather than leading from a desk and is very supportive of employees who prove their work ethic and willingness to improve.
  • Above Ebihara is Hana Ichikawa, the CEO of the company, who has a friendly relationship with the protagonist and is the person responsible for promoting her into the design division. She is understanding and tolerant of the foibles of her employees and acts as a bit of a Trickster Mentor at times.
• In Heart of the Woods, Madison "Maddie" Raines works as manager for her best friend Tara Bryck's YouTube channel, Taranormal, which would make Tara her boss even though Tara treats her like an equal. Tara shoulders all of the Taranormal expenses, including paying thousands of dollars to travel to the village of Eysenfeld, while splitting royalties with Madison. Despite being unhappy about coming to Eysenfeld, especially after assuming that Morgan lied to them, Madison acknowledges that Tara is paying her for her time. Tara and Madison have a falling out when the latter announces her decision to quit Taranormal near the start of the game but reconcile near the end, and in the good ending, Tara accepts whatever Madison chooses to do.
• Hiroshi Kirisawa, the head of the 2nd Unit in Metro PD: Close to You, encourages his subordinates to run their investigations however they see fit, and he's always there to back them up should they run into trouble or need his support in any way.
• Minotaur Hotel:
  • Jean-Marie is held by Asterion as one of the best masters the hotel had, as the hotel was pretty damn close to achieving its goal when he was the master.
  • You can potentially be one, however, you first have to make it clear to Asterion that you won't hurt him, and that use your witts to deal with the hotel's issues before you can actually be seen as one.
• In the Parascientific Escape series, Evsej Amabishi, head of the Amabishi Corp, is never implied to be anything less than a stand-up guy. He refused to spoil his daughter and encouraged her to find her own passions, he cares deeply about his employees, and he's doing a lot to fix his company's sketchy past.
• Dana Zane from Va 11 Hall A looks out for her two employees. She makes up excuses to give Jill a bonus on her paycheck and is friends with her out of work, and hired and kept Gillian out of the law despite whatever he's done. Jill admits she does have a bit of a crush on her.

Web Comics

• Prince Orvar Aldane from Ashface's Daughter may be attempting to assassinate his nephew, but he makes sure that the families of people who have died in his service are well-taken care of.
• Daughter of the Lilies has Orrig, a seven-foot-tall, green-skinned, axe-wielding orc who is A Father to His Men to his small mercenary band, helping half-orc Brent with his anger management issues, and making sure hooded mage Thistle always has a room of her own so she never has to expose her face.
• In Girl Genius, House Heterodyne had a very specific case of this - they treated their minions and monsters with respect, which is such a novel concept among Sparks that they managed to garner Undying Loyalty and Legacy of Service from said monsters and minions. However, their enemies (read:everyone else) got to experience their sadistic streak. The old Mechanicsburg Anthem exemplifies this:
  "The Heterodynes, they rule us all.
  We load their guns, we forge their steel,
  We know their house will never fall,
  They keep us safe beneath their heel."
• Mike: Bookseller has Fab, who is smart, reasonable, and well-liked by his employees.
• Nosfera from Nosfera truly seems to care about her minions and servants, and becomes furious when Seymour harms them.
• Punch an' Pie:
  • The comic plays with this trope in the parallel story arcs regarding Angela's boss George and Heather's boss Brian. George is a Jerkass that nobody in the store likes, while Brian is a cheerful and upbeat guy who is naturally likable. Both of them end up in compromising sexual situations with their employees. George decides to Take a Third Option and Pet the Dog, resolving his conflict to the benefit of all; Brian, on the other hand, turns bureaucratic (albeit with a helping of regret) when confronted with conflict.
  • Then there's Angela's beloved former boss Dawna, pretty much a paragon of motherliness and benevolence.
• Dora Bianchi in Questionable Content. After all, only an all-around really cool person would name her shop "Coffee of Doom". She has exactly two rules for her employees: 1. Don't show up drunk or high, and 2. Don't screw up too much. Even her benevolence has its limits, though. When Faye breaks the first rule, Dora informs her, in no uncertain terms, that enough is enough. Though even then, after Faye drinks herself into the hospital, Dora relents slightly and decides not to officially fire her until the insurance has paid the hospital bill. Given she only employs three of her own friends, perhaps not so surprising. Marten's bosses have a tendency towards this trope though (among others).
