Supervision: What you must learn to do
Job descriptions are filled with phrases like "motivates team members to top performance" and "establishes and communicates team goals in accordance with company policy." The only thing wrong with those phrases is that they don't tell you anything about what you actually do as a supervisor.
If you're trying to decide if getting promoted to supervisor is for you or if you want to be a great supervisor or if you design training programs for supervisors, you'll do better if you concentrate on what supervisors have to do every day. This article will help you.
The Supervisor's Core Activity
Your core activity is to talk to people who work for you about their behavior and performance. Behavior is what people say and do. Performance is the measurable result of work. Many of the things you must learn to do well are necessary to accomplish that core activity.
You must know the core tasks that your people should be able to perform. Most jobs have six or seven core tasks. You need to know what those tasks are and how to measure and describe unacceptable, acceptable and excellent behavior on each.
You must know your people. You need to know their ability level for each of the core tasks. You need to know if they willingly pitch in to help the team succeed. And you need to develop a way to identify and build on each person's preferences for how they want to be supervised.
You must assign work intelligently. You should be able to assign work in a way that the task will be done well and your people will stay safe. "Safe" in this case may mean physically safe, but it may also mean "safe from organizational consequences."
You must communicate clearly. Learn to give good, clear inst ...