A book for building better bosses

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This article was published 06/10/2015 (3834 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

According to Wolseley resident Stephen de Groot, 50 per cent of people who’ve worked under a supervisor or manager have never had a positive experience with their superior.

The number seems high, but for many people, it’s anecdotal. According to de Groot, ineffective leaders in the workplace are often the biggest source of complaints and the No. 1 reason for leaving a job, and it’s also the biggest hindrance to people doing their jobs well.

“It was a really difficult discovery to make and tough for some people to get their heads around,” de Groot said. “Especially for supervisors.”

He has worked with social service workers for the majority of his 21-year career, and has focused on helping supervisors and higher-ups connect with their employees and create productive work environments.

“How people feel at work affects the decisions that they make,” de Groot said. “In corporate, the bottom line is affected. In social services, vulnerable people are affected.”

De Groot works with managers who oversee staffs of nurses, teachers, social workers—anyone who has a job caring for others. His book, Responsive Leadership in Social Services, is meant to be a tool for supervisors to keep their staff motivated.

“It’s not about getting someone motivated,” de Groot said. “It’s about keeping people motivated. They took the job for a reason, you just have to find out what that is.”
According to the author, poor leadership comes from people moving into managerial positions before they’re ready.

“Most people come up through the ranks… they’re brought up because there’s an opening and they need someone quickly,” de Groot said. “They need a supervisor and they just pick the best person on the team. The interesting thing is that what they’re really good at is not what they need as a manager, which requires a different set of skills.”

So, then the answer is more training, right? Wrong.

According to de Groot, general formal training is another barrier to connecting with employees.
“A lot of frontline workers like nurses and teachers, the things that are making it difficult for them to work is they’re out of step with values. So they’re told to be caring, but they don’t feel that from their supervisors,” de Groot said. “The big difference I’ve noticed in my research is that those two environments where someone is doing well and someone isn’t has to do with a relationship with their supervisor.

“The supervisors don’t need training outside their environment, they need to learn, ‘What are the values of my team members? What are their goals both personally and professionally and how can I support that? There’s no training that does that.’”

And de Groot’s book aims to fill that gap. The book consists of 120 strategies that supervisors can use to better understand their staff and how to engage them.

“If someone told me, do it for the money, I would be really upset,” de Groot said. “But if someone said, do it for your clients and you’re making a difference, my bad day would be over.”

De Groot’s book will be officially launched on Oct. 7 at the Radisson Hotel at 288 Portage Ave.