• Zig Zag, founder of the porn studio "Double Z Studios" from the webcomic Sabrina Online definitely qualifies; her employees totally adore her (with the exception of Darke Katt, though she always was a bitch to start with), she treats her male porn stars like people rather than pieces of meat, and she insists that she be addressed as Zig Zag, not "boss" or "ma'am" to keep her connection with her workers as close as a family.
• In Sinfest, the green succubus thinks Satan treats her right. The backstory flashbacks showing Baby Blue and Fuschia's origins indicates that Satan recruits down-on-their-luck girls so they'll see him as a kind boss and be loyal to him.
• Something*Positive:
  • Lawrence Sanderson, Davan's (later) boss in stark contrast to Davan's previous employer. Sanderson treats Davan as more of a colleague than a subordinate and they share the dark sense of humour standard for the comic's protagonists.
  • Davan's best friend Aubrey is also this to her employees at Nerdrotica. Unless they do something genuinely stupid, such as challenging her decision to adopt a child, she's generally very amiable toward them and maintains a fun, relaxed work atmosphere.
• Spinnerette: Dr. Universe is always like this with Greta. Even before he was a villain. Greta reciprocates in kind.
• Subnormality makes the claim that this is the worst boss you can possibly have; despite all the varied and sundry overtly horrible bosses for whom you could be working, this is the only one that makes you feel good about your pointless menial job.
• Wapsi Square:
  • Monica's boss, despite his slight ineptitude at times, genuinely cares about the museum employees and even set Monica up with her boyfriend Kevin. In addition, Heather's boss once told her that she had spent too much time working and that she needed to go out and have fun (yes it was a direct order).
  • Tina the demonic barista is this to her assistant. Whether she's the owner of the coffee shop or an employee herself is still nebulous.

Web Original

• Donnie DuPre from Demo Reel is probably too much of a Wide-Eyed Idealist to be actually effective as a boss, but he thinks the others (including the terrorists) are his best friends within five minutes of meeting them, and tries his best to keep everyone's hopes up.
• Rather unexpectedly, Adolf Hitler is this in Der Disneygang, a YouTube series based on the Hitler Rants meme. After having legally bought Disney, his Nazi forces start to occupy the Disney universe, with Goebbels being put in charge of the occupation. What makes Hitler a benevolent boss, is that he wants the Disney characters to become full-fledged German citizens and actually listens to the complaints of his generals about Goebbels' abusive treatment of the Disney characters. As a result, he makes clear he'll elect a replacement leader for Disney as soon as he can.
• Zigzagged with Terry from Dinosaur Office. He is usually kind to his employees, allowing for some of their work to be a little late and even taking responsibility for accidents that may take place in the office. However, there are times when he will just eat whoever he wants either when he's hungry or simply because he wants to. However, this is slightly justified since he is a Tyrannosaurus rex.
• Mahu: In "Crownless Eage", president Ulryk Poleska truly cares both about his nation and people. Even when the members of his own government have their own reservations, he fully trusts the citizens of the young republic.
• MoniRobo: Nano's department head was a kind person in contrast to her boss. He even gave her permission to take a week off for her father's funeral. When he found out that the boss forced her to resign, he demoted him.
• While Not Always Working is largely dedicated to bad bosses and coworkers, there are many stories of outstandingly good ones as well. Expect to see them stepping in to put bad workers in their place, in addition to these stories:
  • This 24-hour gym owner finds that a homeless man has been squatting in the men's room and begging for meals from other patrons. Instead of chasing him out, the owner asks whether he has a criminal record or substance problem, then hires him as a live-in janitor so he can repay the other patrons and get back on his feet.
  • This business owner has been actively bending rules to pay his employees generously, such as giving project bonuses and secretly firing those who leave so they can collect unemployment until their next jobs begin.
  • This head chef allows and encourages restaurant staff to freely take leftovers for themselves after every shift. When one trainee starts taking tarts by the dozen, the chef is first concerned whether he has anything else to eat, and then pleased when the trainee says he's actually planning to give them to homeless people at the train station.
