The Art of Supervising: Why Most Manager Training Gets It Wrong

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Three months ago, I watched a perfectly competent engineer get promoted to supervisor and within six weeks, his team was ready to revolt. Not because he was incompetent—quite the opposite. He'd been their top performer for two years running. The problem? He thought supervising meant being the smartest person in the room.

This bloke had attended every management course his company offered, read the latest leadership books, and could quote Stephen Covey in his sleep. Yet somehow, he'd missed the most fundamental truth about supervision: it's not about you anymore.

The Great Australian Management Myth

Here's where I'm going to upset some people. The traditional Australian approach to supervision—that blokey, "she'll be right" mentality—actually works better than most of the fancy management theories imported from Silicon Valley. I've seen tradies on construction sites demonstrate better supervisory instincts than MBA graduates fresh from their supervisor training workshops.

Why? Because real supervision isn't about frameworks and KPIs. It's about reading people.

My grandfather supervised a team of railway workers for thirty-seven years. Never had a day of formal management training in his life. His secret? Every Monday morning, he'd walk the line and actually talk to his blokes. Not about targets or metrics, but about their weekends, their families, their worries. He knew when someone was struggling at home before it showed up in their work.

Compare that to the modern supervisor who schedules "one-on-ones" every fortnight and works through a predetermined list of questions. It's like trying to paint a masterpiece with a paint-by-numbers kit.

What They Don't Teach You in Management School

The dirty little secret about supervision is that 67% of your job happens in the spaces between the official responsibilities. It's the conversation by the coffee machine. The way you handle the moment when two team members clash over a project. How you react when someone makes a genuine mistake versus when they've been careless.

I learned this the hard way fifteen years ago when I was supervising a team of twelve in Melbourne. Fresh from a comprehensive supervisory training program, I was armed with performance matrices and communication frameworks. I thought I had it sorted.

Then Sarah started arriving late every day.

The old me would have followed protocol: verbal warning, written warning, final warning. But something felt off. Instead, I asked her for a coffee. Turns out her mum had been diagnosed with dementia, and Sarah was juggling caring responsibilities with work. We sorted out flexible hours within a week, and she became one of my most loyal team members.

That's when I realised something profound. Supervision isn't management. Management is about processes and systems. Supervision is about humans.

The Psychology Nobody Talks About

Here's another uncomfortable truth: most people don't actually want to be supervised. They want to be supported, guided, and occasionally redirected. But supervised? That word implies control, hierarchy, watching over. It triggers all sorts of psychological resistance.

The best supervisors I know never use the word "supervise" with their teams. They talk about "working together" or "supporting your goals" or "clearing obstacles." Same function, completely different psychology.

I once worked with a team leader—let's call him Mike—who had this brilliant approach. Instead of asking "How's the project going?" he'd ask "What do you need from me this week?" Simple shift, massive impact. His team consistently outperformed every other department in the company.

Why? Because Mike understood that leadership skills for supervisors aren't about leading from the front. They're about clearing the path for others to lead themselves.

The Australian Advantage (And Disadvantage)

We Australians have this wonderful cultural trait of cutting through bullshit. It serves us well in supervision. We're naturally inclined to be direct, honest, and practical. But it can also bite us.

I've seen Aussie supervisors damage relationships by being too blunt. There's a difference between being straightforward and being insensitive. The trick is maintaining that Australian directness while developing what I call "emotional radar."

Take feedback, for instance. The typical Australian approach is to "tell it like it is." But effective supervision requires reading the room. Sometimes people need direct feedback. Other times, they need encouragement first, then gentle guidance toward improvement.

The Three Types of People You'll Supervise

In my experience, every team breaks down into three categories, and each requires a completely different supervisory approach:

The Self-Starters: These people don't need supervision in the traditional sense. They need resources, clear objectives, and someone to run interference when politics get in the way. Over-supervise them and they'll start looking for another job.

The Steady Contributors: This is your bread and butter—reliable people who do good work but need regular check-ins and the occasional course correction. They respond well to structured ABCs of supervising approaches.

The Strugglers: These require the most supervisory skill. Some are struggling with capability, others with motivation, and a few with personal issues bleeding into work. The key is diagnosing which type of struggle you're dealing with before applying solutions.

The Technology Trap

Here's where I'm going to sound like an old codger, but hear me out. Modern supervision has become obsessed with digital tools and metrics. Slack messages, project management software, automated reporting. All useful, but they're creating a generation of supervisors who think they can manage through screens.

You can't supervise through Slack. You can communicate through it, coordinate through it, even coach through it to some extent. But supervision requires presence. It requires you to notice when someone's body language changes during a team meeting. To pick up on the hesitation in their voice when they say "everything's fine."

I'm not advocating for micromanagement or constant hovering. But there's no substitute for walking the floor, being physically present, and maintaining that human connection.

What Actually Works

After fifteen years of trial and error, here's what I've learned actually works:

Weekly informal check-ins beat monthly formal reviews every time. Five minutes every week trumps an hour every month.

Focus on removing obstacles, not adding accountability. Most people want to do good work. If they're not, something's in their way.

Celebrate small wins publicly, address problems privately. This should be tattooed on every supervisor's forehead.

Ask "What would good look like?" instead of "What's wrong?" It shifts the conversation from problems to solutions.

Trust first, verify second. Most traditional supervision does this backwards.

The Future of Supervision

The world of work is changing faster than most organisations can adapt. Remote work, gig economy, artificial intelligence—all of these are reshaping what supervision looks like. But the fundamentals remain the same.

People still need to feel valued. They still need clear direction. They still need someone in their corner when things get tough.

The supervisors who thrive in the coming decades won't be the ones with the best technical skills or the most impressive qualifications. They'll be the ones who remember that at the end of the day, supervision is about helping other people be their best selves at work.

And that, my friends, is both an art and a science. But mostly an art.

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