Being the boss means making difficult decisions and, at times, getting tough with employees to ensure that the job gets done. While it’s important to be firm when directing your staff, this can sometimes inadvertently come across as aggression.
There are often misconceptions about how staff supervisors should manage their teams. So in this article, we’re looking at the situation from a woman's perspective, and sharing five things that every woman wants their boss to know about being the supervisor of a team.
1. Engage With Empathy
When you’re the boss and dealing with deadlines, it can be easy to develop tunnel vision when communicating with your team. Although this is understandable, one casualty here will be empathy. As the boss, you know what needs to be done and you'll probably have a vision for how to get there. But you also need to understand the challenges your team members themselves may be facing.
To do this, you need to be able to put yourself in your employee's shoes, which will help you to give more effective instruction and guidance to them.
2. Treat People With Respect
As the saying goes, “With great power comes great responsibility”. In other words, every employee, no matter what their position, deserves respect. While most supervisors would never intentionally disrespect a member of their team, some are inadvertently guilty of this through:
- Telling instead of asking; for example; “I need you to do this” rather than “Will you please do this?”
- Informal language. Although a degree of informality in the workplace is fine, some bosses might extend this into personal or even sexist commentary which can make a female employee feel uncomfortable and/or belittled
- Calling out someone in front of others regarding their performance
All these things can corrode the boss/employee relationship and cause tension in the workplace.
3. Avoid Winning the Battle But Losing the War
It's a rare workplace that doesn’t see some form of conflict at one time or another. It happens whether it's coworker to coworker; or employee to their supervisor, and handling this properly is essential. Conflict resolution requires patience, diplomacy, and even-handedness, which are skills that women tend to excel at. And skills that some male bosses can struggle with...
This can often lead a male boss to take a "bull in a china shop" approach, maybe along the lines of “I’m the boss so do as I say”. This can be really unhelpful and even harmful to the long term morale of the team. Instead, a good boss should be able to handle conflicts in a firm, assertive manner, but with empathy.
4. Learn About Good Communication
It should go without saying that a core skill for any boss - male or female - is that of communication. Male bosses often make some common missteps here and some of these are:
- The sound of silence - Some male bosses make the mistake of believing that communication is only necessary for imparting instructions or giving feedback. In reality, constant and consistent communication is vital for a healthy and productive team.
- Interrupting - When we interrupt when somebody is speaking, the message received is that of “what I have to say is more important than whatever you happen to be saying”. Needless to say, this can quickly cause resentment which is never a healthy thing at work.
- The "boys' club" - In many instances, a male boss will perhaps have a better or more natural rapport with male members of the team. While this isn’t a major issue in itself, if their chat (for example; following a meeting) involves work topics, it can lead to female team members feeling left out of the loop.
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There’s a common misconception that you’re either born a good communicator or you're not. But this couldn't be further from the truth.
Communication skills can be learned, and there are some excellent communication courses available that will help male bosses to become more effective leaders.
5. Watch Your Body Language
Staying on the subject of communication, it's not just about what we do and don’t say. This is because even when our mouths are closed, we’re still sending signals and messages to others with our body language and some male bosses can show a tendency towards some inadvertent missteps including:
- Folded arms - In both social and professional situations, folded arms is an indication of defensiveness - which can be really off putting to a female (or in fact any) employee who is trying to make a constructive point.
- Eye contact - This is a tricky one for many people both personally and professionally as too little eye contact signifies a lack of interest, whereas too much or too direct eye contact can come across as aggressive. As a boss, it’s quite important to master the art of eye contact in order to avoid sending the wrong signals to employees.
- Standing tall - Many women say that they feel intimidated when their male boss looms over them while they’re sitting at their desk. The problem here is pretty obvious and, while lots of male bosses will be oblivious to the effect that this has, it is nonetheless something to work on.
On Course for Being a Better Supervisor
The world - and the workplace - is constantly changing and supervising teams involves juggling authority with empathy and diplomacy.
Some male bosses - particularly those of the older generation - can feel a little uncomfortable with this, leading to errors they may not even be aware of.
Workplaces are changing for the better, and we hope that they'll continue to become healthier, happier, and more inclusive places ... with good bosses leading the way!
