I was raised by two school teachers who were friends with lots of other school teachers, so when I became a school teacher right out of college, I had a lot of people to turn to for advice. And boy did I need it. Just 22 myself, I was teaching high school social studies on the North Side of Richmond and was in so far over my head I couldn’t even feel the ground anymore. I was anxious, unprepared and desperate for support.
My parents shared a great love for teaching and for one another but that was essentially where their commonalities ended. My mother taught elementary school while my father taught high school math. Their philosophies on education and their styles of teaching were as different as they could have been. But the one piece of advice they both shared got me through that first year of teaching and my subsequent years in the workplace, primarily when I became a manager. “All you need to do,” they told me, “is show your students how much you care. They’ll forgive the rest.”
That first year at John Marshall was one of the most impactful of my career and the lessons I learned have stuck with me since. And it all happened just as my parents said it would:
- I was a terrible teacher
- I cared a lot about my students
- My students forgave the rest
Yes, it was important to teach my students the content they needed to know in order to graduate. And yes, I needed to learn how to craft a cohesive lesson plan, how to manage my classroom and how to effectively assess what my students were learning. Effective teaching, like all fields, requires great skill and that skill does not come with years of practice, growth and experience. But that first year, I did not have the benefit of any of those. Just starting out, I only had limited portions of each. I would get better (thank goodness!) over the years, but that first year I could only use what I had, and what I had was a whole lot of dedication and care for my students. Not only did I have it, I showed it, and they were beyond gracious to me and my terrible teaching because of it.
My experience as a first-year teacher was not unlike my first year as a manager. I was anxious, unprepared and desperate for support. Only this time, I didn’t care enough about my employees. Or rather, I didn’t focus on them. I was so caught up in the busyness of nonprofit life that I barely thought about them at all. I figured, they would do their work and I would do mine. There was no ill intention, merely neglect. I did care about them but never really made much effort to show it. My role as supervisor was incidental as I struggled with my role as program manager, community center director, volunteer coordinator…
Pretty early on into my time as a supervisor, it became abundantly clear that my strategy of neglecting my team was not a good one. Things started going from bad to worse and by the time I got around to trying to do something about it, it was too late. People quit or were transferred and our work suffered as a result. When my new staff was in place, I knew I had to do better this time around, so I started getting my hands on every book and training I could find on how to delegate and give feedback and manage conflict. I wanted to develop the skills I needed to be a strong supervisor and I focused on these skills every chance I got. It was, once again, a well-intentioned, but misguided strategy. Because the truth is, if you want to be a good supervisor, a really good supervisor, the first thing you have to do is care about your team. Of course the skills matter. Like all roles, effective supervising requires at the very least a level of competency with these skills. But if you don’t care about your team, all the skill mastery in the world won’t matter. You see, as it turns out, adults are not that different from students when it comes to the advice my parents shared- if you care about them, they will forgive a lot.
As a supervisor, you need to care about your team and each person on it. You need to care about them as people as well as staff. You need to care about their professional growth and development. You need to care about their goals and their dreams. You need to care about their job satisfaction and their need to feel valued and valuable. You need to care about providing opportunities for them to be their best selves. You need to care enough about them to be honest. You need to care about them enough to want to grow and get better and become the best supervisor you can possibly be. You need to care enough about them to put them first. Always.
Yes, the skills that supervision requires are important. If all you do is care, but you don’t know how to give feedback, delegate, think strategically or manage performance issues, you are going to have a rough go of it. But if you do some of these things well and some poorly, your care for your staff and your role will go a long way. The longest way, really. People are quick to forgive when they know you have their best interests at heart. And the fact that you care about doing your job well will motivate you to keep working at the areas that need work. Most of the skills of management can be learned with a little bit of training and effort. Invest in these areas and keep on investing throughout your career. The caring is a tougher one to learn through a book or a workshop. It is more a mindset and one you should examine for yourself. Do you care about your team? Do you care about being a good supervisor?
Being a supervisor is a great privilege and responsibility. If you do not consider it as such, I ask you to reconsider your interest in becoming one. Yes, management positions often come with increased titles and salaries, and in many cases, it is not possible to get promoted without supervising someone else (a post for another day) but if you don’t really want to be a supervisor and you end up being one anyway, that title and money will likely not be worth it. Supervising can be great, but it can also be hard. Very, very hard. Especially if you don’t like doing it. If this is your situation, care enough about yourself and those you supervise to either commit to your role or seek another one. If it turns out you don’t want to be a supervisor, it is no indication of anything other than the fact that you don’t want to be a supervisor.
In this case, and in all others, find out what you really love to do, and go do that. Consider it a standing piece of advice.
If you would like more support to become a stronger supervisor, we invite you to join our value-packed, self-paced virtual course, From Struggling Supervisor to Thriving Leader. This course will give you everything you need to better support your staff while becoming a stronger leader. Start today and revisit the material as mnay times as is helpful. Click the photo below for more information.
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