Articles
What Makes Employees Mad - Part I | What Makes Employees Mad - Part II
What Makes Employees Mad - Part III | Workplace Wrath: Using Anger to Build | Listen First
Feedback: The Breakfast of Champions | The Emperor’s New Clothes - Providing Negative Feedback
Practicing Safe Stress

Printed in April 2002
All Praise to the Supervisor

“Look up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s Superman!” In the business world, it is the supervisor who wears the red, white, and blue tights and has the flowing cape - fighting for the American Way. Disguised in working clothes, this person is the first line defense in keeping problems at bay and the customers happy. In the past this column has been concerned with improving the skills of supervisors but now is the time to sing the praises of these noble corporate warriors.

The supervisor is on the firing line. It is she who battles the bottom line by successfully managing units, materials, and labor hours, while walking the delicate tight rope between management’s expectations and the realities of the work force. It is her abilities that stand between profits and bankruptcy court.

The First Sergeant of the assembly line are often not considered management and yet, not considered hourly, operating in limbo. To be successful as a supervisor they have to break their psychological self-definition, and see themselves not as wage and hourly but as management. This is a quantitatively difficult transition, which is attempted a thousand times a day in many organizations, and to my surprise, often it is very successful. We send yesterday’s hourly employees out to do corporate battles as supervisors and armed with a new clipboard, a wage increase, and the title of supervisor.

When I was in the construction industry and needed a new supervisor, I would pick out the most able mechanic of the crew, someone who could speak the English language, and showed up for work on time; this person became my new supervisor. I would give this green manager the company credit card, the job specifications, and keys to the pick-up truck. Then I assign him to super-vise the same people he drank beer with last night. With that brief orientation, I expected, like many managers, marvelous results.

After this promotion, what I had was an inexperienced supervisor with good technical skills but no formal supervisory training and now with one less first class mechanic in his crew. And I wondered why this wasn’t successful all the time? Now that I look back on it, I’m amazed it was ever successful! The success could only come from the quality of the people. This article is my penitence for all those whom I sent into battle unprepared and ill equipped – a set-up for failure!

Executives work long hours, bring work home for the weekends, develop ulcers, and receive the big bonus; thinking they are indispensable. Someone once remarked that graveyards are full of indispensable people. The only people corporations cannot function without is today’s honored supervisor. I quickly realized that my best efforts as a manager were totally dependent upon what was produced in the field. Success was determined by how well this group of supervisors managed al-most 70% of the cost of the construction project! My efforts were limited to effect the outcome of the project – it was only those who touched the basic elements that went into the project, who had the most profound impact on the results. It was this group of supervisors who many times, were able to solve the problems, I as manager created!

My mother is a great philosopher, who while I was at her knee told me “Never be afraid to get your hands dirty.” No other bit of wisdom helped my relationship with these warriors for profits more then this. If only all managers had my mother’s guiding motto and would be willing to share the burdens of these noble supervisors – magic would happen. A manager who takes the time to share the miseries of trench warfare can bridge the wide distance between the air-conditioned office and the shop floor. Bottom lines will greatly improve when managers realize the tremendous responsibility supervisors are entrusted with, the difficulty of their job, and appreciate how unprepared they are to assume this charge.
So, here’s to the noble supervisor who daily battles the forces of failure. At the next stock-holder's meeting, it would be fitting to honor this select group by quoting Winston Churchill and say “Never have so many, owed so much, to so few”!