What Every Leader Should Know About The Bottom Line

If you were to do a random survey on what the average person believed the primary goal of a supervisor is, you would most-likely find that the majority would say that supervision is about getting results. However, the deeper question about leadership is, whether supervisors who demand absolute compliance to company policies without questions and demand immediate results be absolutely or mostly-effective in their role?

Whether you are a supervisor or not, chances are that you have one if you are currently employed. If you are in a position where you are required to direct other people’s activity, then you definitely need to take a deep inward look into your supervisory skills and practices. The most-effective leaders know that this truly is the key to maximizing one’s own personal potential for getting better results from the people you direct. We must always be in the practice of knowing what we know and affirming what serves us and our organization well in how we deliver leadership.

Supervision is all about building high-quality working relationships with the people we work with. Trust between and among all team members always requires time to develop. However, once it does, synergy, production and communication can be maximized. No matter what the task, individual efforts and thoughts can soon assuredly be applied to whatever situation arises. Another by-product of well-developed trust is that conflicts become minimized and as a result, time is both saved and maximized. Trust is at the foundation of high performing teams!

Teams are complex, but it is all about trust. The best supervisors know that they should always be able to unquestionably trust an employee to get a job done satisfactorily. Likewise, the employee should be able to trust his or her supervisor to give unwavering and unquestionable support, as well as fair compensation. Generally, employees have high expectations for leadership in the workplace. Employees want to be treated with deep respect and dignity. When there is tried-and-true trust, a strong working relationship builds the maximized commitment that gets the work done well—efficiently AND effectively.

Excellent supervisors never skimp on training their employees and help develop them to be the best they can ultimately be. Successful leaders are always happy to take time to refine their employees’ skills and bring in experts to continue the growth that every person needs to stay fresh and motivated. The benefit of constantly investing in updating employee skills is quite obvious. Employers can retain the employees, which ultimately lowers costs of doing business. Likewise, training builds skills to grow as well as meet the future needs of the business.

These are the most-competitive times in all of history. Organizations must learn to retain talent and keep them loyal. Losing an employee to the competition has immeasurable costs. Of course training also benefits each employee. It gives him or her, an opportunity to grow and take on new roles and responsibilities within the workplace. There is always room in EVERY smartly-competitive organization for employee growth.

Employees who no longer feel that they can grow within an organization will most likely seek better employment elsewhere. For example, most of the work that is done these days involves an interface with some form of technology. If the company takes the time to train their employees to use the newest technology and intellectual training, it enhances the employees’ skills with handling the technology current as well as helps the employee learn more about himself/herself. As a result, the employees would be most likely stay for a long time with the organization that paid for that training.

Supervisors are also coaches. They rely on their skills in coaching to develop their employees to become self-directed. It takes a lot of effort and time to always have to stand over someone’s shoulder to make sure the work gets done. With all the responsibilities that supervisors have, it pays to be able to delegate work and support employees with coaching.

There are often cases where supervisors are tasked with resolving conflicts. Conflict resolution is very important for leaders at every level to understand. In every organization with multiple employees, conflict within a team can affect the performance of the employees and the reputation of the organization. When performance gets affected, the bottom line ultimately will be impacted. Conflict can be very expensive for organizations.

Leaders must always be cognoscente that the workplace always needs to be safe. Smart supervisors should take on the responsibility of maintaining safety. This is an exceedingly important skill. When a supervisor make it clear that safety is crucial, he or she is ultimately communicating to the employees that they are valued and important. Of course a side-benefit of having a safe place to work is that it helps the organization to become more productive and profitable. Injuries nickel and dime the profit and success off every organization.

Supervisory skills are exceptionally important. The most effective leaders are always making sure that their personal and employees’ skills are kept sharp. Truly, training can be the best investment anyone can make. The result of sharp supervisory skills will be increased employee confidence, greater employee satisfaction, a safe work environment and ultimately a positive workplace where all employees will crave to contribute to enhance performance and enhance profitability of the organization.

