The Supervisor's Special Role
The supervisor is the only manager whose subordinates
are non management employees called workers. The three most important types of
skills for any manager to possess are human, technical, and conceptual. All are
required for success, but different levels of management need them to different
degrees. Supervisors are responsible to three groups: their peers, their sub
ordinates and their superiors. Each group represents a source of support,
demands on the supervisor's time, and potential problems or challenges for the
supervisor. Each organization attempts to define a supervisor's role through
the creation of a job description and through the demands that various groups
and individuals place on the supervisor. Problems can result from role conflict
and role ambiguity. Supervisors, as well as other managers, represent linking
pins, tying two or more organizational groups or units together by their
memberships in each. Educational levels of workers are rising, women's roles
are changing, and the types of jobs that supervisors must manage are undergoing
alterations. Flextime, shared jobs, and temporary workers offer new challenges to supervisors today. The rewards
for successful supervision include pride in oneself pride in one's performance,
pay increases, promotion and career growth opportunities through the formation
of a reputation for getting a job done effectively and efficiently.
You and Your Future
A supervisor, like a machine or a method, can become
obsolete in skills and abilities in the absence of a continuing program for his
or her future development. Education, both in and outside college classrooms,
is a supervisor's best defense against obsolescence. The higher a person goes
in formal education, the greater his or
her job security, promotability, and earnings become (on average). Planning for personal advancement
includes efforts aimed at determining strengths and weaknesses and at building
a program for removing weaknesses.
Your career is largely in your hands and must be planned for. A supervisor
needs a personal code of ethics in order to survive, with integrity, in any
career.
Management Concepts
Management is an activity that uses the functions of
planning, organizing, leading, and controlling human and material resources for
the purpose of achieving stated goals. Management is a team of people that
rationally oversees the activities of an enterprise and attempts to get its
tasks and goals accomplished with and through others. A manager is a member of
a team of paid decision makers who
gets things done with and through others by executing the four management functions. Managers occupy
positions of formal authority in an
organization. Managers work for formal organizations that have clearly stated
purposes and goals, a division of labor among specialists, a rational
organization or design, and a clearly defined hierarchy of authority and
accountability. A person's job description outlines the authority he or she
possesses to mobilize the organization's resources. Power flows to a person
from two sources: the job he or she
holds and the skills, experience, and personality he or she possesses.
Authority can be delegated. Responsibility and accountability cannot be. Your decisions should be made with the aid
of a rationally pre pared decision-making model so that you can consider your
alternatives carefully and avoid problems. The management hierarchy consists of
three levels inherent in most
businesses: top, middle, and supervisory or operating. In order to be most
effective, staff managers may exercise functional authority over many other
managers. Managing time is as important as managing a career to a supervisor.
Time, like other resources, must be used effectively and efficiently.
Management Functions
Planning is often called the first management
function because it is a part of every other function. The planning process
require five sequential steps that set goals, construct a program to reach
those goals, and monitor the progress and results of that pro gram. Organizing
requires managers to determine tasks, break them into activities, identify the skills needed to perform them,
and assign them to qualified people.
The organizing process requires five specific steps that must be taken sequentially
and in line with the basic principles that affect organizing. Leading requires
managers to staff their operations and to train, offer incentives to, evaluate,
and discipline their subordinates. Staffing is concerned with meeting an
organization's needs for qualified
human resources. It involves human resource planning and development-recruiting, selecting, placing, promoting, transferring, and terminating people.
Controlling establishes standards to govern people's conduct and output at work, measures performance and
conduct against those standards,
detects deviations, finds the causes for the deviations, and implements
appropriate remedies. Controls may be preventive, diagnostic, or therapeutic.
Plans can set forth objectives,
programs, and methods to prevent problems. Diagnostic controls sense deviations
and communicate the fact that they are occurring. Therapeutic controls deal
with deviations as they occur. Controls should be accepted by those who must
use them and should be focused on critical
points in vital operations; they must also be economically feasible, accurate,
timely, clear, and easily understood.
