The Socializing Supervisor

1344 Words6 Pages
The Socializing Supervisor 1. Evaluate the decision to promote Terry Miles to supervisor. Discuss the problems in promoting anyone to team leader or supervisor over his or her former fellow employees. Becoming a supervisor for the first time does not need to be hard. But it takes forethought and the ability to be introspective and self-regulatory. It's not business as usual because now, even though Miles may already have longstanding and strong relationships at work, the expectations are different. It's important that he realizes that his focus needs to shift and how his communication with former peers must change. As a new manager, Miles needs to set new boundaries with former coworkers. While he can still maintain friendships, he needs to draw these new boundaries in order to establish his authority and credibility. It's not about becoming demanding and asserting himself in aggressive ways. Rather, it's taking seriously his need to refocus his thinking so that he positions himself as a leader deserving the respect of others. It can be hard for former colleagues to treat Miles as a manager if they have worked with him for years as their peer. But he is now in a role that gives him responsibility for assessing their job performance and giving important input into their work lives. It can place Miles at odds with his staff/friends and may sometimes require him to make tough decisions with which others may not agree. That's part of being a manager so the sooner he accepts that, the better (1). “Working with former peers is often the toughest part of making the leap to boss,” says business-training expert Myron Curry, president of BusinessTrainingMedia.com. Many people have to deal with their fear of losing friendships, reluctance to disciplining a former peer or avoiding the appearance of favoritism. 2. Besides sending Miles to a supervisory training
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