  • The management at one company hosts Christmas parties every year, treating the workers to lavish holiday dinners and handing out high-value gift cards. When the Covid pandemic makes attending Christmas parties unsafe, they instead order 4-serving holiday dinner boxes so the workers can "party" at home with their families instead of going out and risking exposure. The traditional gift cards are hidden in the dinner boxes as well.
• Revenge Films: When the MC and his boss arrive at his house early and catch his wife cheating, the boss immediately calls his wife (who had helped someone else with the same issue before) to get advice and immediately leaves to get something to record the evidence at her suggestion. When his wife reveals that she had been seeing the affair partner’s car at the MC’s house for the past few months, she and the boss help the MC confront the cheating couple by bringing the evidence they had gathered along with some coworkers to keep the pair from leaving and allows the MC to stay with them afterward, encouraging him to sue his cheating wife.
• Morgan, the D-Tier Villain Protagonist of S&D Tier, treats their minions with respect and kindness. They even let a minion bow out of a heist so he can attend his daughter's piano recital. In general, they're implied to get on well with their underlings.
• Sekai no Fushigi: Yuuji's boss is kind to him and encourages him to join a bigger company to expand his skills and appreciates everything he did for his company. Even after Yuuji left the company, his former boss also supports his relationship with his daughter so they can be family.
• Skitter from Worm listens to the problems of her minions and takes steps to resolve them, doesn't ask them to do anything immoral that they aren't comfortable with, and does her best to keep them safe from other supervillains.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender:
  • Iroh is a good candidate for this trope. He withdrew his troops from a two-year-long siege of Ba Sing Se when he realized that it was pretty much hopeless (granted, it took the death of his only son to see this...), and he acts more or less like the voice of reason to the troops under Zuko's command during his exile. It is probably safe to say that Iroh is the only reason that the crew did not mutiny the entire time they were under Zuko's command.
  • Zuko has his moments in the first season too, despite being a Jerkass at the same time. He nearly kills himself saving the life of his ship's helmsman, and this is after his crew spent a good half of the episode bad-mouthing Zuko for his jerk assery.
• Bruce Wayne's Benevolent Boss qualities are shown in Batman: The Animated Series, most overtly in "Mean Seasons". After he finds out that his senior manager Bernie Benson is retiring due to his company's mandatory retirement rule, despite the fact that he clearly loves his job and doesn't want to leave, Bruce starts to see how similar it is to how unfairly Calendar Girl was treated, neglected simply because she was considered too old for the career she loved. Eventually, Bruce decides to change the retirement policy, telling Bernie, much to his delight, that he can do his job for as long as he is able.
• Beavis And Butthead has a unique case in the Burger World Manager. He's high-strung, yells at his workers, and even on one occasion, slapped one of them off-screen during Christmas holiday hours to wake them up. But the kicker is that his employees are Beavis and Butt-head, two exceedingly dumb and incompetent workers who consistently act rude to customers, get their orders wrong, have no sanitation standards, get the manager injured through their stupidity, and ruin the restaurant's reputation beyond salvage. The fact that the Burger World manager has yet to be shown firing them is a possible testament to how he might sympathize with the boys to keep giving them chance after chance despite his frustrations and during the Christmas Episode, he even tries to tell Beavis in an exasperated manner that Beavis needs to learn to work hard if he wants to have a nice life for himself.
• J. Gander Hooter from Darkwing Duck: Absent-minded, a bit on the eccentric side, but an effective and fair mission control to Darkwing and the agents of S.H.U.S.H., generous with praise and sternly serious about getting results on protecting the world from F.O.W.L.
• Although jokes about Scrooge McDuck's underpaid employees are just as widespread in DuckTales (1987) as in the comics, no one can deny that Scrooge's employees all like working for him. Launchpad once accepts a job from Flintheart Glomgold, only to get fired after a few minutes for crashing the plane; Launchpad muses how Mr. McD "never fired him that fast" and is eager to go back to presumably the one boss in the world patient enough and tough enough to hire such a pilot. When the boys accidentally get Scrooge's butler Duckworth fired, they apologize and tell him they'll miss him but still think any job "is better than being Uncle Scrooge's slave"; Duckworth says indignantly, "I love serving Mr. McDuck!" And when Scrooge goes looking for three cargo ships of his that have disappeared, he finds his crews being held prisoner (along with many others) on a bizarre seaweed island. Scrooge's captain tells him how hearing that he had arrived made them all feel hope for the first time in years, and they all had faith that, with him leading the way, they could escape (Scrooge doesn't let them down). Employees of McDuck Enterprises all seem to consider their boss benevolent, even if Good is Not Nice.