The principle of management by exception tells a manager to spend time on only those matters that
demand the manager's personal attention
and expertise. Other matters can be delegated
or reduced to routines. Management by objectives requires bosses and
subordinates to set goals that will
become the standards by which their performances are measured. Each employee
sets performance goals with which the
employee's boss can concur. Timetables are established for reaching each goal,
and performances are monitored. Periodic adjustments may be made to the goals
or to the methods of achieving them. Supervisors must take measures to coordinate
the thoughts and actions of those that
affect their operations, to avoid confusion, waste, and duplication of effort.
Communications
Communication is the transmission of information and
a com mon understanding from one person or group to another, through the use of
common symbols. A common understanding is achieved when both the sender
and the receiver know each other's
ideas, attitudes about the ideas, and frames of reference. The major goals of the
communication process are to be under stood, to gain understanding, to gain
acceptance for yourself or for your
ideas, and to produce action or change. A management information system (MIS)
is a formal method for making accurate
and timely information available to management to aid the decision-making process and to aid in the execution
of management and organization
functions. Computers are making all kinds of communications more effective and
efficient. The major components or variables in the communication process are
the message, the transmitter, the direction, the medium, and the receiver.
Communication barriers act to interrupt the flow of information and
understanding and/or to inhibit it from taking place. Communications efforts
should be planned with the barriers in mind, in order to eliminate them or to
minimize their effects. Delivering a speech or a lecture usually involves the
use of an introduction, an explanation, and a summary. Listening takes up
nearly one-half of our days. It is a skill that can be learned and improved by anticipating
a speaker's next point, by identifying the speaker's supporting elements, by
making mental summaries, and by adopting a tailored approach to note taking.
The grapevine consists of the transmission of information or misinformation
through informal channels in the working environment.
Managing Change and Stress
Our experiences help shape our individual beliefs.
Our beliefs help shape our attitudes. When supervisors observe improper
attitudes or conduct in sub ordinates-attitudes or conduct that prevents
average or above average performances-they must act to change them. Changing
attitudes requires us to (a) identify the attitude that needs changing, (b)
determine the supports for it, (c) weaken those supports, and (d) offer a
substitute and sell it. Techniques for changing attitudes include force-field
analysis, effective communications, persuasion techniques, participation techniques, training programs, and
organization development activities.
Stress is worry, anxiety, or tension that accompanies situations and problems
we face and causes uncertainty about the ways in which we should resolve them. Stress can distract us from our
work, adversely affect our attitudes, and injure our health, unless we learn to
cope with it or to remove it.
Human Motivation
Industrial studies have shown that people are
stimulated to action by five basic human needs and rewards, outcomes, or
incentives offered by their employers. The Hawthorne studies of the 1920s
demonstrated the social and esteem needs that people have and the natural
tendencies of workers to form their
own groups cliques. Abraham Maslow has ranked human needs in a hierarchy
that progresses from physical needs
through four psychological needs. Each has the power to act as a motive for human
behavior. Managers and their organizations have the power to assist employees
in their search for satisfaction in every need category. Frederick Herzberg has
identified two sets of factors that can either prevent dissatisfaction or
promote motivation in employees. These are called, respectively, maintenance
and motivation factors. The contingency theory of motivation holds that all of
us desire a sense of competence. That desire can be met by organizations and
managers who tailor jobs, job assignments, and supervisory approaches to fit
individuals needs and capabilities. The expectancy theory of motivation holds
that people will work to exhibit the behaviors an employer or boss expects if
they know what the rewards will be, are certain that the reward is forthcoming, desire to posses the reward,
and have or perceive that they have the capabilities required to exhibit the
behaviors required. The reinforcement theory states that behavior that is
desirable will be repeated if rewarded and that undesirable behavior can be
discouraged by providing punishment for it. Productivity and quality go
together. Efforts to improve one must
also act to improve the other. Efforts to improve both must never end. Quality
of work life (QWL) involves programs and projects to help employees satisfy their needs and fulfill their
expectations about work. It is part of organization development and uses such approaches as job rotation, job enrichment,
and training programs.
