Supervision and Leadership

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Supervision and Leadership

• Motivating workers

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Alfred Kadushin, the foremost authority in social
work supervision, defines supervision as

• the responsibility of sustaining worker morale
• helping the worker with job-related
  discouragements and discontents
• giving workers a sense of
• worth as professionals
• belonging to the agency
• security in their performance.
• What has been your experience with a supervisor?

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What do supervisors do?
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Supervisors

• Translate the policies and objectives of the
  agency into specific work duties and timelines
• Select the jobs to be completed
• Assign workers who will complete the jobs
• Determine when the jobs will be completed
• Review whether or not the work is being completed
  and up to agency standards
• Evaluate employees

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• Educate workers on the goals and objectives of
  the agency
• Assure that employees behave in a manner as
  though they accept them
• Resolve conflict
• between workers
• Between the agency and workers
• Between units within the agency
• The supervisor is the bridge between higher
  levels of administration and the worker.

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Supervisors

• Introduce new workers to the agency and help new
  workers find their place
• Act as liaison between various agencies sharing
  policy and solving problems in terms of such
  things as client referral.

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Leadership and Power

• What is leadership?

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Leadership

• The ability to influence the behavior of
  individuals or groups.
• There are two types of overall leadership formal
  and informal.

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Empowerment-oriented leaders

• In empowerment-oriented practice, it is important
  that the executive director establish a vision
  for the organization.
• The executive director must create an
  organizational culture in which staff members and
  volunteers are client-oriented and are committed
  to a set of values that supports power-sharing.
• The executive director must have the ability to
  inspire and motivate paid as well as unpaid
  workers. In addition, they must be able to
  facilitate group-oriented decision-making
  processes.

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Formal Leaders

• Individuals who occupy organizational offices or
  positions which have power as part of the
  position.

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Informal Leaders

• Individuals who have power with an organization
  because other personal charisma or other
  characteristics but do not hold an official
  position of power.

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What is power?
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Power

• The force that allows an individual the ability
  to induce another person to carry out his/her
  directives or any other value(s) she/he supports.

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Five Kinds of Power Reward Power

• Remunerative (money)
• What is the response?
• Or normative (a pat on the back).
• What is the response?
• BEWARE OF NORMATIVE COMPLIANCE!

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Coercive Power

• The threat of harm or punishment public
  humiliation.
• What is the response?

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Legitimate Power

• The power that comes from holding the position.
  The source of the powers in the position (formal
  power).

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Earned Power

• The power that comes from earned respect.
• What happens if you have legitimate power but no
  earned power?
• What happens if you have earned
• power but no legitimate power?

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Expert Power

• Power that comes from having special knowledge
  and/or skills.

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Why do people want to become supervisors?
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• Prestige and Status
• Increased Salaries
• A Desire to Be a Change Agent
• Increased Opportunity for Creativity
• Increased Capacity to Give
• A Desire to Control People

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What is a good leader?
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A good leader and supervisor

• Fosters trust
• Builds people rather than tears them down
• Is supportive
• Is consistent
• Is caring
• Uses time wisely
• Is persistent to their goals
• Is willing to compromise
• Allows as much freedom is possible
• Is creative.

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What kind of supervisor will you be?
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Issues of Supervision in the Nonprofit Human
Service Agency

• Acceptance of the use of authority can be
  difficult. When you become a supervisor, you
  step over a boundary. You are no longer a line
  worker. You may not be loved because you will
  have to tell people to do things they may not
  like to do.

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Quality supervision requires

• Clear and specific worker objectives.
• Awareness of workers needs.
• Willingness to facilitate the step-by-step
  progression of workers.
• A willingness to accept the diversity of workers
  including differences in viewing the role of
  working, differences in motivation, differences
  in interest and differences in cultural
  perspectives.

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Social service organizations typically use a
number of different measures for performance
assessment including

• Narrative assessments by supervisors using
  previously established criteria.
• Management by objective systems in which the
  supervisor determines whether the employee has
  accomplished a predetermined set of objectives.
• Rating scales and checklists that require the
  supervisor to make an assessment of the workers
  level of performance on a standardized scale.
• Comparisons of an individual workers performance
  to those of other workers. For example, workers
  could be compared in terms of the number of
  successfully closed cases or the number of
  clients served on average.
• Multirater Assessment Systems in which more that
  one evaluator directly assesses the workers
  skill or performance level.

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Developing and Measuring Competency

• Many organizations and professional associations
  are now evaluating performance by developing
  lists of specific skills or competencies that
  professionally trained workers should possess.
• Efforts have also been made to create tools or
  systems of measurement to determine if workers in
  certain job categories have actually acquired
  these skills or if they need additional training

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Worker Empowerment and Supervision

• According to Shera and Page (1995) a critical
  aspect of empowerment-oriented social service
  organization is that supervisors promote
  positive relationships and images through the
  development of positive language, help staff
  focus on client strengths, and model appropriate
  behaviors and values to staff (p. 4). Peer
  consultation for staff members who need
  assistance with workplace issues may also be an
  effective means to provide support and
  consequently increase a sense of personal
  empowerment and autonomy (Shera Page, 1995).
• In a study of management practices in
  empowerment-oriented organizations, Gutierrez et
  al. (1995) found that the use of peer supervision
  techniques helped build relationships and
  support, building a sense of shared philosophy
  and psychological safety among staff members.
  Workers can be organized into teams or support
  groups can be established to facilitate peer
  consultation and information exchange.

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Mentoring

• Another method used to provide peer support
  involves mentoring. Mentoring has been found to
  be an effective method of orienting new employees
  to the workplace and helping them to develop
  appropriate workplace skills (Dreher Ash, 1990
  Hardina Shaw, 2001).
• Kaminski et al. (2000) studied the use of mentors
  to train workers to act as workplace advocates
  and leaders. They found that the best mentors
  repeatedly praised student performance, gave
  trainees new tasks that involved greater levels
  of responsibility, and encouraged them to develop
  their own goals and tactics for producing
  results.
• An additional benefit of the mentoring process
  is that mentors can help marginalized employees
  (for example, women and persons of color)
  navigate difficulties in workplace culture that
  could limit their ability to secure promotions or
  become administrators (Burke McKeen, 1990
  Ragins, Townsend, Mattis, 1998).