Total Reward #13- Supervisors

Total Reward #13- Supervisors

Supervisors—you can’t fire yours, but you certainly can leave them…

The topic of the supervisor- employee relationship has been researched and written about since “industrial psychology” started as a field. A recent book title summarize the importance of this dynamic in retaining and engaging employees, “People Leave Managers, Not Organizations.”

How many times did you come home from work and shared your frustration with your manager to friends or family? If this continued, was this a factor in a new job search?

Okay, you say, good supervisors are important, but what is the real impact of a great one? Perhaps you have a few good ones, and few okay ones and only one that is really struggling to connect with her staff and/or achieve important results.

Consider these findings from Zenger Folkman group (see charts below):

  • The best leaders had more than twice as many committed and engaged employees
  • The worst leaders had more than four times as many employes thinking about quitting
  • The best leader’s team had almost twice the customer satisfaction levels
  • The best leader’s team in a sales study had almost 10 times (!) the sales compared to the worst leader’s team and about 50% more than the average leader’s team

What makes supervisors “multipliers” or “diminishers”—read Zenger Folkman article that lists the key “fatal flaws” of managers


Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net