Norm got along great with his supervisor, which was kind of weird. His supervisor was quirky, mercurial, and unpredictable, virtually the opposite of Norm. The supervisor’s eccentricities irritated and annoyed Norm’s co-workers, who would grumble about the supervisor behind his back. The supervisor seemed only to tolerate Norm’s co-workers, while by contrast the supervisor seemed to like Norm, although the supervisor’s quirkiness made it hard to really tell. After about a year at the company, though, Norm had figured it out. Norm was subtly outperforming his co-workers on every significant work measure, and the supervisor knew it, even if Norm’s co-workers didn’t know. The supervisor used his quirkiness, rather than direct confrontation and command, to manage the workforce. Norm avoided the supervisor’s eccentricities because Norm was a top performer whom the supervisor valued and respected, not because of anything peculiar about Norm.
Supervision
Supervision is a necessary aspect of work. In an operation of any complexity involving multiple workers, someone must coordinate the work. In an operation with relatively rigorous standards, someone must ensure that workers meet the standards. In an operation that takes multiple workers to produce the goods or services, someone must ensure that enough workers with the right skills and commitment regularly show up. In an operation under remote ownership, someone must report regularly and reliably to the owners’ representatives and implement their directives through the workforce. Supervision has at least those roles, including worker coordination and accountability, and management reporting and response, to fulfill. Appreciate the burden of responsibility that your supervisor carries. Your supervisor has a boss to satisfy, too. Whether you like your supervisor or not, the more you satisfy your supervisor, the better it will go for you. Be a star for your supervisor, and you will find secure job success.
Trust
Trust is the first thing your supervisor needs from you. Your supervisor has a job to do, which includes seeing that you and perhaps several others in your subordinate role do your job well. If your supervisor can’t trust you with doing your job, then you’ll have problems with your supervisor. Trust begins with showing up for work on time and prepared. If, instead, your supervisor has to remind you, chastise you, and chase after you to get you to show up regularly to work on time, and to prepare you for work once you’re there, then you’ll have problems with your supervisor. If you don’t listen to your supervisor’s directions, or if you undermine your supervisor’s authority among your co-workers, you’ll have problems with your supervisor. If your supervisor finally entrusts you with a critical project after years of grooming you for advancement, but you fumble the project away like a rookie, you’ll have problems with your supervisor. Whatever the need, demand, or issue is, your supervisor needs to see that your supervisor can rely on you to do as the supervisor expects. Work at it, and you’ll be working toward job success.
Confidence
Confidence is a second thing your supervisor wants from your work. Your supervisor’s trusting you with work is only a beginning. To a degree, supervisors have to trust workers with work, in order to get anything done. Yet your supervisor also wants to have the confidence that you’ll carry the work forward with dispatch. A supervisor may basically trust every member of the supervisor’s team. They’re all employed, and the supervisor must put them all to work. But the supervisor may have confidence in only one or a small number of the team’s members, knowing that other members may not be fit or ready to carry the team on critical projects or at critical moments. Some work is more valuable and significant than other work. Operations also have bottlenecks, where workers must perform or they’ll hold up the whole operation. Your supervisor trusting you with a mundane task or assignment is one thing. Having the confidence in you to give you a high-value assignment or to regularly put you at work at critical operation bottlenecks is another thing. For job success, you want your supervisor’s high-value, bottleneck work.
Competence
Competence is another attribute your supervisor needs from you. You may be on time, ready to work, and reliable and efficient at completing high-value work. But your supervisor also needs that work to meet standards. If, instead, your supervisor is constantly having to catch and correct errors in your work, and keep an eye on your work for more errors, then you will have wasted the value of your diligence in completing the work. Some workers are eager-beaver go-getters, ready to do as a supervisor needs or requests, but sloppy at their work, causing the supervisor to hesitate to give them the critical assignments. Other workers may be highly skilled and competent at completing work to standards but nonetheless frequently late, absent, unprepared, or reluctant to take on additional assignments. You want to be both eager for work and competent at work. Eagerness is not enough. Competence is not enough. Competent eagerness or eager competence is what your supervisor requires.
Timeliness
Timeliness is another attribute your supervisor needs from you. You may be eager for work assignments and competent at completing them. But if you can’t consistently deliver your competent work timely, on schedule, to deliver to waiting customers or clients or to integrate into other waiting work, then your competence and eagerness loses its value. Timeliness means knowing when your supervisor needs you to complete the work and then managing the project efficiently among your other assigned work to complete the project by its due date. See the time-management tips in the prior chapter on meeting work schedules. Your timeliness with completing projects is a big part of building your supervisor’s trust and confidence. Notify your supervisor as soon as you see that you won’t be able to complete a project by its due date, preferably well before its due date. Your supervisor may accept that the project requires more time, personnel, or resources, and should appreciate your advance notice. When you can’t deliver work timely because of its volume or complexity, or missing resources, letting your supervisor make other arrangements well before its due date should satisfy any concerns.
