Robert M. Donaldson, CEO / Collaborative Strategies Consulting Inc. / Collaborative Power Grab.
Moving to the front-line supervisor position from the previous technical expert role can be the most difficult first step anybody makes in their leadership journey.
I find it typically takes three to five years for the front-line supervisor to become as effective as needed. Even then, they’re not going to be very good at their job until they receive training that focuses on their specific leadership requirements. What are these leadership needs? In essence, the front-line supervisor is the only leader in the entire leadership hierarchy who is not leading other leaders.
Not only is it likely their first leadership job, but they’re also facing problems that nobody else in the leadership hierarchy is facing. Now granted, many of those senior leaders started out as front-line supervisors, but in my experience, they often forget the unique challenges of this position. The other important issue here: When it comes to understanding the challenges of the front line supervisor, the world has grown a lot more complicated than it was just 20 or 30 years ago.
Often, we fail to understand how incredibly different this first job as a leader really is. For many decades we assumed they would “just get it over time” or “that’s how I learned the job. Why should it be any different for them?” and that type of thinking has been a growing disaster as the world continues to become more complicated. Yet, most organizations persist in underrating the impact that poorly trained new front-line supervisors have on the entire organization.
I believe that this lack of understanding is the source of most of your grievances submitted and is, hands down, the greatest source of degrading your culture, resulting in higher turnover. In the age of quiet quitting, which is still happening, this becomes a critical dynamic in holding on to your best talent.
If your front-line supervisors are not ready for the modern age, it will be progressively demanding for the people who work in your organization to meet minimum standards. A recent Gallop poll indicates that only around 20% of the American workforce trusts their supervisor. A recent poll sponsored by the Society of Human Resources Management predicts there will be approximately 24 billion acts of incivility in the American workplace over the next year.
These staggering numbers tell the truth about exactly how big our problem is in the American workplace. As leaders, we need to take this information seriously and do something about it. I believe that successfully changing this culture will need to start at the front-line supervisor level of any organization because that is exactly where a workplace culture either grows or dies.
Right now, and for the foreseeable future, most people are deciding where they’ll work based on the culture and the supervisor they end up working for, so any organization that ignores this fact will not be able to attract and keep the best talent.
If creating an emotionally intelligent, growth-oriented and dynamic work culture is not a top priority, it can also make succession planning near impossible, as the added problem of the silver tsunami is still expected to hit companies and public agencies over the next five to ten years.
In one agency I know of, we will see almost the entire senior and middle manager group leaving within two years. This will essentially decapitate the organization of hundreds of years of institutional knowledge over a short 24-month period.
I am certain that any organization can transform front-line supervisors into culture, relationship, problem-solving and continuous improvement experts—as well as effectively position current tech experts into future front-line supervisor positions. If you can, why wouldn’t you?
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