How to Be an Effective Supervisor

culled from:wikihow.com

Effective supervisors are necessary in all settings where employees need guidance and supervision to complete tasks, serve customers and meet deadlines. Corporations, private and public organizations, and educational institutions are some of the environments that search for effective supervisors. A skilled supervisor is an effective communicator, problem-solver and employee motivator. Drawing out the potential of workers requires insights into their strengths and developmental needs. Here are strategies for becoming an effective supervisor.

Steps

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Communicate effectively and respectfully. Start by clarifying expectations for the department or area you are in. What is your group expected to deliver for the organization?

• Listen carefully. Your openness to other's ideas and concerns helps you understand the situation and make better decisions. Making the time and space to listen to employees is a critical part of being an effective communicator. When you give workers your undivided attention, they feel respected and are more willing to listen to your guidance. Strictly giving orders without listening can erode worker commitment and enthusiasm.
• Speak clearly and concisely. Avoid lecturing workers or sending directives by way of wordy emails. Think about the most important messages you want to convey and communicate them face-to-face or over the phone. Put thought into your email communications to ensure that they are clear, concise and respectful.

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   Schedule regular meetings with employees. Honor your workers by making time for them on a daily or weekly basis. Ask them about the projects they are working on during these meetings, and how you can help. Devote regular meetings to hearing worker grievances and triumphs. Use the meetings to discuss team successes and to brainstorm solutions to new problems.
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   Give credit where credit is due. Appreciate work that creates the desired result.
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   Focus on employee strengths. Pay attention to the unique talents and skills of each worker and utilize those strengths for the benefit of the project or company. For example, a worker may be excellent on the phones but a slow typist. Find opportunities for her to apply her phone skills to building company connections, selling products or serving customers.
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   Help strengthen weaknesses. Part of being an effective manager is assisting employees to transform their weaknesses into competencies. The first step is creating awareness of an area that needs improvement. A slow typist, for example, can be encouraged to take a typing class or be assigned additional typing tasks to improve her skills.
   • Avoid drawing attention to weaknesses unnecessarily. Excessive focus on employee weaknesses can result in discouragement and low employee morale.
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   Be a problem solver. Conflicts are common in the workplace and can occur between workers, between an employee and a supervisor, or between a worker and a client. Being an effective problem solver means staying focused on the facts of the situation and thinking of creative solutions. Avoid focusing on emotions and blame. Think of the necessary steps for helping employees to regain composure and resume the task at hand.
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   Be Resilient. When things go wrong, avoid investing in blame and recriminations and instead focus on moving forward with a renewed commitment, clearer focus, and the benefit of “lessons learned” from the mishap, mistake or issue.
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   Establish systems and documentation to streamline processes. Create systems to save employees time on a task and/or to eliminate errors. Create documents that outline employee responsibilities and who is responsible for which tasks.
   • Schedule training sessions for employees. Invest in growing your staff. Develop training manuals to assist employees with specific tasks. Allow question and answer sessions for learning new tasks.
   • Automate menial tasks. Encourage employees to focus more on productive and engaging projects.