  • Scrooge has also been known for taking personal affront when someone goes after his employees.
• Gravity Falls: Mabel Pines starts out this way when she gets to run the Shack in "Boss Mabel". Ultimately deconstructed as she can't bring herself to say no to Soos' ridiculous mascot idea, Wendy takes advantage of Mabel's niceness to go goof off with her friends, and Dipper's attempt to liven up the Shack with an actual monster, the Gremoblin, goes horribly wrong (first by no one believing it's a monster and then it escaping in part of Mabel's attempt at being nice). After the twins scare the Gremoblin away, Mabel ends up snapping at Soos and Wendy after the two try to get out of fixing the damage done to the Mystery Shack, and she ends up barking orders like Stan to get things done.
• Hazbin Hotel:
  • Going hand-and-hand with her All-Loving Hero Nice Girl personality, Charlie is nothing but a fair, sweet-tempered employer to her Hazbin Hotel employees; by the season 1 finale, she refers to them as her family.
  • Zigzagged with Sir Pentious. In the pilot he doesn't treat his minions too well, often harming and insulting them (like when he slapped one away for annoying him). But he wouldn't go so far as to shoot one with his ray gun (much to their disappointment), and he's capable of doing nice things for them on occasion, such as fixing their broken toys. In "Scrambled Eggs" it's revealed he cares about his minions so much that being forced to send them away drives him to tears and launches him into a depression, at one point claiming he doesn't want to live without them. When he does get them back, he yells at them to clean his room, but he ends the episode cuddling with all of them sleeping in his bed.
• The Legend of Korra
  • To the rest of his crew, whom Zaheer deeply respects and cares for. He goes out of his way to rescue each and every one of them. To any subordinate who proves to be a liability, not so much.
  • Kuvira does not emote, but she is civil and polite of her subordinates. She openly praises Bolin and Baatar in front of others, never taking credit for them or diminishing their accomplishments. She even was merciful to Zhu Li after she begged to be spared. She even expresses that she would not subject her soldiers to anything she wouldn't put herself through, when she squares off against Avatar Korra herself. Just don't question her in any way and you'll be fine...
• As revealed in the Ready Jet Go! special "Back to Bortron 7", Carrot and Celery's boss is one of the nicest aliens in the Bortron system. Also, Dr. Rafferty's boss in My Fair Jet was initially feared by the characters but turns out to be nice once Jet spices up the DSA Open House.
• Regular Show:
  • Pops falls into this trope. He's the son of the owner of the park and is technically higher-ranked than everyone else, but he rarely asserts his authority, usually lets Benson run things, and acts more like a regular employee. However, on the rare occasion he does act like an actual boss, he's a very compassionate one. When he becomes concerned with Benson's Mean Boss tendencies, he sits Benson down in his office and explains to him calmly and gently to stop yelling at his employees and to work on managing his anger. This turns out to be a bad idea, as forcing Benson to hold in his anger nearly destroys the world.
  • Benson himself could be seen as this, as he was a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who despite being a Mean Boss (and occasionally a vindictive prick) to Mordecai & Rigby gave them near-endless second chances despite their laziness and frequent property damage, and genuinely wanted to motivate them to be better. He's also shown to be very fair with the other park workers who rarely give him reasons to start yelling at them.
• The Simpsons:
  • Hank Scorpio: Great boss, offers very generous pension plans and dental insurance, just happens to be a Bond-level villain. He even went so far as to give Homer the Denver Broncos as a going-away present. (Homer had really wanted to own the Dallas Cowboys, but while Scorpio couldn't get them, he was the only one who ever told him that his dream to own them wasn't crazy.)
  • Also, he bought the Denver Broncos for Homer in 1997. The Broncos won the Super Bowl the next year. (Cue Musical Trigger - ''Scorpio!''
