Picking Better Supervisors
Picking new supervisors is a crapshoot in most companies. It doesn't have to be that way. In many companies, selecting individual contributors to become supervisors is a crapshoot. It doesn't have to be that way. Start by understanding two basic facts.
You learn to be a supervisor on the job. Your company can provide training and mentoring and support, but most of the learning will happen in real time as new supervisors try things and learn from the results. You can't train this out of the process.
It will be easier for some people than others. This is true of any kind of work, but it's very important when you choose new supervisors because they rarely have the opportunity to return to individual contributor status. Make a bad choice and you wind up with a bad supervisor.
That's how it is. Use the first fact to your advantage. Give people opportunities to try out a leadership role that's not permanent. They can lead a project team or task force. That gives you two advantages.
The big one is that many people who try on the role learn that they don't like it. Being a supervisor is not a harder kind of work than being an individual contributor, but it is a different kind of work. Some people will take to it and others won't.
The ones that don't will often remove "supervisor" from their career plans. If they become supervisors, they will have to work very hard to do a good job.
Temporary assignments also give you something meaningful to evaluate when you choose new supervisors. Here are four questions to ask when you evaluate your supervisor candidates.
Are they willing to set direction and standards for their team? It's a leadership function that some people are comfortable with and others aren't. Remember, a good supervisor defines standards and direction for his or her team.
Are they willing to confront team members about poor performance or unacceptable behavior? Great supervisors do this as soon as they spot an issue. Bad supervisors put off the important conversations. They drop hints and hope the problem solves itself. That almost never happens.
Are they willing to make decisions? A surprising number of people put off decisions or pass them up the chain to their boss. You don't want those people as supervisors.
I've trained new supervisors for more than a quarter century. I can teach a person how to improve the odds that a discussion of poor performance will come out well. I can teach that person how to make better decisions. But if the new supervisor won't confront people about poor performance or won't make decisions, all that training is a waste of time.
Here's the most important question to ask about a possible new supervisor. Does he or she enjoy helping others succeed? Great supervisors do. Bad supervisors are more concerned about how they look.
Picking new supervisors doesn't have to be a crapshoot. Let people try on the supervisory role, then ask the important questions that will help you make wise choices.
Wally Bock is the writing force behind the Three Star Leadership Blog and the author and co-author of many books, including Performance Talk: The One-on-One Part of Leadership, and Ruthless Focus: How to Use Key Core Strategies to Grow Your Business. You can reach him at wally@threestarleadership.com or on Twitter.