Top Supervisor Mistakes Not to Make

No leader is perfect, but there are ways to be a better one.  
 
Jason Coleman (Deputy Chief Budget Director, Bureaus of Near Eastern Affairs and South Central Asia for the U.S. Department of State) and Carolyn Mooney (Business Therapist at Enough, LLC) recently joined GovLoop and NextGen to discuss top mistakes that that supervisors should avoid. 

Poor communication was one mistake that Coleman mentioned seeing new supervisors make, explaining how a lack of good feedback can negatively affect the workplace as a whole. He said that supervisors need to discuss their expectations for the office, as well as regularly meet with their employees to talk about not only how they can do their job better, but how supervisors can help them meet their goals. 

His other top mistake was being too friendly with your staff. 

“Be familiar, not friendly,” Coleman said. “You need to have your employee’s trust, but it’s harder to have serious conversations if you are hanging out outside of work. Everyone wants to be the ‘cool’ supervisor, but you’re still there to get a job done and you can’t be friends with everyone.” 

Mooney’s big supervisor mistakes were pretending to know it all and rushing to fix problems before taking the time to truly evaluate them. 

“You don’t have to know everything,” she said. “Sometimes, when you’re a supervisor, you feel like you have to be the adult in the room and have all the knowledge, but it’s OK to not know.” 

She added that even though supervisors feel like they have to “prove themselves,” it was often better to pause and let your employees grow in their career by trying to fix the problem themselves first.  

“Use problems as an opportunity for a teachable moment,” Mooney said. “You need to build the confidence of your employees and give them grace, coaching them and standing next to them, but not doing it for them.” 

To learn more top supervisor mistakes and advice for new leaders, watch the webinar now.