  • Depending on the Writer, Mr. Burns can play the trope straight, albeit on very, very rare occasions.
  • Smithers once attempted to become this after briefly being placed as Burns' temporary replacement after Burns was arrested for a theft of paintings, but after Homer, Lenny, and Carl started mocking him behind his back about his allowing them to essentially goof off... well, you get the picture.
  • Homer Simpson himself played it quite straight when he became CEO and overthrew Mr. Burns until he realized that he was missing out on his family and gave up the position. (Burns has a seemingly heartfelt conversation with Homer about the time running the plant costs someone, only to hit him with a tranq dart and attempt to wall him up in a mausoleum. Being as frail as he is, he's barely finished a row of bricks by the time Homer wakes up. The bemused Homer puts a blanket on Burns's shoulders and walks off while Burns continues to add bricks.)
    • Another example is when Homer is put in charge of the Nuclear plant outsource in India. Mostly we see his megalomaniac behavior after a few silly comments and a fortune cookie, but it turns out in the end that the worshipful behavior from the employees is due to him giving them all the benefits typical to American workers, but denied outsourced labor, such as unions, vacation time and severance pay, to Burns's dismay. Their chanting while cheering him on translates to union slogans.
  • The German bosses in the episode 'Burns Verkaufen der Kraftwerk' are far more personable and kindly than Burns ever was. They offer rehabilitation to all alcoholic employees and keep on every single employee except for Homer. They only fire Homer because his ineptitude as Safety Inspector was endangering every other person at the plant. This backfires when the plant which they bought for $100 million would cost another $100 million to be brought up to code, and they end up with no choice but to desperately sell the plant back to Mr. Burns, who buys the plant back at $50 million, minus the upgrading costs.
• Despite being a Big Bad bent on world domination, Lord Hordek of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power is a remarkably benevolent boss to his underlings. He rewards genuine effort and competence with promotion, patches over shaky loyalty with favoritism, punishes complacent attitudes and Bad Boss behavior with demotion, and only berates his minions when they refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. He also doesn't try to micromanage his subordinates, giving them more latitude to act and even officially authorizing their actions if those actions benefit the Horde.
• `Mr. Boss from Smiling Friends is an unstable and at times murderous madman, but he's also a friendly and polite boss who treats his employees quite well and never has a bad word for anyone. He even lets Charlie and Pim call him crazy to his face with no punishment.
• Pink Diamond from Steven Universe turns out to be this, especially in regards to her Pearl, our Pearl.
• Rebecca Cunningham from TaleSpin usually leans towards this, generally treating her employees more as friends and has yet to fire one despite their numerous acts of stupidity. That said, due to having slight Control Freak tendencies and a bit of an erratic personality, she can have shades of a Mean Boss or Pointy-Haired Boss at times (especially in early episodes).
• Breakdown of Transformers: Prime is a villainous example. He's an antagonist, but he tells his subordinates to keep up the good work and that he understands the job the Vehicons were doing can be thankless. Considering Decepticon M.O. is usually that the best you can hope for is barked orders and that your superiors only threaten you for incompetence, that's a step up.
• SpongeBob SquarePants: Mr. Krabs is this towards SpongeBob, at least when money is not involved, although this can depend on the episode. An example is in "Nature Pants". At the start, he actually had legit reason to fire SpongeBob, but despite multiple offenses (he mentions it's the fourth time that week SpongeBob began neglecting his job), he calmly talks with SpongeBob about it. He sincerely tries to make SpongeBob feel good about the life he has without being condescending. During the welcome home party, he gives SpongeBob a free Krabby Patty, embraces him, and immediately rehires him (or never fired him), despite SpongeBob walking out on the job. In short, this is one of the episodes where Mr. Krabs is at his most generous, to the point it's a bit jarring to know what he would become in later seasons.
• Xiaolin Showdown: Wuya, the Heylin Witch Big Bad of the first season is very good to her loyal and competent henchmen; she granted Raimundo and Katnappe (the latter not even doing anything to earn it) everything they desired, with no intention to betray them. For Raimundo specifically, she went out of her way to learn air hockey to personally play with him when he was sad about betraying his friends.

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