Building Relationships with Individuals
Human relations involves the development and
maintenance of sound on-the-job
relationships with subordinates, peers, and
superiors. Building sound human relationships with subordinates and peers requires you to play four fundamental
roles: educator, counselor, judge, and spokesperson. As an educator, you share
your knowledge, skills, and experiences with others. As a counselor, you
provide advice, service, and a sympathetic and empathetic ear. As a judge, you
evaluate performances of subordinates, enforce company and departmental rules
and standards, settle disputes, and dispense justice. You win your boss's
respect and confidence by meeting his or her expectations of you and by playing
your role as it has been prescribed. You learn your boss's job by creating time
in which to execute the boss's tasks. Just as you train your replacement
through delegation of your formal authority, so too does your boss train his or
her replacement.
Supervising Groups
A group is two or more people who are aware of one another,
who consider themselves to be a functioning unit, and who share a quest for a
common goal or benefit. Problem-solving meetings may or may not allow for
interaction between and among group members. Interaction allows individual
group members to react to input from other members. The interacting group works
best to evaluate possible alternatives and to obtain a group solution in the
form of a consensus of opinions. Brainstorming and round-robin sessions work
best to construct a list of potential solutions or ideas that bear on the
subject under discussion. The roles that group members play may affect the
group either positively or negatively, depending on what motivates each group
member in the use of each role. Various pitfalls can undermine group meetings
and their results. Being aware of them and acting to render them negligible is
the job of every group leader or chairperson. Groups that compete experience
both positive and negative changes. The most negative feature of intergroup
competition is what happens between competing groups: hostility, lack of
cooperation, and outright sabotage can result, eventually bringing both groups
down. Supervisors must recognize that informal groups exist and can wield
positive or negative powers. Their leaders possess strong personalities and are
potential management material.
Leadership and management Styles
Leadership is based on a person's skills, knowledge,
and formal authority. Not all leaders are managers, and not all managers are
leaders. People who can get work done through willing followers who respect
them in the process are leaders. Various leaders have various different traits,
such as enthusiasm, tact, and endurance. No one set of traits is cohesion to
all leaders. Leadership principles offer advice on how a person who wants to be
a leader should behave. They are illustrations of the three skills of a manager
studied in chapter 1. The contingency model of leadership holds that the
effectiveness of a group or organization depends on the leader and the leader's
situation. Basic leader orientations are task- or relationship-oriented. Most
leaders focus on one or the other, as the circumstances dictate. The management
GRID system represents the possible positions managers may take with respect to
their focus on and blending of their two primary orientations-people and tasks.
The leadership continuum illustrates the positions a leader can take with
regard to sharing authority with subordinates. The four basic management styles
are autocratic, democratic, spectator, and bureaucratic. Only the last is not a
leadership style.
Selection and Orientation
A proper selection process involves the supervisor of
the worker who will be hired, usually as the interviewer in the final selection
interview. Supervisors should make the final selection because their commitment
to the success of new employees is vital. People interviewed in a final
selection interview should be pre screened by personnel or the human resource
management department, using proper selection devices. Selection devices
include any interview, form, or other instrument that will be weighed or used
in making the decision to hire. Selection devices and procedures should not
adversely affect minorities and women, and they should have validity. The selection
process is both an information-gathering and an information-giving process.
Errors in the selection process can be expensive both in fines and court costs
connected with discrimination charges and in replacing a person who should not
have been selected. Orientation programs are usually conducted by the personnel
or human resource management departments and are designed to welcome new
employees to the enterprise as a whole. Induction programs are usually
conducted by the supervisor of the new employee and are designed to welcome new
employees to a specific job, working environment, and peer group. Orientation
and induction programs are normally tailored to fit the specific needs of
different groups of new employees. Studies show that the first few days on a
new job are extremely important and determine to a great extent the future
performance and careers of newcomers. The supervisor of a new person, more than
any other factor at work, can mean the difference between success and failure
on the job. Both orientation and induction programs should be designed to remove sources of anxiety and to help new
employees satisfy their needs for competence, security, and social acceptance.
Training
Training is the supervisor's responsibility. It may
be delegated, but the supervisor is accountable for it. Training imparts
skills, knowledge, and attitudes needed by trainees now or in the near future.
