During the covid19 pandemic, I facilitated many zoom and virtual workshops and meetings. We got the work done, and the joy plus connection was not there. I was pleased when a local manufacturing Human Resources manager called me and asked for some Supervisor Leadership Development face to face.
Situation:
The plant brought on a new Operations Manager, and the need for managerial-leadership skill development is recognized.
Some supervisors have also recently increased their supervisory capacity from 1 area to 2 areas (doubling their people and work that the supervisor is accountable for). They were requesting leadership and people development skills.
Intervention:
With feedback from Human Resources, we developed a very hands-on and interactive Supervisory-Leadership Basics Workshop that consisted of;
- 6-hours of face to face training and development,
- each supervisor to identify one area that they can implement immediately, and one to two skills they will improve over the next 6-months.
The content areas in the Supervisory Leadership Workshop:
The Foundation of Team Leadership
Learning includes:
- A prescriptive model of team performance
- A model of the leadership skills needed to produce results
- Facilitative leadership
- Effective prevention and intervention methods for maladaptive team member behavior
- Steps to create buy-in for the team projects from people who are outside the team
- Application of the GRPI (Goals, Roles, Procedures, Interpersonal Relationships) model and necessary steps at each level
- Application of the GRPI model to determine problems within the team, to lessen the issues, and develop measures for progress
Coaching and Performance Feedback
Learning includes:
- Supervisory Communication
- Coaching for performance
- Coaching underperformance
Outcomes
Below are some of the supervisor’s responses from the learning and application follow-up:



And here are the areas of application that the supervisors put into action following the supervisory leadership training:
What is one concept or area of learning you have applied?
- I have learned how to prepare better for in-depth conversations with my employees’
- communication
- I started using the coaching analysis tools the very next day when dealing with an employee.
- how to talk to my workers
What did you like the most about this Supervisor-Leadership training?
- How to communicate better with people and help keep both parties on point and not turn into an anxious situation.
- a different point of view
- The highly structured team performance model and coaching analysis steps.
- how we worked together
What would you change to make this Supervisor-Leadership Training better?
- Be more in-depth with question and answer of situations that can occur in the workplace
- role play, simulated situations
- I felt there was too much time spent on management layers.
- more hands-on training with the other companies and cross-train

Ever wonder how other teams make collaboration look so easy?
If so, you’ve recognized a challenge with your own team. And that’s the first step in finding a solution. Now, it’s time to do something about it.