A simple tip for a new supervisor can save a lot of time, reduce frustration, and ultimately produce better teamwork. For a new supervisor (and perhaps even some seasoned ones), it’s tempting to try to touch and control everything that your team does. While admirable, that attitude will likely lead to burnout. Also, you may spend so much time watching other people’s work that you lose focus on your own.
Instead, new supervisors should take some inspiration from the world of laundry. Think about when you wash your clothes. Do you watch the detergent do its job?
I’m guessing you measure the detergent and put it in the washing machine. Once you start the load of laundry, you don’t watch the detergent working. You leave it and let it do its job. It’s unnecessary to supervise the suds over their metaphorical shoulders.
The same principle should apply to your team. Rather than just say, “Don’t micromanage,” let’s go a little deeper into this process:
A New Supervisor Should Set Expectations
Make sure your team understands what you want to accomplish. Even if it is, to keep everything the same, let that be known.
This fills the void of uncertainty in your employee’s minds. When people aren’t sure how you want them to perform, they may start to improvise or develop bad habits.
Clear expectations allow you focus your team. From our laundry example, the expectation for detergent is to make things clean through a washing process.
A New Supervisor Should Consider Training
If you’re introducing change, make sure your team has the skills necessary to implement your new ideas. For instance, not everyone will intuitively know how to use new software.
Whether the training comes from online resources like YouTube, a team exercise, or one-on-one coaching, make sure people know what to do and feel confident doing it.
Don’t fall into the trap of being the only person who knows how to do an important task. You may be the best at that task but you don’t want to be in a situation where you have to repeatedly drop everything to perform it.
In a washing machine, the soap has been trained, or chemically designed to do a task. You don’t paint or cook with soap. You clean.
A New Supervisor Should Hold People Accountable
If your team has clear instructions and the training to carry them out, then you are on solid ground for holding people accountable for the results.
If the results are below expectations, then you can consider if more training is needed or decide whether the employee might not be a good fit.
Sometimes, we switch laundry detergents because a new one will do a better job of cleaning our clothes.
It’s also possible that circumstances outside anyone’s control may have made it difficult for the employee to succeed. This is why it’s important to have a conversation with the employee about what went wrong and how things might be improved.
Even the best laundry detergent will struggle to clean if too little of it is used for an extra large load. Simply adjusting the ratios should produce a better result. The same can apply in the workplace.
Final Thought
Smart new leaders focus their time on tasks that contribute to the success of their goals. The things you ignore can be equally important because you can’t do everything.
