Good Supervisors are the backbone of any business strength and links the strategic planning of upper management with the body of the company. Therefore, all companies must rely on effective frontline managers for them to achieve the set objectives. The following are impacts relating to the way supervisors’ performance can affect those around them in the workforce. In this paper we are going to discuss the role of a supervisor in motivating, leading, and communicating in an organization.
Good supervisors are often people who make the different between meeting production targets and missing them. This is because they motivate their teams thus energizing them. Good supervisors are considered to have the most significant impact on workplace culture. This is considered to be the true because; they set the tone of the performance in their individual business areas and across the business. In addition to that, supervisors are considered to be crucial in an organization because, they influence the retention of staff. People in many companies have a strong sense of loyalty to their supervisors, thus having an easy time leading their staff. Supervisors provide incentives for most people joining the company, most of them treat people well and fairly; this makes employees feel honored and equal.
Besides that, supervisors manage the day to day running of businesses and ensure both production and quality targets are met. They understand that quality is vital to any business and it is what customers look for in an organization. They are responsible in ensuring quality is maintained in either service delivery of in production. The decisions they make while ensuring things are in order not only affect their specific work areas, but other areas of business. This is the reason Supervisors have three quality distinction roles, if a person achieves all these roles; he or she is considered to make a good supervisor. The distinctive roles include:
An operational role: Supervisors have a great role in the organization and its operation activities; they have to manage employees and their work to ensure there are proper coordination and easy flow of decision while at the same time ensuring quality is achieved. Operation is divided into three parts, the strategic, tactical and operational: The strategic operational, this is the top most level in an organization it involves making of complex decisions. It is at this level the managers and others who are charged with governance set goals and come up with designs to achieve the set goals (Canger 467). A leadership role also defines a good supervisor, if, the supervisor takes the role of leadership seriously he can be able to encourage, support and motivate employees. It is critical for supervisors to take up their leadership positions very seriously because lack of motivation among the team members will have a significant effect on the entire organization.
Supervisors are required to be excellent in communication, which serves as a two way conduit between the upper management and the people who make up the general workforce (Canger 467). Communication is vital in any business; therefore supervisors’ are responsible in ensuring a smooth flow of information in the business. This helps to involve any arising issue with urgency.
These three roles need to be performed simultaneously; they are seamless thus making the job of supervisors more demanding. After addressing the outcome one, is required to take account of overall goals of the company and individual.
Effective supervision is about managing up and down; people being good at their job do not equip them to be good supervisors of other people doing the same jobs. It is more than that, it comprises of technical skills and good working history and high job performance act as the starting points. Companies that promote on these bases alone have found that, they not only get an effective supervisor, but they also lose a good worker (Huang 1122).
The workforce expectation has changes, with a new generation x and generation Y in place, competence is expected in every aspect. Therefore, forming inspirational leaders from their first day on their job is critical. This has been contributed by, the ageing workforce and the associated challenges of labor and skill shortages coupled with intense international competition. This means that, time is no longer there for supervisors to learn on the jobs (Huang 1123). There is increasing need to continually increase productivity as a weapon against international cost pressures heightening the urgency of good supervision. An effective supervisor will therefore have a package of personal attribute defined as follows:
An effective supervisor should have good communication skills; a supervisor is required to display complex ideas in simple terms (Miltz 345). He should be able to convince others about the tasks needed and how to accomplish those tasks. They also need to communicate upward to high management about issues that are of concern. A good supervisor is required to have good communicating and listening skills, they use these skills both the upper management and their work teams.
An effective supervisor should be resourceful in everything that he does; he should be self-drive and ensuring things happen. This is known as having problem solving skills and also being more innovative and thinking beyond, additionally being creative by having solutions that others lack.
An effective leader should be flexible because the need of the business will keep on changing with time. The needs of team members will l also change, therefore, having flexible working arrangements will be a valuable tool for today’s business. It can be used in attracting and retaining the workforce they require for flexibility and adapting change.
Commitment and responsibility are other packages that supervisors should have. Managers should be aware that, tasks assigned to supervisors will be completed. They should be aware that, the work will be done in line with company’s values and long term goals. In addition to that, effective supervisors should have empathy. This is about being sensitive to the thoughts and feelings of other people. Understanding other and their likely reaction is vital to ensuring that, they develop the best performance. Employees with a goal of to becoming a supervisor could intestate ways of obtaining knowledge in various disciplinary.
It is challenging to working as a supervisor, and rewarding positions because the work requires both technical and interpersonal skills. Although the role can be fast paced they have various activities that are linked to each other. Therefore, it is important to define roles that are to be carried out by a supervisor’s.
