Supervisory Skills

Becoming a successful supervisor is not a very easy task as many may make you believe. It is one of the hardest things because you need to balance between friendships and loyalty. It is important for a person to have supervisory skills if he wants to make it in this field. The greatest role for any supervisor is to set achievable goals and ensuring that they are well implemented. It is about stepping forward and being a leader who is impartial and goal oriented.

One important element that all successful supervisors must have is communication. Communication is usually key to the success of every leader. A supervisor who takes time to listen to his juniors will definitely be more successful than one who acts without listening. Employees too have a lot of respect for supervisors who take their time to listen to their issues. They will definitely perform very well if they are also treated with utmost respect. A good example is where a junior staff has an idea about a problem that can be corrected if a particular item is bought. If the supervisor does not listen to the words of such person, he will have himself to blame.

The main role of the supervisors is to plan what needs to be done. The junior staff members will implement what the supervisor suggests. The work outputs that have been developed by the person needs to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time bound). If an objective does not have this aspect, it won’t be achievable.

Supervisors need to demonstrate that they are fully in charge of everything that happens. If the junior staff fails, then the blame will in many cases go to the supervisor. Therefore, every supervisor needs to take time and handle every procedure in the best way possible. It is very important for the supervisor to know every individual personally, realize their skills and assign them duties that are reasonable in line with their outputs. He also needs to provide support to the junior staff where they are not doing right. The weakness of staff members need to be identified early enough and mitigated through training.

It is also very important for supervisors to be good at problem solving. In a work environment, the processes will not always be smooth. Disagreements are always bound to happen. In this, the buck will also stop will stop with the supervisor. If he is good at solving issues, there will be no problem. He needs to be very neutral with the employees. He should not show favoritism as this will lower his integrity. The supervisor needs to be very fair in all his affairs.