Articles

Supervisor Softy
by Dr. Lynne Curry

Question:

Every morning I have one, two or three employees in my office complaining about “Amber”. When I promoted Amber into supervision, I thought I’d picked the perfect person. Her co-workers loved her. She had a terrific work ethic and acted like an angel even when others acted snarly. In fact, that’s one of the reasons I thought she might be perfect for the job, because so much of the job involves handling the small issues that arise when you have lots of entry level people in relatively demanding yet low paid jobs. These folks would drive me nuts and I would wind up promising them anything just to get them out of my hair.  Because Amber was known for pouring oil over troubled waters, I looked forward to the day when I didn’t have to mediate employee skirmishes any longer.

Things, however, are worse than ever before a large part of the new problem seems to be Amber. Employees say she’s rude, lies to them about small things, unfairly takes one employee’s side over the other, and makes all kinds of promises that she doesn’t keep. I’m thinking I need to demote Amber back into her former position and hire someone with several years supervisory experience, however, I thought I’d ask you first.

Answer:

Sometimes, an “angel” face masks a Dr. Hyde personality. Promote an angel with a hidden bully attitude into a position in which she holds power over others and watch out! As supervisors, these apparent angels show two faces, one to their bosses and one to their employees. When talking with their bosses, these supervisors listen, word what they have to say politely and respond openly to constructive criticism. When they speak with their employees, they bark orders, react defensively to criticism and offer their views bluntly without worrying about employee feelings.

Sometimes a completely different cause inspires the types of comments you hear about Amber.  When a supervisor “softy” tries to supervise employees used to getting their way, problems invariably result. Either the employees push the supervisor into making too many concessions, resulting in both productivity loss and claims of unfair favoritism or the supervisor finds herself swamped in endless skirmishing. This especially occurs with supervisors promoted from the ranks of former co-workers because they often initially let their former co-workers set the terms for how things will be. Then, when these new supervisors discover they need to set limits, they often “take back the reins with a vengeance”, creating a huge employee backlash.

Alternatively, you may own part of this problem. First, when you promised these employees whatever they wanted to “get them out of your hair,” you created a nightmare group of employees used to pushing for what they wanted. No newly promoted supervisor can turn around a group of complainers overnight. Second, how come one to three employees appear daily in your office dishing the dirt on Amber? Further, when they appear, how do you handle it? Do you play Jeff to her Mutt, listening to what they say without giving Amber a chance to give her view? If so and you demote Amber, you not only act unfairly, you fix a symptom and not a problem, potentially creating a worse mess.

The remedy? The next time an employee comes into your office, ask the employee to give you the specifics about the issues that trouble her. In short, treat her with full respect, making your goal resolving the situation and not moving her quickly out of your office.

Then, treat Amber with equal respect. Invite her into your office and ask for her views about the situation. Then, as manager and supervisor, work as a team of two to decide how to resolve this situation, with Amber taking the lead in implementing your joint solution. If Amber takes the lead, you won’t inadvertently undercut her authority.

Although this approach initially keeps you in an active role, few managers can detach themselves from employee groups overnight, with most needing to provide coaching to the new supervisor on the hot seat.

Once you handle several skirmishes, ask yourself what you’ve learned. If you decide Amber creates the problem, ask her to move back into her former position as a great employee. If, however, you learn the problem lies more with Amber’s lack of training and your employees, work with Amber in collaboratively making decisions you can both enforce and arrange motivational  and conflict-resolving training for your employees to turn around the culture of complaint that now drives you nuts.