A "good" boss is a boss that have leadership abilities and who is able to lead a Family in one direction. And if he´s not able to keep himself out of indictments and out of the risk of getting himself imprisoned, he´ll lose credibility with his troops. After all, the troops are dependent on his connections and power. A good boss also needs to be fair, so he must forget about being selfish, if he wants to keep the job.

Did John Gotti have these traits? Maybe he did, maybe he didn´t. But Gotti´s biggest problem was that he loved the lime light and he loved the attention given to him by the media. His nonhcalant ways when speaking to the media (and he sometimes trash talked the government) just added fuel to the fire which of course pissed the prosecution side off. A smarter boss would never challenge the government like that. Gotti seems to have thought that he was bigger than life.