Productivity
Productivity is another thing your supervisor needs from you, to reward you with job success. Your employer has given your supervisor a team to produce a certain amount of work within a certain time frame, generating a certain amount of revenue. Of course, the work must be timely and meet standards. But the work must also accumulate to a sufficient quantity to justify the operation’s cost including the compensation of the workforce. You and your co-workers must produce enough completed work to keep the operation afloat. Production is your supervisor’s ultimate responsibility. Thus, the more you produce, the more your supervisor should appreciate and reward your work. Some workers are just more productive than others. Supervisors make it their business to know who are the more-productive workers. Indeed, in some workplaces, supervisors will share with the workers their relative productivity, on a scoresheet of sorts, as a reminder to the whole team that each member needs to do their part. Whether your supervisor is sharing with you and your co-workers that information on productivity or not, your supervisor is likely aware of relative productivity. Develop the skills, hone the processes, and assume the commitment to be a producer. And if any confusion exists over your relative production, ensure that your supervisor is aware of your leading role. You’ll find it leading to job success.
Conflict
You need to avoid conflict with your supervisor. Some supervisors have the emotional maturity and poise to manage their subordinates’ frustrations, annoyances, and even a little backtalk. But don’t let that be you giving your supervisor backtalk. If you can’t stay calm and cool, and make reasoned inquiries of your supervisor expressing your work challenges, then leave the subject for another time when you can speak calmly. If your supervisor is the emotional one, giving you unnecessary grief, try not to bite back. Calm, factual answers directed toward problem solving may be appropriate. But just listening to your supervisor’s critique, fair or unfair, may be wiser, especially if your supervisor is in no mental or emotional condition to process your response calmly. Don’t fuel your supervisor’s negative and irrational emotions. Let your supervisor vent until your supervisor can calm down. You may only be a convenient target for frustrations your supervisor has with others or with the job in general. If so, try to be a small, not a large, target. If you can’t avoid supervisor conflict, and that conflict is seriously affecting your work, consider consulting your employer’s personnel department for guidance.
Care
While you may not need to personally care for your supervisor to get your job done, some small degree of personal interest can go a long way to humanizing your supervisory relationship. Being aware, as others in your workplace are aware, of your supervisor’s birthday, birth, marriage, or graduation of children or grandchildren, passing of elderly parents, and similar significant life events can help show your care for your supervisor’s personal welfare. Especially share such interest if your supervisor takes such interest in your own life events. Simply recognizing your supervisor’s humanity may help your supervisor appreciate your own humanity. Participate appropriately if your workplace celebrates your supervisor’s personal life events with cards, gifts, lunches, or similar gratuities, or celebrates your supervisor periodically such as when reaching a service-longevity landmark. Don’t let your relationship with your supervisor become all about business, when you and your supervisor are sharing big parts of your lives through the workplace and may benefit from one another’s ordinary kindness and care. Some supervisors can become friends and mentors.
Respect
The one thing that your supervisor may need from you more than anything else is respect. Your supervisor may have a significantly greater role in your employer’s success than you do. Your supervisor may carry significantly greater responsibilities, stresses, and burdens than you carry. Your supervisor may also have the same or similar health and personal challenges that you and other workers experience. Your supervisor may also be standing in the gap for several other workers, supporting them through their hardships, and for the company’s owners and managers, guiding the company through its own hardships. If you’ve never been a supervisor, you may not appreciate how complex and challenging the role can be, especially if your supervisor is also at the same time doing the productive work that you and other subordinate workers are doing. In many workplaces, supervisors are every bit as productive as other workers in the regular work, but take on supervisory duties on top of that work. So, respect your supervisor’s skill, effort, and devotion. Your supervisor may be doing far more for your employer’s success than you, while also guiding and even protecting and nurturing you.
Reflection
Ensure that you know the full role within the company of each of your supervisors. How much do they have on their plate? What do they think of you? How, in the abstract, would your supervisor rate you as to trustworthiness, confidence, competence, timeliness, and productivity? How would your supervisor rate you on the same measures, but this time relative to your co-workers? What attitude or actions makes your work better or worse than your co-workers on each of those measures? How could you improve on each measure that you rate below your co-workers? How could you help your co-workers improve on each measure on which they are below you? How do you exhibit your personal care for your supervisor? What ordinary and natural thing can you do to recognize and celebrate your supervisor, without making an awkward show of it? How do you exhibit your respect for your supervisor? Does your supervisor respect you? Can you do or change something to gain more of your supervisor’s respect?
Key Points
Supervision is a necessary, appropriate, and beneficial part of work.
Your supervisor needs to trust that you will come to work prepared.
Your supervisor needs confidence you will complete assigned work.
You need your work to be competent to gain your supervisor’s trust.
You need to complete your work timely for your supervisor’s trust.
Your supervisor depends on your productivity as part of the team.
Avoid emotional conflict with your supervisor whenever possible.
Show personal care and respect for your supervisor.