Top 3 qualities of an excellent supervisor

We attended a meeting with a client last week. He was complaining that his supervisors were not up to the mark. It was a very typical complaint that we seem to be hearing more and more. The client representative was getting frustrated with the casual attitude of his supervisors and wanted them to attend a supervisory skills training to fix the same.

Now these were millennial supervisors that we were talking about. As time goes by, more and more millennials are entering into the workspace. They are getting promoted and taking up supervisory and managerial roles. However, their perspective towards life and ways of working are a little different. And this can get difficult for their co-workers to understand and manage.

I am therefore going to tell you the top three qualities that a supervisor needs to have. These are qualities that all supervisors need to have although am writing keeping the millennials more in mind!

So here goes…

1.       Ownership and Accountability – This is of prime importance for supervisors and one of the points that we ensure that we start every supervisory skills training session with. Every supervisor needs to ensure that he takes up his tasks wholly, which means being completely responsible for them. They really can’t afford to be lax as that puts a bad impression on their juniors who start displaying the same behaviour!

A supervisor needs to own the task that he has on hand and ensure that it gets completed in the best possible way. He also needs to own the mistakes and failures that happen during the completion of the same rather than blaming those below him for it.

2.       Good Communication – Being able to say what we need to, is necessary. If we lack the communication skills to do that; it will lead to a lot of confusion, conflict and rework. This is turn affects quality and the time taken to complete a task. And we are all well aware of how that affects customer satisfaction and the profitability of our organisation.

Therefore, communication skills form a very important part of every supervisory skills training and a skill that every supervisory really needs to work on. After all, a supervisor is no longer an individual contributor. He has moved up the chain and now has to get work done from others. He therefore needs to ensure that his communication is in place to get the same done smoothly.

3.       Emotional Intelligence – This is an area that many of us would prefer keeping our hands out of! However, its also one that needs to be looked into to get many of the other areas in place. Many supervisory skills trainings do not focus on this aspect. However, if you ask me, its one that they really can’t afford to leave out!

Supervisors are subject to many difficult situations on a daily basis. Having to handle their workers, bosses, clients and in some cases difficult working environmental conditions apart from personal problems. These can affect the emotional well being of the person and cause him to react to situations rather than respond to them. This affects not only those around him, but also his own inner landscape. It becomes difficult for him to handle his emotions and handling others becomes almost impossible! That’s why being able to manage one’s emotions is very important. It helps in keeping a calm demeanour and makes it easier to handle any situation that comes along during the day.

Do write in and tell us what other qualities you think a supervisor should have. We would love to hear it. And you never know, we might just include it in our next supervisory skills training!