Supervision
V-6
Loafers
and talkers get in the way of the doers.
Few jobs in a
volunteer organization are more difficult than supervision. At
the same time, few jobs are more interesting. This job takes more
skill, more common sense, more foresight, and perhaps more intelligence
than almost any other kind of work. It often holds more grief,
more trouble, and more difficulties than any other job, especially
for the person who has not learned the art of working with other
people.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
When you finish with
this module you should be able to:
1. Describe seven basic
principles for supervising people.
2. Anticipate common problems of supervisors.
3. Describe how to handle the common problems.
THE SUPERVISOR
A good supervisor is
not born that way. Neither is an artist, nor a writer, nor a technician
of any kind. A good supervisor gets good by study and practice--the
more, the better. It does not follow that a good business person
is also an expert supervisor--in fact, it is often just the reverse.
Some of the real horror stories in volunteer organizations come
from successful business people who try to supervise volunteers
like they supervise employees. Volunteers are not employees and
cannot be treated the same. Unfortunately, very few of us have
actually studied supervision, although many of us practice it
either on a small or large scale. But there is no question that
most people can learn how to supervise, and that is what this
discussion is all about.
Supervision is of tremendous
importance. With the right kind of supervision, an organization
can become smooth-working, hard-hitting, high-producing, and filled
with people who have a high morale (i.e., collective good feeling).
Poor or indifferent supervision results in trouble all day long,
inefficiency, snarls, low production, and, of course, low morale.
Before we go on, let's
define "supervisor." We can distinguish between a boss
and a leader. The boss drives people, uses authority, dominates
everyone, and lets no one forget who is running things. The leader
uses very little authority, leads people by example, works with
them, and gets their good will. The boss gets production very
frequently, in spite of hard feelings. The leader gets it too,
but all feel good about it. The only kind of supervision in which
we are interested is of the leadership kind.
PRINCIPLES OF SUPERVISION
Seven general principles
are important for supervisor to know and to use.
1. People must always
understand clearly what is expected of them.
2. People must have
guidance in their work (information, techniques enabling better
work, coaching, and personality improvement suggestions).
3. Good work always
should be recognized.
4. Poor work deserves
constructive criticism.
5. People should have
opportunities to show that they can accept greater responsibility.
6. People should be
encouraged to improve themselves.
7. People should work
in a safe and healthful environment.
THE ART OF SUPERVISION
The skill with which
you go about supervising comes only with practice. How to supervise,
how to put the foregoing principles into practice, makes up the
art of supervision. Some people, of course, seem to have more
natural ability at this than others, but even so, everyone can
profit by experience. No one can tell you how to supervise intelligently.
There are many good rules and many do's and don'ts. Some of the
most important are listed below in about the order they need to
be used.
How to begin supervising.
Since you are directing
people, it follows at once that you will need to know a lot about
them in order to supervise them sensibly. You should know their
temperament--which you can get only from keen observation over
a period of time. You ought to know about their background, their
schooling, their philosophy, and their habits. This may seem to
be a big order, and it is clear that you will never know all about
everyone. But you must know enough to be reasonably sure what
each person is likely to do in a given set of circumstances, and
how each will react to your guidance. How you learn this is up
to you. A good supervisor learns what to look for. A poor supervisor
usually jumps to conclusions. Be guided accordingly, but first:
know your people as well as you can.
How to give instructions.
The crudest, worst
possible way to give instructions is to give a direct command.
There may be times when there is nothing else that would be effective,
but the times are rare and should always be last-resort matters.
The best way of all--and the one requiring the greatest skill--is
to suggest that so and so ought to be done. If the person that
you are supervising is deaf to suggestions--and some people are--then
courteous requests indicating your desires are next best. Always
keep a sting out of instructions unless the matter involves a
disciplinary measure. Learn to gain agreement rather than force
it.
When you give instructions,
always explain the reasons behind them. You will get quicker results
if you do, and the people you give instructions will be able to
carry them out more intelligently. A good supervisor is able to
analyze a situation, then help the people to analyze it to a point
where the situation itself gives the instructions.
