So You Want to Manage/Supervise People? Is It Not Because of Getting More Money?

You're also asking what are the headaches of supervising People? What would you recomment to people before they take on a supervising position? What are the benefits of managing people compared to a position where you just manage yourself?

It's all in the following.... Read on!

Managing and supervising people is not always about the money. It is as if leading a squadron into battle, are you ready to take on more being a leader? Many decisions lie upon your lead, your direction. I enjoy being a manager/supervisor. Do not always care for the politics, but with every good, there does come evil. You have to accept and move on or retreat to a different position. The ultimate victory is to achieve a win/win scenario. Not always an easy task. You do have to combine your leadership tactics with a servant’s attitude. You have to be ready to please all sides, your upper leadership giving you expectations and their direction as well as your subordinates ensuring they understand your direction and expectations. Again not always an easy task.

I feel it is the ability of being a contributor, a decision maker. Being there to help make a difference and rise to the level beyond bureaucracy, possibly influencing the decision making process. Sure, you can always offer ideas in any position and many just want to be the follower. Getting people involved is like a village raising a child. Motivating, achieving the uncertain. You cannot be indecisive; you have to be a quick study, know what is being asked of you and know without a doubt that you are going to succeed. In most cases, you do not have a choice but to succeed. That is what makes it interesting and forthcoming. A challenge. We are challenged everyday we awake. However, more so working with people to push an idea through, get it noticed, complete a job, and bask in the unknown. Be the one who made it work. I am not talking about recognition. That is another story or question. It’s helping, it’s assisting, it’s building, it‘s teaching, it‘s succeeding. Like an engineer who creates something from the bottom up and gets the joys by seeing it function. Being a manager and/or supervisor is the same joy. Sure, you have bad apples, what baskets do not have one that spoils. What project in an engineer’s eye will not have a bad bolt or screw? Nevertheless, you get the opportunity to watch your department, your business, your district, your people grow and achieve and feel good about being part of that and steering it toward success.

What are the benefits of managing others compared to managing yourself?

It is different but not very different. As a team you work together, you have group input, you are the person who keeps things under control. You manage the time and the final decisions. Managing yourself, you have to have just as much initiative and ambition to complete the task on time successfully, on schedule within guidelines given. You have the reigns so to speak to motivate others who unlike you might see things differently. You can drive hard and the results achieved are slightly different. You choose to motivate yourself regarding time as long as it is completed within the expected time frame. Not so much leading a group. You have to prod some to stay on task, to meet target and you have to accept responsibility for others. For yourself you accept responsibility for yourself. With teams, you have to depend on others, their direction, their uncertainties and certainties. With steering yourself you are either confident in your own decisions or not. Like a battlefield, you make the call, and you hope it is the right call and your troops will follow you into battle. With yourself, you depend on yourself. At the end, it all depends upon your comfort zone. Are you willing to step out the box and be challenged with your team or would you rather relinquish success to just yourself. Everyone has their own reasoning’s for doing and choosing what they do.

What would you recommend to people before they take on a supervising position?

I do believe managing and supervising is not for everyone. I do think it takes a certain type of person that must want to do it; there must be an inert feeling that drives them toward such a success. Managing people comes in many different styles. No one style will work best for every situation. Know your strengths, weaknesses and limitations. Continually learn, read books, white papers, publications in management and utilize self help to personally grow yourself, take advantage of all learning tools, never stop learning and achieving the unexpected, but don’t stop there enable your people to grow too. Get them involved in learning to become better. The more they become better the better you will become. Learn to build trust. Trust is enabled by truth. Building trust can be as easy as delegating, which frees up your time for other opportunities that need attention. However, know the ones you delegate. Know that you can depend on them and let them know you have their back and they will have your back. Learn that there are different styles of management.

Expect challenges and disagreements. Learn how to handle and at times get around them. Learn to have thick skin. Not every personality will click with yours or yours with theirs. Do know that as a manager you are accepting a higher level of expectations, and responsibility. Learn to set yourself and your employees goals. This gives everyone an opportunity to strive. It puts people on a level playing field seeking to achieve what is expected of them.

Do know as a manager/supervisor you have to be a people person to the extent of Human Resource management. You will undoubtedly come against some of the best people in your field but you will also come against some of the most unruly people at times. You have to know what to do and how to handle situations without being judgmental and defensive. Oh it is so easy to become defensive when backed into a corner. Are you ready for this. You are not always going to be right.

