What Not to Do as a Supervisor
As a leader, you have the opportunity to improve your workplace culture. Some times that power is hard to grasp and most of the time it can be tempting to do onto others as was – or still is – done onto you. I can’t tell you how many things I’ve done or said to the people I supervised that now making me cringe.
Sometimes, it was me trying to imitate how I thought a supervisor should act. Like forgetting to act human when someone told me they needed to take the day because a family member died. I jumped right into the logistics of taking time off and transitioning work to a colleague so it wouldn’t get dropped before I even paused to think about what that team member needed in the moment: support, understanding, and a willingness to worry about logistics later.
Other times, it was me taking my frustration out on the wrong people. My fellow supervisors and I would often complain about entry-level employees leaving the office on time while we were stuck late at our desks. It was easier to be frustrated with them for leaving at 5 rather than trying to figure out why our workloads were making it impossible to leave on time.
Of course, sometimes it’s fair to expect that the people you supervise would stay late with you to wrap up something urgent. And sometimes we have the right to be frustrated with them. But we’re doing a disservice to them – and ourselves – if we never stop to think about the core reason behind our frustration and how we could actually address recurring issues so we can improve our workplace.
Sometimes it’s about listening more and complaining less – and remembering what challenges you faced in those entry level roles (or continue to face now) and how you would have wanted someone to help you address them.
A great place to start being a part of the solution, is to stop falling into some of these common management traps:
Stop saying “that’s just the job” because that was the job/expectation for us.
Is this really “the job” or is there a more effective or efficient way to do something? If our team member have valid concerns, we should fight to make things better for the next generation. And it is 100% okay to ask them their thoughts on how we can improve job expectations.
Stop expecting salaried employees to consistently work well over 40 hours because we have to or had to.
The 40 hour work week has been laughable since Steve Jobs let us put email on our phones (or maybe Bill gates? Tell me who to blame!). For salaried employees, I think it’s reasonable to assume there will be weeks – or seasons – where we need to go above and beyond the 40 hour work week. Some industries do a very good job of setting this expectation (I’m looking at you lawyers, doctors, teachers, and accountants) but many of us could be more up front about hours expectations during interviews. Work with your team to find a way to share that information – better to be honest than to hire someone unwilling to go above and beyond.
But don’t stop there. If your company’s work week is more consistently 50 or 60 hours, as a supervisor it is your responsibility to fight for balance and flexibility that can counteract this demand. That could mean finding areas where your team can be more efficient with their time, or it could be asking for policies that help ease the blow during those extra crazy weeks. Think work from home options, spot bonuses, and extra PTO days.
Stop assuming they’re not working hard because they don’t work the same way as us.
We all have different working styles. Be sure you manage to the person and their needs, not just the demands of the job. Measure their success by results, not their process. Does someone create a Gantt chart when you prefer a Trello board? If you’re working directly with them, be sure to set expectations and a process that works for you both off the bat. If they’re working independently, let them do their thing and focus on the outcomes they deliver.
Stop getting upset with them for setting boundaries we couldn’t or didn’t.
I’m going to bring you back to the example of my entry-level colleagues that would regularly leave at 5 and how I could have learned something from them. Before we get frustrated, we need to ask ourselves if they boundaries they want are reasonable and consider how we may benefit from them too. Perhaps if I set some stronger boundaries and left at 5 to go to yoga I wouldn’t have burned out to to the point that my job consistently impacted my physical and emotional health…
In conclusion…
Before you judge and complain, take a moment to consider if your colleagues are making reasonable demands or decisions that could positively benefit you and your entire workforce. As a manager, you can either maintain status quo or make somewhere better for you and your colleagues. Which legacy would you like to leave?
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