How to be a good supervisor?

To be a good supervisor, you should be humble yet expect excellence, lead by example, and have expert communication skills. To learn more about how to be a good supervisor, reference this guide:

• Be humble, yet expect excellence. A good supervisor is someone who doesn't try to hog all the credit for a team's hard work. They acknowledge the contributions of all team members.

  At the same time, a good supervisor should expect excellence. This does not mean you come down extremely hard on team members that make mistakes, but you set clear goals for your team and if they do not meet them, you have an open discussion about what went wrong and how you can all prevent it from happening in the future.

• Lead by example. You can not be hypocritical when you are a supervisor. Your staff or team is looking up to you and viewing your own performance as a cue to how they should act and perform while working.

  You set the tone. If you want your team or staff to be punctual, then you yourself must be punctual every day. This goes for any sort of behavior or element of work ethic. Leading by example fosters respect from your subordinates and helps to get the most out of them in their own work ethics and job performances.

• You need expert communication skills. As a supervisor, you should be able to communicate clearly and effectively. This is absolutely a fundamental aspect of being a good supervisor.

  You must have the ability to provide both positive and negative feedback in a constructive way to get the best results from your staff or team.

  Communication skills, both in written and oral form, are essential. You should also be comfortable, and hopefully even excel at, public speaking scenarios.

  As a supervisor, you'll often have to address large groups of people, and being able to do this with confidence and clarity is key.

• Address conflicts promptly and fairly. Subpar supervisors will seek to avoid dealing with internal team problems. You should not do this. The faster you can address the issues and come to a fair resolution, the better.

  Your staff or team members are much more likely to respect you if you do this. They also will feel safe in their working environment and will be more apt to perform their work thoroughly and effectively.

• Try to remain open to new ideas. Being close-minded is a bad trait for supervisors, and can result in missing out on new opportunities to improve work performance, attain company goals, and have a more fluid working environment.

  As a good supervisor, you need to be adaptable and flexible. Listen to your team or staff member's ideas and keep an open mind. Oftentimes, lower-level staff members can come up with solid ideas that can improve output and performance.

• Always be decisive. Indecision can cause your staff or team to lose faith in your leadership abilities. Also, once you make a decision, it is critical to stick to it, unless there are really bad consequences as a result.

  You should not fear being wrong; everyone makes mistakes, even the best supervisors, but the important thing is that you appear to be a leader amongst your staff that sticks to their word. This helps foster confidence in your decision-making abilities, and also gains you respect from your team members.