In addition, you have to be a good and effective communicator. You have to provide a positive and safe work environment. It all lies on you. Are you ready to handle the stress?

In the end, it does not hurt to have a mentor, someone you can seek advice from and learn, but never be something you are not. Do not be a fake. Be upfront, truthful, and transparent. You will learn your own style of managing in time but do not be a copycat. Your employees need to know what expectations are required of them and how to achieve them.

Below is some great reads that if you want to be successful at managing/supervising I suggest you consider these.

1.The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell
2.How to Manage People (Creating Success)
3.Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...
4.It's Your Ship
5.You Lead, They'll Follow: How to Inspire, Lead and Manage People.

I also recommend reads by Zig Ziglar and one person I recommend reading his techniques and is known as the granddaddy to leadership and management is Peter Drucker. There are many books written by him in his time. He had the foresight to see things as they changed.

The Peter Principal

I have seen this throughout my career. As it has been stated, smaller companies tend to pursue this area of incompetence to keep the majority from an uprising so to speak, as when not bringing in someone of a higher skill level it can stifle the growth of any organization. However, it does not necessarily just happen in small companies. I've worked for larger organizations and simply because people are in the in crowd so to speak they simply move into positions where they might have been top notch in their current position but their skill sets changes and they assume they know what to do and because they don't and they've not been trained in that hierarchy position they create ambiguity, discontent, and uneasiness amongst team players and/or associates.

Clearly, we have all seen this happen where John/Jane Doe obtains their position not by what they know but whom they knew. Incapable of handling the position in areas of communication, direction, strategies, improvements, growth to name a few. You realize there is no way someone in the path that has been obtained can clearly work through that particular position.

I think it goes along with the adage of if you want to get rid of someone you either promote them or fire them.

This affects many areas of business. It creates dismay across the spectrum of people this person has power over. It is not fair to the people that strive to get to certain levels but never see it. This person has no outlook or foresight for what the position encompasses… They may be able to learn certain aspects, but they tend to have to lean on the person who got them to the point where they are. It is like carrying a broken ladder everywhere you go, hoping you can get to the top without anyone noticing you are climbing up a faulty tool to perform the job.

Incompetence in the workplace is what stifles growth, challenges, and creativity. If you do not understand what the skills sets are in the position you have been given how can you lead and expect any type of success. Eventually you lose as a whole. Your good people will leave or seek different avenues not to be judged or associated with the downfall of the incompetent. The only ones left to follow is those that won't create any ripple effect and those that are following along the same lines as the one put into the position that is incompetent. Eventually your whole hierarchy has become incompetent and yet management wonders why things are occurring the way they are and obtaining the results they did not want to obtain. Clearly, at some point, the incompetence comes to a head and the person them self has realized they have come to the end of the road and no further progress can occur.

One example I can remember is seeing a floor supervisor clearly express his views to his superior about a friend the superior had hired on and how the superior wanted to get the friend promoted. The supervisor stated his reasoning that there were others more qualified and deserving and who had been striving for such a position. The supervisor clearly refused to sign off on it and without his signature, it could not be done. The supervisor was eventually moved out of the department eventually laid off and the friend was put in place. Here is the clincher. The superior who got the friend promoted found out down the road that although the friend whom he promoted continuously played his cards up the ladder he eventually got the superior (his friend who got him the job) laid off and obtained the superiors job. In turn the friend started promoting his own friends and acquaintances to hierarchy positions where it was clearly noted even the most ignorant can obtain a position despite what they knew. Could they actually perform in the position, sure, as long as they had the friend to lean on. The Peter Principal works great within the buddy system.

If noted, you one can see that the Parkinson law will at times follow suit with the Peter Principal. You see some incompetent get into a position they cannot handle or perform so the easiest way to make the job tolerable is to add to the bureaucracy despite the amount of work that is to be done, there is always someone to shoulder the skill sets so the incompetent will not fall from power.

Our government clearly fits the Peter Principal and the Parkinson Law. You put people into positions they are unqualified for and they will A. Fill it with for example five people to do a one persons job. B. Fill your task with bogus issues that would typically be performed in 1 day, it now takes a week.

You have to fill all the people you hired to perform your job with idiotic task to justify their need for you to appear you are accomplishing the task that you are not qualified to do.

