How to Improve Your Team Leadership and Supervisory Skills

There are many challenges that your manufacturing organization faces on a day to day basis. Those challenges may range from government regulation compliance to ensuring that your employees are getting all of the resources needed to perform their jobs effectively and efficiently.

If you are in a leadership role, you may be more concerned with how you can improve your supervisory skills and develop strong leadership among your team. So let's start with how to improve your supervisory skills.  

Where to Start Improving Your Supervisory Skills?

Before you can begin improving your supervisory skills and your team leadership role, you should have a comprehensive scope of what the organization's missions, visions and values are. When employees, in all positions, understand the core foundation of the organization, they can make decisions that are in alignment with the organization.

Also, reinforcing the core values and direction of the organization will instill more efficiency among your workforce. This happens because employees at all levels will be self-sufficient and not have to go through a chain of command to solve simple problems.

Developing Your Personal Leadership Skills

An important function in the manufacturing industry is collaboration. It has become a vital piece of team building strategies. Collaboration fosters both creativity and innovation, pulling knowledge and ideas from different teams and across various departments. It thrives on interdisciplinary thinking that provides alternative perspectives that help you solve problems.

As a leader, one method you can follow is to provide training to increase the skill sets of your team members. This can be done through offering your employees advanced training and development and by creating an environment that focuses on collaboration. 

There is no cap to building leadership and supervisory skills; there will always be a way to build on them. Training and development should be a continual process across all levels of employment and all departments. New technologies and innovations constantly take place and you want your workforce to be equipped and prepared to handle the changes.

When you focus on improving the people in your organization, their improvements become an expression and a reflection of your role in developing your leadership. Improving your team leadership and supervisory skills by implementing open communication and collaboration will trickle down from you, empowering your workforce. Again, by offering continual training and development programs, you will improve the morale, responsibility and engagement of your team.

Enhancing the internal value of your organization’s employees may develop strong team leadership; however, making your organization more valuable to your workforce is another way you can build strong team leadership. Your workforce is more likely to be engaged in your organization if your organization invests in them. What do you offer your employees? This isn’t necessarily based on the monetary value you provide. Value is perceived differently by different people. One employee may be more receptive to appreciation and recognition, while another may enjoy being given greater responsibilities. It’s about recognizing the individual and what they perceive as valuable to them and the organization. This will increase engagement in your workforce and be a reflection of team leadership and supervisory skills.

IndustryWeek recently quoted six characteristics that describe the DREAMS organization from their book Why Should Anyone Work Here?:

• Difference
• Radical Honesty
• Extra Value
• Authenticity
• Meaning
• Simple Rules

There are many ways to improve your team leadership and supervisory skills. Choosing the right method of implementation depends on the structure of your organization. However, there are a few basics areas you want to target when improving these areas, such as collaboration, communication, employee value and organizational value.