Welcome to Tony Richards Messages

30 Choosing Supervisors

Welcome to this week’s message on leadership, self-confidence, and how to feel good about yourself everyday as you interact with people, in safety and comfort, at home and work.

Last week’s message was all about Critical Step 5 Application and how to best utilise it.
If you wish to be reminded of that message, it is also available back on the message page.

This week’s message is a Special Interest Item based on an often-asked question about business practices. How to choose the right person for promotion when the job requires supervising others.

In a previous special interest message I explained a few ways of getting the promotion that you were after. This prompted some Company Directors to inquire about HOW to choose the right person for promotion to Supervisor.

Nowadays there are a number of successful methods for interviewing prospective candidates for promotion and there are companies that specialise in interviewing techniques that divulge the darkest secrets of candidates. I myself can easily take more than two hours to interview for the most menial job I’m attempting to fill for clients. This makes the candidate’s job very difficult.

Unfortunately today’s methods for interview, particularly computer-based interviews, discount the opportunities that were once available to those less capable of succeeding without educational standards required in modern society.

I say that because in the Mining Industry, where I worked for many years, some of my best subordinates could not read or write. However they were poetry to watch with machinery, and explosives handling, but most of all they were good, honest employees who were always safe and efficient.

A difficulty that often arises when choosing the right person for promotion is that if they are the best at the job that requires a level of supervision there is a natural tendency to give them the job. And that can have disastrous results. If they fail, you may choose to place them back where they were, and often the end result is that they seek employment elsewhere. The company, as well as the employees they were supervising, shatter their confidence.

It may be unfair to criticise people who are placed in their position of authority over others because of circumstances over which they have no control. If you’re a senior management person yourself, you may have been responsible for appointing some of those bosses who are having difficulty dealing with their subordinates.

Once acknowledged, that situation can be overcome by having those employees in power go through a process of Personal Development which will enhance their self-image, and channel the eventual confidence to the benefit of the company, themselves and their fellow employees.

Even better is the option of having prospective Supervisors go through such a Personal Development course before they are put in charge. Just make sure that the course provides a measurement of their commitment to the company, to themselves and to the other employees.
Don’t accept training that fails to give you a measured result that can be referred to as required.

A good example of that measurement is the Vision Statement (the third Critical Step to Confidence and Leadership) that these weekly messages encourage people to write, and their commitment to their Statement by the fifth Critical Step of Application.

Those employees who display their Vision Statement, and then live by it, will already be getting noticed for their commitment to the Principles that you want to see in your best employees.

If they have certainty of direction at work, they will give you all the commitment you seek, and will have gained the respect of the employees around them.

A real benefit of such advanced training is that it encourages new Supervisors to put their hands up early, if the stress of the position is being felt. That makes supervisory difficulties much easier to deal with.

Wouldn’t business owners be happier if they had employees with enough character to put their hands up to say they need help, rather than make decisions that result in losses of finance, contacts, and contracts with other firms, or valuable staff?

It is when a Supervisor is under stress that decisions may be made that are not only inefficient and unproductive, but also unsafe. The commitment every employer and employee must give to safety is beyond question.

Nobody deliberately puts themselves or others in unsafe positions. It often eventuates when poor decisions, that are the result of stress, are suddenly made. Those Supervisors with the best character development will usually make the safest decisions.

Please take the opportunity this week to think about finding the supervisory candidate with the best character. Remember that those who can’t read or write can be taught to understand signs, and safety, and it is character that determines who will best supervise other employees, and who will be most loyal, and make the firmest commitment to the safe success of your business.

Please email me on any items of special interest you may have. If I don’t have the answer to any queries you raise myself, I would be certain that the people who email me on their special interest subjects would have. And if no one else had already provided an answer, which was lost in my poor memory, I would be happy to research the query and find the answer. I am particularly interested in any success you’ve had with less educated employees.

Your stories – even short comments – are of great value to inspire others, and I would like to take the opportunity to include your stories, or comments, in upcoming episodes of ‘Special Interest Items’. They will be included as they fit into the theme of the message for that week.

Do you know anyone you can help with leadership issues, or just feeling good about themselves? Forward this message to friends and work colleagues; print it out and place it on notice boards, and give copies to those without computer access. Printing out, and compiling each weekly message in a folder, is a good way to build a total knowledge of self-confidence and leadership. It will provide certainty in dealing with every aspect of your life.

Next week’s message is an explanation of Stage 4 of the Cycle of Confidence and Leadership. It is a message that reinforces your value, and entitlement, to ongoing, continuous happiness.

It will be followed in coming weeks by messages on the Five Critical Steps to Confidence and Leadership, and, in turn, by Special Messages in response to often asked questions.

Until then, please continue to see yourself as a unique and remarkable person. You deserve to feel good about yourself every day.

Tony Richards.

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