You’ll get all sorts of advice before you start your first supervisor role. People will encourage you to know your leadership style, understand your strengths and weaknesses as a leader. I will encourage you to do that too. Infact, if you don’t yet know your leadership strengths, check out Strengths Based Leadership from Gallup. This book will give you an assessment to better understand your strengths and help you understand how to apply them. Don’t forget though to check your blind spots too. I have a great resource to understand your strength and blind spots a bit better in the end. But for now, let’s stop focusing on what everyone will tell you and focus instead on what they won’t.
Too often new leaders don’t get any training. While some companies invest in leader development more than 60% have no formalized training. You might train on new software or tools used in leadership. You’ll likely have a few job aids and someone to reach out to and find supervisor processes and job aids. All of that training is focused on how to do your work. Then everyone will say when you have questions to ask. But in your first supervisor role, how do you know what to ask? What you want to know is how to work through other people as a first-time supervisor. That is exactly what I’m going to help you with here and on YouTube! Click here if you want the info without the reading.
How do I know? I’ve been there.
My first supervising position was in a grocery store when I was 18 years old. I’d been working at the store for about a year and was promoted to a supervisor meaning that I could be responsible for the closing or opening crew. Training for my job included learning how to lock and unlock the store, getting certified to checkout alcohol, and learning what the check list included for opening and closing. My job, as the store owner told me, was to make sure that the check list got done. Simple enough on it’s face. I was fantastic at getting my work done. Knock out a check list? No problem. I learned in my very first night that getting this job done right would be a little different from what I was used to.
2 things I learned in that first supervisor role
In about the first hour of working that shift I realized that I couldn’t knock out all the work myself. While I probably knew that before I went into it I acted as though I would be doing all of the work. I didn’t really say anything to anyone. I took the sheet and started working feverishly to check off each box. There was just no way one person could do it. I needed to actually work through other people to accomplish it all. Nothing wrong with that, I’d been leading people for years in different capacities. I would just tell everyone what to do and they would get it done.
Introducing my second lesson. Not everyone will do work the same way I would. I went to check the bathrooms to see if I could check them off the list. Someone had mopped them, so they had cleaned them, I suppose. The mirrors were still dirty. The garbage was still full. Officially not done. This was the same with almost every item on the list. I can see you did something to check the box, but not something I can call done. How would I work through them in a way that got everything done to my standard?
How do you get quality work from others?
This is the question every first-time supervisor wants to ask, and almost none do. Even if you did, I don’t think you’d get a good answer. Most people just don’t know. This is why people in their first supervisor role fall into micromanaging every employee they have. Instead, sometimes they end up doing way too much work themselves. Either way, those aren’t good options. They may feel good like you have all of the control, but you’ll work yourself into the ground and you won’t get quality work from your team.
Getting great work from others is individual and global. (Tough, right?) You have to understand the big picture, the big goal, and find a way to apply it to the desires and purpose of the people you’re leading. To get quality work from others you need to influence them to want to do quality work.
Getting that quality work in my first supervisor role
For my first supervisory role I was able to get great work from that team, even if they started not realizing that cleaning a bathroom included the mirrors. I simply started listening to them. I started listening to what their goals were and how what they wanted to accomplish. Some of them wanted space to hang out with their friends. Others wanted to get supervisor promotions. The rest just wanted to get done early. So, the guy who I asked to clean the bathrooms wanted to get done before close. I intentionally gave him jobs that had finality and told him the goal is to have the store look picture perfect for the opening group. If you can make these 5 areas look that way, you can leave. But, they have to be picture perfect.
Those who wanted to spend time with friends got more continuous work. Again, the store needs to look picture perfect. If the 3 of you can face every isle while laughing and working side by side, fantastic. You won’t have time to get distracted though. It all needs to get done.
What about new supervisors in corporate? How do they apply this?
Regardless of your industry, the age of your employees, or tenure the supervisor has in the role, how you get quality work remains the same. You need to understand and communicate the big picture goal and apply it to their individual goals.
My very first supervisor role in corporate I didn’t make the same mistakes I did in the grocery store. I couldn’t, I didn’t know how to do the work my team was responsible for. There was no way I’d be able to attempt to do it myself. I didn’t try to learn it so that I could micromanage or take it over, I simply learned to influence them by connecting the goals.
The big goal for the team was to ensure that all work in the department was handled in a way that met or exceeded quality standards. Their individual goals were all over the board. One wanted to retire in the position in the next 5 years. Another wanted to be promoted to a leadership role. There were a few working toward technical promotions on my team. One wanted learn what it took to be me in my role. All of them wanted a decent work life balance.
After understanding that, I made it clear I would listen to any workload concern that came with an idea on a solution. We would look for ways to get the best results in the most efficient ways possible. For each of them I found a way for them to raise the bar of quality on the team in a way that advanced their personal goal. This kept them engaged, fulfilled, and connected to each other and the big picture. Looking for the specifics on this? Check out the YouTube video where I talk all about aligning those goals here!
Success in your first supervisor role
You can be wildly successful in your first supervisor role. Even without a ton of experience leading people in other ways. The first step is knowing yourself as a leader. Then, know what would stand in your way. After that, connecting the goals to allow you to work effectively through others will set you apart from the vast majority of new (and tenured honestly) leaders you come in contact with.
Still working on find out more about yourself as a leader? Check out this quiz. It will show you your dominant leadership attribute and highlight the benefits and risks of leaning into that trait. Click here to take the quiz. You’re 2 minutes away from better understanding yourself as a leader and your blind spots!