In case you are wondering if this article is for you, it covers leadership styles often found in residential settings for the mentally retarded or special need students. It looks at these styles in settings where supervisors and direct care staff both work with clients. While working with direct care residential staff you╒ll see different leadership styles that could differ significantly from corporate leadership styles.
First, the manager provides direct feedback and training to the direct care staff working for him. The manager trains the staff, as opposed to a training department. The manager is the person who provides the new direct care staff with information.
Second of all, the manager is responsible for the paper work, both from the staff and from him or her self. He needs to be better at the paperwork than the staff in terms of knowing how to complete the reports..
Third, the manager provides a model for his staff. As a result, he or she needs to show excellent teaching skills. The manager is wearing two hats. One is that of supervisor. The second hat is exactly the same as that of those who work for him.
Fourth, the manager interfaces with different departments, ranging from nurses, speech department, upper management, financial manager, maintenance crew, cleaning crew, teachers/ vocational assistants. All these departments come with their own set of responsibilities.
Being a supervisor in a residential setting is most likely one of the most stressful positions one can enter.
The problem becomes obvious. The manager not only has to be a skilled clinician, he or she also needs to have people skills and paper work pushing abilities. In other words, he or she is supposed to be a SUPER-direct-care-staff.
Often when someone gets promoted to the level of supervisor, a few things happen.
First of all, the get confronted with the phenomena of providing negative feedback. The first time causes sleepless nights. I have seen supervisors who appeared to have entered the Mr. or Ms. popular contest. They never provide guidelines, rules or boundaries to their staff. They want to be liked, and assume that not giving negative feedback will get them closer to that goal. It╒s unfortunate, because what often happens is conflicts between team members. There are no expectations, and others begin to test the waters. Before you know you have team members fighting over who is right. The supervisor takes a hands off approach, that only provides fuel to the fire. To solve this problem, start by realizing it╒s lonely at the top. It╒s easier and more fair to provide staff with clear guidelines. To the new supervisor, this is difficult. To avoid the cycle of providing more and more corrective feedback, try the following strategy. Provide them initially with frequent written and verbal positive feedback. Tell them what they did right. This way they get the picture what you expect of them. Next time they do it wrong, you can tell them: ╥you are good at that because you did it so many times correct. Keep doing it the right way.╙
Second, they have to learn so many different skills, that the first one they start to focus on is paper work. Getting the flow of paperwork going becomes the main focus. Typically by doing everything themselves as opposed to delegation. I have trained many staff who became supervisors down the road. Typically their first response is that they appreciated my advice how to delegate tasks, because they were unable to keep pace. In fact, I coached one supervisor who spend 70- 80 hours per week on the job, just because he did responsibilities that belonged to his staff. He said that he wanted to make sure the job got done correctly., Guess what. Twelve months later, he was burned out, and his staff never learned how to do the job right. When he started entrusting his staff with responsibilities, the staff morale improved (they now felt important and appreciated), the staff performance went up, and the supervisor quite taking medication at night to fall asleep.
A third phenomena is when a staff member gets promoted to become a supervisor. All of a sudden, he or she becomes a role model. If the supervisor shows disrespect to clients, then sooner or later, so will the staff. Before you know, the staff gets into trouble and maybe even asked to leave. The next person who comes in gets trained by the same original supervisor. Needless to say that chances of success could be slim for the new employee.
The fourth most stressful experience is to deal with different departments. Everybody wants certain things. The question becomes how and when to cooperate in the best interest of the clients. This is often quoted as the single most stressful factor supervisors run into. Quickly opinions are formed. ╥They never give me money╙ , ╥We like to go on an outing, but they won╒t let us╙, ╥Such-and-such guardian is coming over when we need to do ...╙ The picture becomes quickly clear. Supervisors negotiate with other departments while providing leadership to their own staff.
Leadership styles are based on these four pillars of performance. Although most supervisors have to cover all four bases, one or two areas might be in need of improvement. The most common areas are:
1. The negative feedback provider. This leadership style attempts to improve staff performance by providing corrective feedback only. This quickly becomes a role of MISTER-YOU-SHOULD..
2. The minimal-feedback provider. This person sits back and hopes the team trains itself. The only intervention comes when the team is about to drown. This becomes the role of MISTER NICE GUY.
3. The paper pusher. This person is most likely found behind a desk and not meet with his/ her staff. This becomes Mister ABSENT.
4. The team- leader. He trains the staff, or delegates this to staff who trains others. His motto: ╥I╒m the boss, you are in charge.╙ This is a good approach, as long as the supervisor is easy to approach and not in an ivory tower. Sometimes this is called RETIRED ON THE JOB.
5. The popular one: This person likes to be in the spotlight. Initially he trains his staff, only for a few weeks. At that point he shows off other skills. This person feels it is more important to look good, than result oriented and can be called MISTER LOOK AT ME.
6. The complainer whose favorite sentence is ╥Don╒t bother me.╙ This leadership style is characterized by the ╥If I growl hard enough, they don╒t bother me╙ approach, in other words, the COMPLAINER
7. Rule follower. This strong personality provides clear rules and guidelines to the staff, and puts lot of effort in staff compliance. This undermines a team approach since every staff is competing with the other. This could be called the ╥YOU ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH╙ approach.
These above leadership styles are commonly found among residential managers. The question becomes which leadership style works best. It has been my experience that the team with the most interactions between all staff members and with the supervisor is the team that will performs best. They have the least conflicts, highest retention rate of staff, good morale of staff, and higher client-agency satisfaction. It appears that a supervisor who is clear in his expectations of staff performance, provides positive feedback to the direct care staff and shows respect to the clients creates the winning team. It is a hard job to find your own personal style. But the winning team will be the team with interactions with the supervisors. At the end of a team meeting, he provides time for input from his staff. He takes time out of his schedule to touch base with staff on issues that are important to staff. Most of all, he lets the staff know he appreciates them (extra bonus, thank you card, positive work performance feedback, or any extra╒s). The pay back for the supervisor is a smooth running team.
Marty Eerhart is a behavioral consultant who provides training in personal and professional development. For more information on Winning Teams, you can contact Marty Eerhart at MEerh@AOL.com
