Two Consultants on Leadership: What Are The Most Important Skills for New Supervisors

Welcome to the 2025 blog series! 

In 2025, I am taking a slightly different approach to my newest blog series. I’ll continue to focus on leadership best practices and leader behaviors that will bring more influence to the workforce, but this year I am bringing colleagues into the conversations. Each blog will focus on one leadership topic, presented by myself (Bryan Shelton) and one of my colleagues (an ADI consultant). I am hoping we will provide you with unique opinions during each blog. I will pose a topic, question, or idea on leadership, and then we will both write about it without knowing what the other is going to say. We will be discussing general business and safety-specific topics, throughout all levels inside organizations. Our goal is to keep the blog succinct and useful, giving you two consultants’ views in one blog.

Most Important Skill for New Supervisors to Develop

The transition from someone who does the work to someone who is leading others can be a daunting task. Even if someone is hired at the supervisor level, becoming proficient at the job often takes much longer than both the person and the company desires.  Most organizations do themselves a disservice in the development of their new leaders, focusing more on the administrative sides of the position and glossing over what it takes to lead.  The new supervisors often find themselves being pulled in many new directions, without knowing what to focus on first.  This blog is dedicated to giving supervisors and organizations some direction in what is the most important skill a new supervisor should develop.

Bart Sevin, Vice President

My approach to answering this question is framed as a set of recommendations for newly promoted frontline supervisors as well as their managers. The managers play a crucial role in preparing supervisors for success as people leaders. When people find themselves promoted to any position, they often don’t know what they don’t know, so it’s important for their leaders to provide direction and resources (e.g., leadership training) to facilitate a smooth transition.  My first recommendation is for supervisors to ask about, develop, and/or adopt a position or framework that describes what a supervisor’s role is. Whether managers provide this information, or supervisors develop and adopt it themselves, everyone needs to know what their job is. Having this framework is beneficial because, like personal or organizational values, this framework provides guidance on and informs how they go about doing the job of supervisor.

In his classic Performance Management text, Aubrey Daniels said, “Success in business is defined by an organization’s ability to produce results.” He then added, “All organizational results are the products of human behavior.”  Given that supervisors are in the behavior business, my second recommendation is for supervisors to increase their knowledge of the science of behavior, formally referred to as Behavior Analysis.  The science offers principles and highly effective techniques supervisors (and any people leaders) can use to systematically influence meaningful behaviors of people around them. Some examples of practical approaches include pinpointing (i.e., being precise about behavior), delivering positive and constructive feedback, and effective use of positive reinforcement to shape valuable behaviors over time. The science provides necessary insights and guidance wherever people are involved, at whatever level they operate, and when any change initiative requires behavior change. 

Bryan Shelton, Senior Consultant

The most important skill a new supervisor should develop is building relationships.  I know this is not a new concept. Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People was originally published in 1936, however relationship building is a foundational leadership skill that can act as a catalyst for all other leadership behaviors.  For new supervisors coming in from outside the organization, it is key to: 1) get to know and learn about the work, 2) get past the initial push-back of “another newbie who plans on telling me what to do,” and 3) learn about your direct reports’ strengths quickly.  For people moving from the workforce to a supervisor position, the reasoning is different.  While the newly promoted person might already know their direct reports, the relationships they had will now be fundamentally changed.  No longer is that person a peer or co-worker; they are a management figure whose roles and responsibilities are leading people.  This often creates a feeling of loss for everyone the new supervisor has lost their friends, and the co-workers have lost an ally.  These put establishing new relationships at the forefront. 

There are other benefits to developing relationships quickly.  It’s been shown that purposefully developing relationships gets higher levels of performance out of people.  Consider it as a form of reciprocity. People will give high levels of performance, but how you respond to it matters. Will you ignore the extra effort, or will you positively reinforce it?  Another benefit is people are more likely to be more honest with you and adjust their behavior based on feedback if they like and trust you.  Consider the following recommendations supervisors should consider to develop relationships quickly:

  • Meet one-on-one to learn about your direct reports.  Specifically, ask questions to learn 1) about them personally to find common interests, 2) what previous leaders did that helped or worked for them, and 3) what you should learn quickly from them.
  • Go visit the work and ask questions to learn about the job.  Include questions about what works well and what gets in the way of doing the job as proficiently as possible.
  • Clarify your expectations as a leader to your team and what they can expect from you in return.  Discuss things like, 1) what does good performance look like, 2) how you plan to work together, and 3) what can they expect from you.
  • Admit things you don’t know and take a collaborative approach to planning work.

Conclusion

There you have it! Two consultants’ recommendations on the most important skill a new supervisor should invest in.  Truly understanding your role as a supervisor and developing the critical skills necessary to lead are critical components in the new role.  There will be skill gaps for anyone taking on any new position. Recognizing and focusing on developing influential leadership skills will set the supervisor up to drive results the right way.  Developing relationships is a fundamental leadership skill that will earn discretionary effort and patience with the team while the leader develops these skills.  Organizations and managers should look to incorporate both to help supervisors in their new role. 

Posted by Bryan Shelton

Bryan applies his knowledge and expertise in strategic planning to help organizations align employee performance with company goals. Bryan helps clients create improvement across a variety of business metrics including company growth, profitability, customer service, vision alignment, leadership development, and culture change. He also helps clients implement process improvement initiatives, improve sales results and using performance-pay systems to help drive company results. His behavior-based approaches and applications have supported clients’ improvement initiatives, leadership development, and the design and implementation of performance pay systems.