How to get help
from your people.
There are many ways
of doing a job. You can do everything of importance yourself.
Or you can pass, in advance, on everything any of your people
want to do. In either case you may be able to get the job done.
In both cases you will probably get stomach ulcers eventually,
and you may wonder why you are always having to replace people
who are leaving your organization. You will be, to put it mildly,
a rotten supervisor.
The people under your
guidance are there to do a job. But they are also volunteers.
Eventually, as you acquire skill, you will let them do it. Basing
your actions on how well you know your people, you will judiciously
delegate authority to act and to make decisions. Systematically
you will make certain that what you want done is done the way
you want it. Gradually, as you build your group into a team, you
will find them referring to you for help whenever they really
need it, at the right time, and in the right way. As your confidence
in your team grows, you will at last begin to experience the warm
feeling a topnotch leader gets from guiding a loyal, hard-hitting
capable bunch of people. It may even be said that you seem to
have a soft job because your people seem to do all the work!
How to make decisions.
When a definite decision
is called for, make it with as much promptness as possible. Be
sure you know whether you have authority to make it. Be sure you
have all the facts you need, or at least all you can get. Be sure
you know whether you have weighed all angles. Then decide--and
make it stick. People will excuse a mistake now and then but they
will not excuse someone who never makes a clean-cut decision.
If your people are kept well informed on where you stand and how
you feel about the work, and how it should go, the decisions they
make will be more nearly what you want.
How to criticize.
When you praise people,
do it in public if you possibly can. When you criticize or reprimand
people, do it privately, never in the presence of fellow-workers.
When you criticize it is good to start out by telling the person
what was done correctly. Then tell what you don't like. Always
tell why, and always do it in a friendly way with due regard for
the situation. The point is to give the idea you are trying to
help. Finally, be ready with a suggestion or two on what the person
can do to redeem himself/herself.
People usually know
when they deserve criticism. If they don't get it, they may lose
respect for you as a supervisor. Timeliness, therefore, is important
in criticizing. Incidentally, it pays to avoid ridicule or making
fun when you criticize. Keep in mind that the dignity of people
is very important.
How to settle grievances.
Two things are important
here. (1) Get all the available facts about the grievance and
if two people or factions are involved, get both sides, and (2)
settle the matter promptly.
How to deal with
the problem child.
Sooner or later, every
supervisor gets a person who is lazy, opinionated, tactless, too
slow, too fast, too talkative, too moody, who has a persecution
complex, who is nervous, who can't get along with other people,
who is disloyal, discourteous, always late, never prepared, an
apple- polisher or who has some other fault that is extremely
annoying or that disrupts the work generally. Each problem is
different, and must be met and solved on the basis of its own
characteristics. Avoiding problems like these, because they are
unpleasant, is the distinguishing mark of a poor supervisor. Attacking
such problems always requires that you gain the person's confidence
first.
1. As soon as you
are entirely sure of your ground, talk to the person about the
fault. See if you can find out the reason for it. Be sure you
explain clearly what the person's fault means to you, to that
person, and to the organization. Agree on a course of action.
2. If the first talk
fails, try it again after a reasonable interval. Go over the
situation again. Search for more reasons. Try to get a promise
to do better, and agree on the steps to take. Follow up again;
give praise for any progress.
3. If the fault persists,
and is getting serious, meet again and go over the same ground
once more. This takes patience, but do it with care.
4. If there is still
no progress, talk it over with your own supervisor or the officers
and agree on a course of action.
Summary.
All considered, a good supervisor is one who is able to get people
to do an effective job. The measure of success is to be found
in how well people do their work and how high their morale is
while they do it.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. Does the idea of
supervising volunteers scare you? Why or why not?
2. What do you think
will be your greatest problems in supervising volunteers in your
organization?
EXERCISE: PREPARING
TO SUPERVISE
Write down a plan to
help you do a better job of supervising volunteers in a particular
project (preferably a real project that is approaching). Include
in your plan: (1) anticipated problems in supervision, and (2)
what I am going to do to deal with the problems before they occur
and after (if) they occur. |
