What are the qualities needed for a good supervisor?

[Naina#]

Describe the essential qualities of a personnel supervisor

[luttu]

A supervisor needs to possess a number of good qualities which are following:
(1) Knowledge of the organisation—A supervisor should know his organisation well. Being a practitioner in management, he should acquire a thorough knowledge of the principles of organisation so as to be able to do his job properly. He must study the organisation structure, various duties and responsibilities of various positions.
(2) Technical ability—A supervisor should know his job well. Then alone he can properly lead and motivate his subordinates. His technical competence for the job would help him to do the following:
(a) Issue orders and instructions.
(b) Devise the work methods, procedures, and schedules, and necessary improvements in them.
© Review the work as to its quality and quantity.
(d) Evaluate performance by his subordinates.
(3) Conversational ability—A supervisor should be an expert in the art of talking. He must not speak the words that are inaccurate, monotonous or difficult to understand. He should be able to say what he means, and his words should not convey something that he does not mean.
Moreover, he should not talk with a stony expression on his face. Changes in tone, facial expressions or gestures are sometimes far more effective in conveying one's ideas than a thousand spoken words. Besides, if he finds that one set of words has not succeeded in conveying his meaning adequately, he should immediately switch over to the other.
His main aim should be to talk to his subordinates in the language and in a manner that they are able to catch his message. Further, he should not confuse his subordinates by including al! the important points of an order or instruction in one or two sentences.
(4) Ability to listen—When and why does a superior have to listen to others? It may be (a) to obtain information (b) to solve problems © to share experiences; and (d) to persuade or dissuade.
To be a good talker, one has first to be a good listener. A supervisor must carefully listen to directions given to him by his superiors, where necessary, he should take down notes and not rely too much on his memory.
While listening to a subordinate the supervisor should display keen interest in what is being told him.
(5) Ability to memorise-A supervisor should possess a sharp memory. He should be able to memorise all important points of the directives received from the above and the orders and instructions to be communicated below.
This is not to say that he should have every information or fact on his finger-tips. But at the same time, his memory should not be so poor that he is unable to recognise even his own subordinates.
(6) Ability to secure co-operation—A supervisor can secure co-operation from his subordinates only when he is able to prove to them that he is capable of providing competent direction and leadership. Besides, he must be fair in his dealings with his subordinates and should be trusted by them for his integrity, honesty, sincerity and initiative.
(7) Ability for orderly thinking—A supervisor has to think about all the aspects of his work.
Accordingly, he should be able to identify the specific abilities of his subordinates and to assign duties based on their individual competence. Also, he should work to develop the required team-spirit among his subordinates and continuously motivate them so as to get the best out of them.
(8) Ability to judge people—A supervisor should be able to make a fair assessment of the persons working under him. It is with, and through these persons that he has to secure the accomplishment of his tasks.
Therefore, he should know what different interests and personal characteristics these people have, and what kind of motivation each one of them needs to put in the best performance. This would help him in allocating jobs and evaluating performance.
(9) Patience—A supervisor should learn to keep his temper cool even in the face of mistakes committed by his subordinates. If he wants to correct subordinate, he should appeal to his reason by telling him why a parting or making fun of a subordinate in public, because that may only produce a sense of inferiority in the subordinate thus affecting his performance on the job. It may also make the subordinate arrogant in his behaviour.
(10) Emotional stability—Generally, subordinates look up to their supervisor as an ideal. They try to follow him in action as well as behaviour. For this reason, a supervisor should do everything to retain their confidence in him. He should always aim at the highest standards. Through actual work performance, he should demonstrate to his workers that he knows his job and can do it efficiently. Moreover, he should always give the impression that he is highly satisfied with his job and work conditions.
(11) Ability to instruct and inspire—A supervisor can attend to most of his tasks if he is technically competent. He should know how to assign them jobs how to evaluate their performance, how lo reward them, how to discipline them and how to settle there grievances.
(12) Physical vigour- A supervisor should be physically fit. Only then he can accomplish his heavy work schedule and yet not get tired or irritated as a result.
(13) Ability to delegate—A supervisor should concentrate on jobs which he alone can do e.g. planning, organising, directing, controlling etc. He should know how to delegate work among his subordinates i.e., what to delegate, whom to delegate, when lo delegate and how much to delegate. Work of a routine or standardised nature is delegated to subordinates.