You may also want to read about the Dunning-Kruger effect whereas someone who is incompetent chooses to put other incompetence’s in place and may not know that they are doing it because of their own in competences. It also goes into talking about how incompetent people will unjustly rate themselves higher in all aspects of competence as compared to how their peers rate them.

Interesting topic- this is the kind of discussion I really appreciate. Thanks for asking.


http://www.heretical.com/miscella/parkinsl.html
http://www.talyarkoni.org/blog/2010/07/07/what-the-dunning-k

What Actual Does Service Mean

Servant’s attitude. Doing something for the benefit of others. Not thinking of your bottom-line. Thinking of caring, understanding and meeting the dilemma of your client, internal and external. Knowing that with proper service engaged that your windfall would come back 10fold. Service is paying forward. Accepting and acknowledging being the best at what you offer, what you stand for and what you represent. Service is like faith or for some karma. Doing what is right without question, without expectations of receipt.

Supply Chain Management vs Logistics, Aren't They the Same

SCM is the management of material and information flow in a supply chain to provide the highest degree of customer satisfaction at the lowest possible cost. SCM requires commitment of supply chain partners to work closely to coordinate order generation, order taking, and order fulfillment thus, creating an 'extended enterprise' spreading far beyond the producer's location.

Logistics is the management of the flow of goods, information and other resources in a repair cycle between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet the requirements of customers. Logistics involves the integration of information, transportation, inventory, warehousing, material handling, and packaging, and occasionally security. Logistics is a channel of the supply chain which adds the value of time and place utility. Today the complexity of production logistics can be modeled, analyzed, visualized and optimized by plant simulation software.

Logistics is an entity of the SCM system. Supply chain is anything from cradle to grave. Logistics is an interim factor within the chain. Your SCM can entail the beginning of actual purchases, vendors, material, manufacturing, waste, completion, inventory, storage, etc., whereas Logistics is just as Marissa indicated, the movement and tracking of the end product where it gets stored before it gets delivered and the shape it is received in.

Everything you can imagine has some sort of SCM working in place. Even such things as a blog have an SCM. But not everything has logistics. Although they sound familiar and seemingly paths may cross but there is a clear distinction.

What is Your Management Style

To define a management style or your management style you need to know the role. Typically the main focus is on managing people and their activities. It differs and sometimes out of the realm of people management, such as process management.
Managers ensure things get done, focusing on daily task by managing the activities of others. Managers often times have a directive approach utilizing prescribe agendas to fulfill their roles and capabilities more so in an organizational style approach. This doesn’t mean they can direct people because they’re process oriented. Managers are usually just high performers of what they may have done in previous roles.

There are distinctions in leaders and managers, whereas leaders are more strategically sound and inspire people to get the task done. This is simply an inert ability from within that gives leaders the stamina to push people and get the objective accomplished. They use whatever works in their arsenal of skills to motivate their people and get the work out of them. Leadership skills are really more behavioral than management skills. Leaders are change oriented knowing that changes will better the successes.

Both skill sets have to be able to work together when one is given the role to manage/ lead. Not everyone is a good manager and not everyone is a good leader. However there are those that can do both and compliment each skill set with the other.

So for me to say what kind of Manager I am, I am process driven. I am organized and detail oriented despite what I have to do to get it done. Whether it’s delegate, or manage step by step I am processed oriented toward continuous improvements and best practices.

As a leader I am more inspiring although wanting to get it done from my management strengths, I believe by empowering the employees to be creative and offer openness and think outside the box will give them a since of ownership and contribution toward the success and when you have a successful project stimulated by successful employees that have a buy in as being part of the process instead of being nothing more than a machine the overall outcome is win/win.

Does Having Children Make You a Better Manager

Very controversial topic. Psychology Today depicts the answer as yes based on Joanne Stern, Ph.D., whom is a psychotherapist.

However, I would venture to turn the question around as “Have you learned proper management/leadership skills from being parented by your mother and father?” “What have you learned that makes you or has allowed you to follow this path?” “What makes you a better manager from what has been instilled in your thought process and values?” Not everything is driven by academics in school or what you are born with.

Children are just that, children, which are easily influenced day to day. The things you can attribute to possibly learning are building trust, improving communications, empowering but these same attibutes being respective of those who don't or can't have children, can be learned as a pet owner such as a dog owner or a cat owner.

