Supervisors are an essential component in improving the overall productivity and effectiveness of an organiz

Question

In your opinion, what is the most important thing a supervisor can do to improve the overall productivity and effectiveness of an organization? Explain your answer.

Answer 1

#1 - work hands-on as a helper to various individuals underneath them. Maybe it means taking 1 day a week or every 2 weeks as a 'servant' day (ok, half day). Be humble, be genuine. Let the other person tell you how to do his job. Let him be the boss over you. Make the time substantial and dedicated. Don't allow interruptions during this time. During this time, be happy, positive and say nothing negative. Later on, always refer to this period of time in a positive way. Make sure that the employee understands that they are encouraged and free to explain why and how they do things and what they think is the best way of doing these things.

This will accomplish quite a few goals all at once very easily and painlessly.

1 - it will put the employees at ease with the supervisor, it may help the employees to feel that the supervisor 'understands'

2 - it will help improve employee morale and give the employee a sense of empowerment

3 - it will improve productivity for that employee for some time both from method improvements that they thought of and from the simple encouragement

4 - it will educate the employer as to real life pacing of work as well as specific issues that they could not learn of in any other way.

5 - it will encourage the employee to think more about how to improve themselves.

It's very easy to do and yet very seldom done. The times that I was an employee and my supervisor did this with me, I still remember vividly because of all the positive results. Times when I have done this from the POV of a supervisor, I have likewise seen excellent results all across the board.

Principles are parallel to some things that you could also pick up from 'How to make friends and influence people' although this is not my actual source. I only read that fairly recently. I have been using the principles above for over 15 years.