To the best two managers I can recall, I would say to the first : Thanks for giving me perspective and encouragement. When I had been there a very short time and had found a mistake in a file (which I may have made or it may have been someone else's... I don't remember) she said, "well, one thing you'll find out after being in this business a while is that nothing that is messed up can't be corrected, until a check is mailed. So, since you caught this one very early, it will just take a few minutes to figure out and fix. Don't worry about it."

To the other, I would say, "thanks for 'having my back.' You always stood up for the people who reported to you, even when there was a risk for you in doing it. I'll never forget that. " When I started that job, a family member was critically ill and I had told the boss that I might need to take unpaid leave if/when she got worse. He remarked,  "We'll cross that bridge later." When the time came, I had scraped together enough vacation time to take time off to care for her and requested the vacation time to do it. His response was "No, I don't think so. That's not vacation time. That's family leave." I protested that I hadn't worked there long enough to accrue sufficient leave time, but he said, "Let me work that out. I'll deal with HR and get it set up. Vacation is for R&amp;R, not something as stressful as this. You get out of here and take care of your family. This is just work... not nearly as important." From that day on, if anybody said anything negative about him in my presence, they heard from me!