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14 Ways to Supervise
www.melindabrody.com
407-294-7614
14 Ways to Supervise
TO BE a good boss, you have to be an effective leader. Here are 14 ways to ensure that your employees will follow:
1. Be accessible. A good leader never is too busy or preoccupied to spend "quality time" with an employee, and the time you set aside to listen to a problem or cheer someone on - or up - never is wasted.
2. Match your employees' duties to their abilities and the tools and technology that are available to them. Workers can do only as good a job as their abilities and circumstances enable them to do. A good leader never is too busy or preoccupied to spend "quality time" with an employee, and the time you set aside to listen to a problem or cheer someone on - or up - never is wasted.
3. Seek your workers' ideas, opinions and feedback - positive or negative - and include them in the planning of projects whenever possible.
4. Don't meddle. Once you've handed out an assignment, back off. If you make it clear that you have faith in your workers' abilities and professional skills, they'll respond by proving that your faith is justified.
5. Think of you and your employees as members of a team, not a group of subordinates with a leader. Make it clear that while each worker has value as an individual, his or her greater value is as a member of the team. A good leader never is too busy or preoccupied to spend "quality time" with an employee, and the time you set aside to listen to a problem or cheer someone on - or up - never is wasted.
6. Criticize sparingly, praise lavishly. Recognize what people do right, and they'll do more and more of it. Criticize and second-guess them unnecessarily, and they loose their self-confidence, initiative and drive.
7. Keep your perspective. If you act as if every small crisis is a matter of life and death, your employees will have tuned you out by the time a real matter of life and death comes along.
8. Share the credit, never the blame. If something goes wrong, you're responsible even if an employee was at fault. Never accept the credit for the successes of your team, on the other hand, even if you deserve it.
9. Don't try to do everything, or you'll do nothing well. Ask yourself these questions everyday: Do all these tasks need my personal attention? Can any of my employees handle any of them? If not, can I train them to?
10. Keep your expectations of your workers - and yourself - realistic. Aim for excellence, not perfection.
11. Don't be a know-it-all. Admit when you don't know something and you'll gain - not lose - your employees' respect. Besides, not knowing the solution to a problem is a golden opportunity to give a team member the chance to shine in solving it.
12. Keep your sense of humor. Leaders who are capable of seeing the ridiculous in just about every situation - and in themselves - usually have cheerful, productive people working for them.
13. Think of conflict as a useful tool, not a failure on your part When you encourage people to think for themselves, you're bound to have some conflicts, but people tend to fight for ideas they believe in, and intelligent debate keeps fresh ideas coming.
14. Finally, ask yourself in every situation, "What is the fair and kind thing to do about this?" and "How would I want my boss to treat me in this situation?" Because the best leaders (and bosses) don't forget The Golden Rule.
Melinda Brody, MIRM has been inspiring and evaluating salespeople for almost two decades. She offers sales seminars, keynotes and video mystery shopping services for builders across North America.