Supervisors in the communication cycle
Supervisors are responsible for ensuring the proper flow of information in the company. They act as channels linking the employees and the top level management. They also are also responsible for presenting the issues, suggestion and ideas of the workforce back to the management team. Information should be clear to the content and on how it is presented, because when communication is done a number of messages are passed across. It is important to have set plans when communicating both with the boss and the team members (Miltz 343). These days’ supervisors recognize the importance of using good communication skills when dealing with employees. The style of communication between manager and supervisors will depend on the personalities. The following will be helpful to supervisors in most situations:
Active listening: for one to be a good listener, good communication must be in place. This involves asking appropriate questions at the appropriate time. It also involve using different words to confirm what the speaker meant
Asking questions: Asking relevant questions will help the manager to provide appropriate responses. It is important to not only be clear about what someone wants, but also have an appropriate reason of know it(Miltz 344).
Making a request: The same rules apply for requests, give the reason for making it, with some supporting information and have more detailed ready
Making judgments – The boss need to know every decision that one is making as a supervisor making. Making sound judgments is among the responsibility of a supervisor. It will be easy to make informed decisions when bosses know each other.
Approval is also required if someone from another department has asked to take on a specific task.
Passing on information- This should start with a short overall summary statement, managers should not block the communication by continually thinking, it is required that one should get to the point(Miltz 344).
Motivating employees
For a long time, supervisors believe that it is not their responsibility to nurture their employees and nurturing is something to be done at home. It is not right for supervisors’ think along this direction, because they provide oversight to the management on what employees are doing. When are cared for, they feel to be part of the organization and, as a result, increase productivity. To be a motivating supervisor it means, assessing what employees need. At times, some people just need to work with other people who care about them (Bauke 373). Putting growth into perspective, one is required to consider providing counseling or personal care.
Encouraging personal growth is a form of motivation in an organization. This is difficult for many supervisors because it is difficult to measure. For this to be achieved employees will have to write down their thoughts in the following order:
- The first concern is their priorities and what is important to them
- The second factor is, their goals and dreams they have for the future
- The thirds is the strategy as a supervisor to help employees a achieve their goals
Above all offering training and development will improve personal growth, and increase their effectiveness. Therefore, encouraging personal growth is imperative for motivating employees.
Empowering employees
It is important for employees to be trained, and after training them, they should be given responsibility as a method of empowering them in their daily activities. These are persons who report direct to the supervisor, and empowering them will motivate the employees to take on more responsibilities. When people take more responsibility they begin to take ownership that is a good thing (Bauke 374). It is wrong for leaders to micromanage people, and as long as proper training is offered then trusting employees will be paramount.
The top down method is also recommended as the best method to motivate employees. Supervisors are advised to adopt this approach and implement this method towards motivating their employees. Motivation has been described as a top down method (Bauke 375).
Leading and developing as a supervisor
Supervisors fit in the same position as manager; they even perform greater functions than the managers. Each task, every responsibility, all the various roles that supervisors are called on to perform are carried out by the management process. These processes consist of five functions that are prepared on a day to day basis.
Planning is the function of setting goals and objectives and converting them into specific plans. For a supervisor, the outcome of the planning includes operating schedule (Robert 65). Organizing: While performing this function, the supervisor lines up all the available resources, including departmental tools, equipments, materials, and especially the workforce. It is the stage that, the organizational structure of the department is designed and its work is divided up into jobs.
Staffing: While performing this function. Supervisors are considered to putting flesh on the organizational structure. Supervisors figure out exactly how many and what employees are required by a certain department. Leading: This is the function that, get the blood flow in an organization. Controlling: Once the plans in the department are set, the supervisor must keep scores on how well the plans are working out. To ensure this is done, they measure results, compare them with what was expected, judge how important the differences, and then take the necessary action to bring the result into line.
Works Cited
Miltz, Robert. Improving Supervisors’ Interpersonal Communicational. The Clearing House vol.51, No.7 (1978)pp.343-356
Canger, Jonathan. Effects of Supervisors Big Five Personality on Subordinate Attitudes Journal of Business and Psychology vol 18, No. 4 (2004), pp 465-481
Huang, Joyce. The Impact of Subordinate Supervisor Similarity in Growth Need Strength on Work Outcome, Journal of Organizational Behavior, vol.27,No.8 pp.1121-1145
Bauke, Visser. Motivating through Delegating Tasks or Giving Attention, Journal of law, Economics, and Organization, vol.23,No.3,pp 732-75e0
Robert, Barry. “Employee positive Emotion and Favorable Outcomes at the workplace.” Institution for Operations Research and the Management Sciences vol 5(2012)