You have to have and show discipline, you have to have and show patience, you have to give instructions, and many pets can be challenging. You have to be there when they are sick or do you let them expire? So does being a pet owner make you a better manager?

I think there are attributes that can very easily be depicted from your question, but not always. Example- I heard a story of a pastor who stood at the pulpit every Sunday preaching how to respect your wife, how you should treat them but people had heard the pastor was everything opposite he spoke about. When the story final broke the news, the pastor was exactly what he was saying not to be. He was mistreating his wife, beating her, disrespecting her. Does this mean he was a better pastor because he was married and capable of talking on the topic and practicing in public?

Therefore, IMHO, I do not really think by having a family and/or children makes you a better manager. You might be a little bit more aware of certain aspects. All in all I really think good management/leadership is and inert ability from what you’ve been taught, what you’ve learned, your beliefs, and how you deal with things and much has a lot to do with personality traits, Type A and Type B’s, not with how you rear your kids.

In the personality category, a Type B is a person who is introverted and Type A is extroverted. Type A’s make better leaders and tend to need the lime light, and like being in the middle of things, whereas Type B’s rather sit back and not be in the spotlight, not giving direction. This is not to say Type B’s cannot be a great leader but the inert desire to manage/lead is usually something you as a person want. Type B’s usually (not always choose) choose to be a follower. Does that mean a Type B because he/she does not want to manage/lead make him/her a good manager/leader if he/she now has children? We all know right from wrong, we all learn from different aspects but believing you are a better manager because you can base your experiences off of the ability to manage little people doesn’t mean you’re cut out to manage a business force.

You could actually start the discussion whereas is women better managers than men? It’s all perception and what your inert adeptness is to how you manage/lead. And if the case in point is true that women are better managers than men, then that would mean they get all the kudos for spending more time with the children that has taught them the many avenues to become better managers. Be careful what is imposed in belief.


http://www.thepracticeofleadership.net/.../peter-drucker-on-leadership/
http://managementhelp.org/ldr_dev/samples/samples.htm

Leadership

I think personalities have a lot to do with Leadership. Type A personality is aggressive, doesn't need the social stimulation that a Type B requires, may be more extroverted, more assertive. Type B personalities, are more introverted, have the need to have a social stimulation, and is less assertive, and doesn't want to hurt people’s feelings so to speak, and has a need to be liked.

It's my opinion that doesn't mean Type B's can't be a good leader. As indicated, leaders aren't born; they're made at least that’s what statistics tell us. With leadership training and mentoring I think anyone can be a good leader. You also have to know if that's what you want to do. I don't think you should put someone in a leadership role knowing themselves they can't do it or want to do it. But then on the other hand there's those that you put into leadership roles that are too aggressive and goes over the edge.

I think leaders to some degree do entail a certain quality despite being taught. I think a true leader has confidence in themselves and what they are out to achieve. They're enthusiastic and have great character. Would you want a leader you can't trust? Look at the situations in our world today. People who thought they could lead only to take a back seat because others were leading them. So a good leader has to be trustworthy, and also tolerant but able to keep things under control. Good leaders also want to be successful and have a drive for excellence. Meaning a true leader doesn't associate leadership with the large dollars they walk away with. There's a certain feeling of achievement they obtained and enjoyed just by being successful in what they set out to accomplish. Not everyone has that feeling. Let’s take a look at ourselves for instance. When we have a honey do that has be taken care of. Some of us can do it and go on our way and not think twice about it. Some of us do it with a sense of accomplishment, achievement a feeling of success.

I believe to have a good balance between a good leader; you should possess some of the personality, the drive, and the ability to map your own course in leadership. I also think you need to know those you are leading. The need and what they require, when they require it and why they get or don’t get what they want.

If we take a look at the animal kingdom and how animals lead if you've ever seen national geographic for instance when a particular animal thinks they have the ability to lead they face off with the head of the pack and the strongest survives or beats out the opposition. I think one has to know in themselves if they or a leader of a follower.

Also intelligence is a key to leadership. You have to be able to think irrationally and quick in a lot of aspects and circumstances. Now this is not saying that a person with a lack of intelligence is not smart, keen or whatever you want to call it. It’s a matter of some people can act upon situations with no trouble at all, whereas some that are less stimulated by intelligence may not be able to cope or act upon the same particular situation and fall short of confidence, scared, less acceptance.

