Question:
What qualities do younger managers need to have when supervising long-term staff?
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Answer:
I’ve been there myself, and I was successful in that situation because I knew that my “teachers” were the people who were doing the work every day. I put myself in a position of showing a great deal of respect and value in the knowledge that this workforce brought to the table. And instead of having a subordinate relationship, I built it upon, “I need you to help me here.”
Some [young] managers cannot do that. They’re somewhat arrogant, or they make judgments about staff because they’ve been around a long time. But an attitude of arrogance, an attitude of “I’m the boss,” of not appreciating the diversity or knowledge of the workforce, of not involving the workforce in decisions that are going to impact them doesn’t work. It cannot be top down.
To earn respect, you have to listen to people and take an interest in them as individuals. You have to know where you’re going and you have to set up opportunities for them to buy in. As the manager, you also have to demonstrate a very sincere interest in the success of the team—not just your own success. It’s not talking about it; you have to have actions that indicate that, “I really want this team to be successful, and I’m just a member of the team like everyone else, and we’re going to work on this together.”
Obviously, there is a time when you have to exert yourself as a supervisor. But you exert yourself every day by the way you behave, because everybody is watching.
—Jim Korner
Special Assistant to the Senior Vice President for Finance and Business
Penn State University Outreach and Online Education