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To be a Good Supervisor

Learning to Coach, Counsel, and Lead

Feb 3, 2009 David Hornestay

Many organizations overlook the difficulty of selecting the right people to be supervisors. Even the most suitable then need development to make them effective.

How often does a top-performing worker become a supervisor because it's the easiest way to get him or her a raise? How often do these selectees hate the new responsibilities or find themselves completely at sea in trying to fulfill them?

Picking the Right Ones

Not everyone is meant to lead others. Fine workers may love their trade, craft, or profession and prefer to spend their careers perfecting themselves at just that. Or their personalities may make them uncomfortable talking to others about their work. They may lack the interest or aptitude for analyzing a flow of operations or visualizing how their group's output fits into their employer's mission. People who are characteristically selfish or insulting can demoralize and damage a work unit.

Although some of these characteristics are deep-seated enough to be resistant to counseling and training, others can be overcome and converted into assets. However, an organization should be well acquainted with the personalities and motivation of those considered for supervisory positions before entrusting the destinies of groups of employees to them.

There are many screening devices available through human resources offices, trade associations, and educational institutions for determining supervisory aptitude and fitness. These can be a help but are only tools for supplementing the judgement of the organization's managers and its dedication to seeing that those chosen are properly prepared and supported to assume and sustain challenging new responsibilities. The objective is to identify people who want to help others work together toward common goals and show some of the talents for doing that.

Developing Leadership Talent

While many recognize the abovementioned error of choosing the wrong supervisors for the wrong reasons, fewer understand the need for concentrating significant and continuing training, counseling, and guidance on even the highest potential supervisors.

Many well-meaning supervisors come to their positions with little background in motivational psychology or business organization, or lack oral and written communications skills. Today's multicultural workforce poses additional needs for awareness of racial, ethnic, and national sensitivities.

Fortunately, most of these skills can be taught or enhanced. Many organizations have their own staffs capable of performing the training; others can utilize commercial firms and educational institutions. Equally important to the initial training is the continuing support to be provided by supervisory forums, publications, and individual mentoring by proven supervisors.

The employing organization has much more at stake than the adequate filling of first-line supervisory positions. This rank also forms an important part of the talent pool for managerial positions at all levels. While corporations and agencies frequently recruit outside for new blood, new approaches, and skills not available within the workforce, they must always have a cadre of managers intimately familiar with the organization, its missions and objectives, and institutional history.

Good selection and development help maximize the organization's potential and avoid costs and acrimony.

The copyright of the article To be a Good Supervisor in Business Management is owned by David Hornestay. Permission to republish To be a Good Supervisor in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.