So I think it’s quite a debatable subject whether one is born or one is taught. I think there’s many attributes from both sides of the spectrum that contributes to a good leader.

It's in my opinion that anyone who is interesed in learning more about leadership, leadership roles and becoming an effective leader learn from the grandaddy of them all, the father of leadership, Peter Drucker himself. I think it should be required reading when you get to a leadership role.

How Affected are you at being Effective

As a Manager how effective are you? Do you sit around and do simple task? Do you ever have a game plan? In today's society of business it's quite simple to walk into our offices turn on the computer and read news, listen to music, check the stock market, read more news, see who's playing who in sports and what's the latest statistics of our favorite teams. We carry iPods and such where we left off of at the office and begin as we're getting into our autos or the next plane. But how effective are we as managers?

Is our goals to better the organization we work for? I think we've all been there where our time management probably needs a little jolting to get us back on track at times.

Let's examine what effectiveness is and how do we become more effective to our organization.

The wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn defines "effective" as producing or capable of producing an intended result or having a striking effect. Simply stated as the cable guy would say "getter dun".

To elaborate on this and the "effectiveness" of this article let's ask some questions and define some rules to better educate ourselves on the proper effectiveness we can become at becoming more effective for our organization.

Peter Drucker states in one of his 39 published books about management "that in order to manage others we effectively have to know how to manage ourselves". I like that statement. That tells us in a lot of aspects to lead by example. If we can manage ourselves which does take some concentration and a lot of time, discipline. But it can be done. Do you focus on what needs to be done or do you simply put off what needs to be done and do the easy stuff first with intentions of getting to the actually important items that need to be done?

Do you have a plan? An action plan to put into effect to help you stay effective so you can focus on what needs to be done? Do you perform what is needed for the organization or simply what needs to be done because you're dictated to what's required or what you want to do? We all have to engage with what's required by anyone and everyone we work for. But stepping away from what is required by someone who's telling us what needs to get done; do we look at what is required to make our organization succeed? What does it take to make your organization win? It's not a matter of filling in numbers to see what you've sold, it's a matter of what's the plan to sell the product that will make those numbers. What will it take financially to be effective toward achieving those numbers that are plugged in to give us the ability to know if we succeeded or failed?

You have to ensure the plan effectively fits your organization. Keep in mind you have to take action when you create a plan. Sitting around toying with an idea wondering if it will work effectively doesn't do you or your organization any good if all you're going to do is think about it and not place anything into action. You have to do something with the idea or it's nothing more than wasted time. You know the ole saying "actions speak louder than words"? That statement is quite effective on our studies of learning just how effective we can be.

Accountability is very important toward carrying out effectiveness. You have to let everyone know what your plan is and who it effects as well who will carry it out and accomplish what's needed to be done. They need time tables. Times when things will be completed and times things are required to be completed. How effective can one be if you cannot meet deadlines?

Meetings need to be productive. I had a conversation with peers once on what makes a good meeting effective.Meetings are either effective or a waste of time there is nothing in the middle by any means. You have to have your agenda planned with all stake holders, and their involvement so they can be prepared. You'll need answers when your plan goes into effect. These key people can let you know what you're up against and if it can or can not be accomplished in the time frames you're requesting. Don't just have a bunch of people show up for a meeting and at that point decide that you're going to introduce your idea and hope that from a brain storming function you can lavishly obtain what you're looking for. It won't happen. Have everything scheduled with the proper people ahead of time and everyone comes together to bring their formulas and equations for the idea that needs to be accomplished.

As the manager you have the ability to run this meeting and ensure it kicks off on time effectively and runs smoothly getting all the information out that's required in order to effectively accomplish your needs. You don't need any side bar or interruptions. Get the information out and move on.

Always keep in mind what's effectively good for the organization not what's good for you or anyone else. As a manager your job is effectively do what's best for the organization. To many times we get tied up in details that keeps us back from the task we have to do to advance the organization in whatever it's purpose is. Although planning and scheduling is a great way to get things done and planning your time effectively will in turn effectively help the organization meet it's goal.

You have to effectively manage your resources and that being "time". If you can't manage time effectively how can you manage anything else and with out the ability to manage anything else how truely effective can you be? We're all given the same amount of time. Same number of hours each and every day as long as we're alive. If you can't make a plan to help you manage effectively and to effectively meet the objectives of your organization you've effectively lost and at this point you can honestly say how affected are you at being effective!