Training benefits you, your trainees, and your employer. Be certain that
trainees know what they are to learn and why. You are judged on your
performance and on the performances of your subordinates. The better they do, the
better you all look to each other and to superiors. Anyone may train if he or
she possesses the body of knowledge skills, and attitudes to be taught, knows
and follows the principles that govern training, and wants to train. The
training cycle asks you to identify your training needs, to prepare performance
objectives, to create a training program, and to conduct the training. The
central purpose behind training is to get performances up to standard-to make
certain that they turn out as planned.
The Appraisal Process
Efforts to evaluate subordinates take place daily.
Formal appraisals usually take place once or twice each year. The appraisal
process is too important for a supervisor to delegate. Appraisals look at a
person's personal growth and changes in performance capabilities. Appraisals
must be based on known standards and linked to definite rewards and punishments.
The many approaches and methods of appraising subordinates all have advantages
and disadvantages. All allow for personal bias and subjective judgments. By
being aware of the pitfalls in appraising individuals, you can act to prevent
their occurrence in your appraisals. The real value of appraisals lies in
sharing them with the rated individual. Supervisors get to know their people
better and vice versa. Specific problems and achievements can be noted,
and plans can be made for improvement.
The appraisal process is a cyclical one. As old problems are corrected, new
ones appear. Change is inevitable and requires new methods and approaches to routine and special tasks that every
one faces.
Discipline
Both positive discipline and negative discipline are
needed if reasonable and safe conduct at work is to be promoted, along with a
sense of responsibility for one's work. When an organization or an individual
supervisor tolerates a poor performer the organization or the supervisor
cannot, in con science discipline anyone whose performance exceeds the
poor performer's, The best kind of
disciplinary system is one based on the individual employee's sense of
responsibility for his or her own work and on each employee's self-control.
People need to know what is expected of them and how well they are or are not
doing; they have a right to expect consistent enforcement of necessary rules,
policies, and standards, People need to know that good work will be rewarded
and that poor performance will earn swift and predictable responses from
management. People do not resent punishment that they know they deserve. They
do resent being punished for something they did not know was wrong-for not
being forewarned. The majority of your subordinates will not need negative
discipline if the positive side of discipline has been developed. Discipline is
either an easy task or a hard one, depending on how well you have built your
relationships with your subordinates and how well you have instilled a measure
of self-control in each of them.
Complaints, Grievances, and the Union
Complaints are serious matters to be dealt with in a
serious way. In a unionized organization, complaints can and often do turn into
grievances. Handling complaints requires honesty, sincerity, and an open
discussion of all the relevant facts and emotions involved. As a supervisor,
you must treat them seriously. Your subordinates do. The grievance procedure
begins when you and a subordinate or
the union steward meet to discuss a formal complaint alleging a violation of a union contract and cannot
agree on a solution. When you manage in a union environment, you must know
your labor agreement's provisions and
the results of grievances that act to explain and define its limits. You need
to know federal and state laws that regulate your treatment of employees in all
matters-not just in labor-relations areas. Develop a cooperative relationship
with your steward. You are not enemies
or adversaries. Both of you are paid to look out for special interests and to
reach accommodations when it is in your
mutual interests to do so. Unions exist to serve their members. In many
companies, they are a fact of life.
Security, Safety, and Health
The security of your company's and subordinates'
assets is partly your responsibility. Your people depend on you and the company's
policies, pro grams, and procedures,
along with their own efforts, to protect
them from recognized and recognizable hazards. While safety and security
are everyone's legitimate concern, your organization depends on you and its
other managers for planning, implementing, and enforcing proper programs.
Engineering, education (training), and enforcement are the keys to successful
safety and security efforts. Since 1971, over 40 million working Americans have
depended on regulations and
enforcement inspections provided by the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration, along with their
employers efforts and their own actions, to make the workplace a less
hazardous environment. Supervisors who really care about safety and security
listen to their employees, look for hazards, fix responsibility for safety and
security, enforce standards and procedures, and discipline violators of safety
and security policies.