For More Information Visit: www.paulgerhardt.com

The 10 Secrets of Effective Leadership for Supervisors

As a leader, manager, business owner or supervisor, it is so important that you understand what it takes to be an effective leader. It is all about understanding the art and science behind effectively leading, managing, motivating and supervising your employees or staff.

These in a nutshell are the essentials. Hopefully, these tips will help you improve your skills and your relationships with your staff. As a result, you should find deeper trust and support.

• Be impartial: As a supervisor or leader, you need to treat each of your staff in an unbiased manner. Always consciously be fair. Always be respectful to EVERYONE you come in contact with, not matter what the position he/she may hold. We all know that there are those individuals who may be more pleasant than others. Others that may be quite the opposite. No matter what, you should avoid any hint of favoritism and treat everyone fairly.

• Be a coach: The workplace is simply that – a place to work. It is not the frontline of a war. Include your staff in decision making whenever it is possible. Encourage them to improve their skills. Try your best to help them get promotions, pay hikes or get recognition when they deserve it. Be a coach of the team. Think about the consequences of treating employees with anything less than respect that good coaches do. Give your employees the tools they need to do the job right and to grow both personally and professionally. There truly is enough success in the workplace for everyone. Share it and inspire it!

• Criticize diplomatically: When you need to give criticism about a person’s performance, you need to be diplomatic. You should avoid making any conclusions without considering the repercussions. Be tactful. The rule of thumb is to praise in public and criticize in private. No one wants to be criticized in front of an audience. You may remember hating it when you were a child being criticized in front of the class. Keep that in mind. Make the criticism specific and work-oriented. It is not personal. Timing is important too. Make the critique immediately when you witness it rather than waiting for several days or longer. It needs to be meaningful, memorable and diplomatic to have long-term success.

• Defend your staff: Remember how your parents used to stick up for you when other people criticized you unfairly? You need to do the same thing with your staff. You need to show them that you are a supportive and reasonable supervisor. When your employees are wrong, find a creative solution to protect your staff, but make things right in the most-diplomatic way possible. Don’t sellout your team, but include them in coming to the conclusion for themselves that mistakes were made if that were the case. If your employees are in the right, help the other party come to that conclusion with logic and REAL facts and data. The whole goal of running an effective organization is creating a sense of trust and value for ALL involved.

• Flexibility is important: Procedures are there to guide people on how things should be done. However, wise leaders recognize that there are times when you need to be flexible when you are dealing with the concerns of your staff. You need to use common sense. Consider who all is involved, who is helped and harmed, as well as any possible long-term consequences of the decision. Not everything is black-and-white or cut-and-dry. Being flexible helps employees to give their best. It does not stifle creativity and promotes the value of being an individual. Some rules CAN simply be broken from time-to-time.

• Keep things simple: When you are giving directions to an employee about a task, make them simple and easy to understand. Try your best not to make things seem so difficult even if the task is actually very challenging. Giving simple directions will make the employee feel confident that he or she can do the job. Keep the person’s learning style in mind. Some folks do better when you give the bottom line of what the final project needs to look like. Others need specific directions. Others need it demonstrated. Be wise and know who you are talking to and change YOUR leadership style to meet the needs of each individual follower. It will pay dividends in the long-run!

• Know your staff: Get to know your team members. Learn their strengths and their weaknesses. Most importantly, make sure you know their names. Nothing can be more disappointing to an employee than to be called “hey you” or even worse “Dude”. Taking time to learn the strengths of your staff will help you when assigning tasks and they will feel good about working with you. For example, if Mary is good at planning events and loves to do that, let her do so when there is an upcoming event. She will feel good about being given a task she loves, she will do it well. She will appreciate you more for assigning her the task.

