Directing

• Communications

• Directing

• Leadership

• Recognition and Rewards

Timesavers

1. How To Say It, Rosalie Maggio, 2002
   Provides lists of what to say, and sometimes more importantly, what not to say when writing business or personal letters.

2. How to Say It At Work: Putting Yourself Across with Power Words, Phrases, Body Language, and Communication Secrets, Jack Griffin, 1998
   Practical advice for dealing with a supervisor, peer, subordinate, client, vendor, or lender.  Includes a self-test to evaluate your current skills, a toolkit to improve your overall communication, and specifics (words, phrases and body language) for dealing with key individuals.

3. People Skills, Robert Bolton, 1986
   Acquire the ability to listen, assert yourself, resolve conflicts, and work out problems with others.  These are skills that will help you communicate calmly, even in stressful emotionally charged situations. 

4. People Styles at Work: Making Bad Relationships Good and Good Relationships Better, Robert Bolton, 1996
   Practical solutions to handling people differences at work. 

5. Quick Teambuilding Activities for Busy Managers: 50 Exercises That Get Results in Just 15 Minutes, Brian Cole Miller, 2003
   50 fun, practical exercises that don't require any special facilities, expensive products, or previous training experience to get great team results in minutes.

Communications

Communications for a supervisor includes communicating to your employees and to your manager.  The means of communications includes all forms - verbal, written and electronic.  

Resources

1. Feedback (EEOC)
   Giving feedback to your subordinates and getting the most from the feedback - Free from Fast Company

Supervision Solution 

How do I?  What do I say?  Management and supervision solutions to the most frequent and most difficult supervisory issues and problems on directing employees.     

1. How do I communicate policy or rules?

2. What should I say when I want to establish or reinforce a policy or rule?

3. How do I create trust in the workplace?

4. During a staff meeting, one of my staff asked why our team is staffing a function and why another team isn't sharing the load.  What do I say?

5. How do I communicate bad news to an employee?

Directing

The supervisor integrates the efforts of his/her subordinates to insure that their efforts are effective in accomplishing individual and organizational goals.  Processes and procedures provide structure to the supervisor's effort.

Resources

1. Leading Your Team
   Practical tips and examples - Free from Fast Company.

2. Project Management  
   Tools to coordinate many different people towards the completion of many tasks in a precise sequence

3. Team Building
   Free on-line guide to team building written by Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD.

4. Teams
   Peter Drucker on teams.

5. Unstuck
   Download a free excerpt from the book.  Also, discussion forum and other free content.  Leader's Guides available for purchase and download with in-depth diagnostics and tools for leaders who are looking to get their teams on track.  

Problem Solvers

1. Unstuck, Keith Yamashita, 2004
   Easy to read and understand, the authors identify the symptoms of being stuck, and offer dozens of in-the-moment tools, techniques, and examples to generate immediate ideas, whether you need to back up in order to move forward, motivate a struggling team, change your goals, or inspire yourself with a clearer picture of where you’re headed.  Great insights that help the supervisor see the complete picture.

2. Telling Ain't Training, Harold D. Stolovitch, 2002

Supervision Solution 

How do I?  What do I say?  Management and supervision solutions to the most frequent and most difficult supervisory issues and problems on directing employees.     

1. How do I motivate my staff to work as a team?

2. How do I motivate my employees?

3. I inherited a work group with poor morale.  How do I improve their morale?

4. How do I give a direct order?

Leadership

Leadership is the difference in having staff perform because they want to versus performing because they have to.  Leadership is essential to success as a manager or supervisor in motivating employees to accomplish both their own goals and the organization's goals.

Management Resources

1. 18 Ways to Take Charge -- Fast 
   Fast Company's look at hitting the ground running in your new job.

2. Leadership Style  
   Fast Company's perspective on the keys to leadership success. 

3. Its Not the Coach 
   Leadership development perspective from Marshall Goldsmith.

Problem Solvers

1. The First 90 Days: Critical Success Strategies for New Leaders at All Levels,  Michael Watkins, 2003

2. First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, Marcus Buckingham, 1999

3. Fish! A Remarkable Way to Boost Morale and Improve Results, Stephen C. Lundin, 2000

4. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, Patrick M. Lencioni, 2002

5. Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't, Jim Collins, 2001 

Keys

• Leadership is the difference between people following you because they want to as opposed to following you because they have to."  What will motivate people to follow you?  Be decisive and make good decisions, inspire loyalty by setting an example and establishing a relationship of mutual respect with your subordinates.

Recognition and Rewards

Recognition and rewards reinforce your support for employees.  A good supervisor recognizes that different employees are motivated by different rewards.  Make sure that the recognition and rewards that you use have value.  Saying a "good job" after every assignment will only lessen the value of the compliment.  Recognition should be both formal and informal and should be appropriate for the accomplishment.

Problem Solvers

1. 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work, Dave Hemsath, 1997

2. 1001 Ways to Energize Employees, Bob Nelson, 1997

3. 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, Bob Nelson, 1994

4. Get Weird! 101 Innovative Ways to Make Your Company a Great Place to Work, John Putzier, 2001

5. Make Their Day! Employee Recognition That Works, Cindy Ventrice, 2003