• Make sure your interest is continuing: Nothing can be more disappointing for an employee that not being given feedback about how well they have done. Feedback on performance needs to be regular. You need to be honest and give feedback regularly. Praise when praise is due and give suggestions for improvement when it is not. Be very specific in your praise. Do not just say, “Good job!” Say, “That looks great! I like the way you met the goal with time to spare and I am confident our customers will like what you did with this specific piece here!”

• Surround yourself with the very best: Being a successful leader means realizing what your personal strengths are and then surrounding yourself with others with the talent you are missing. Know what you know and know what you do not know. There is enough success in this world for all of us. Put the right people in the right places and take good care of them!

• Train everyone: Each person is unique and has his or her own weaknesses and strengths. Make sure you take the time to develop the skills and abilities of each and every member of your staff. Do not overlook anyone. When you take the time to develop everyone, employees will know that you care for them and they will respect you for that. Their performance will improve. Just because an employee says, “Yes. I understand.” That may also mean, “I don’t want you to think I am stupid, but I really did not understand.” Effective training involves the trainee showing how to effectively implement the training and put things in his own words to show complete understanding.

Ethical Supervisor Behavior

The relation between a supervisor and supervisee can be very delicate. Often, the supervisee is at the receiving end because of hierarchy. Therefore, to protect the interests of the supervisee, there are certain ethical standards that a supervisor needs to adhere to. Exhibiting ethical behavior indicates professional approach of a supervisor.

It is the duty of a supervisor to provide an atmosphere conducive to boosting personal and professional growth of each and every employee. It includes delivering training, helping in the learning process by supporting the supervisee in whatever way possible, and also seeing that the client is well served by every employee.

Although research shows that a majority of supervisors adhere to ethical practices such as keeping employees up to date, meeting them regularly and sharing knowledge about the customs, practices, legal and ethical responsibilities, and so forth. However, research suggests that many of them do not adhere to several other ethical guidelines. One example of a practice that most supervisors can build a reputation of doing better is maintaining transparency within the department. Research indicates that as many as 50% of all supervisors do not adhere to ethical behavior guidelines, especially as it relates to transparency.

It is observed that when supervisors don’t comply with the ethical guidelines that it is reflected in a weak working relationship and alliance of the supervisor and employees.

Supervisory alliance encompasses three factors. These are:

· Relationship between the supervisor and the employee

· Understanding of the purview of supervision

· An understanding of the tasks that will be supervised

When there is a strong work relationship between the supervisor and employee, it will result in improved efficiency, role clarity and transparency. It also results in greater job satisfaction for the employee.

Too often, supervisors adhere to unethical practices, such as sexual overtures, discrimination between the employees, lack of transparency etc. Often, a supervisor who is not confident about himself would resort to dirty tactics such as not communicating enough of the organizational guidelines, or will not delegating important work, and so on.

Of course unethical practices or neglecting effective communication and training will have a negative impact on productivity of each team member and will also result in employee dissatisfaction. In such circumstances, the employee and team may suffer from anxiety. Employee anxiety is a condition where the supervisee is in a constant state of apprehension, stress, uneasiness and fear whenever the supervisee has to interact with the supervisor. In many cases, the supervisee will carry the grudge home, and it will affect his family life as well.

It is quite common to feel slightly anxious while dealing with the supervisor, because of the nature of ‘boss-subordinate’ relationship. However, if the employee feels overly anxious, then it is a cause of concern. This is because over anxiety will adversely affect employee performance. He will start showing lack of interest, and will show negative response to the supervision. For example, if a supervisee feels that the supervisor favors another employee in the department, and divulges confidential conversation to that employee, then, he may lose trust in the supervisor. This will have a great impact on work, self esteem and the supervision response. Worst of all, the employee too may resort to unethical practices.

Just as supervisors follow unethical practices, employees may also resort to unethical behavior. It is very important to know that one of the most common unethical employee behaviors is to bypass authority. So, with this in mind, supervisors must be aware of the long-term consequences of his/her behaviors. Little things done or not done can lead to unhappy teams and ultimately organizational demise.