APPROACHES IN SUPERVISION

The Conventional Approach

• Unit fairly recently the “autocratic supervisor was the order of the day.” 
• The popular notion of supervision was expressed in terms of “the power to command. The exercises of authority  of ability to dominate.” 
• This approach may be termed as “ task-oriented”, "of content oriented” or the conventional  conception of management’s task.”

The view points of this approach may be broadly stated as follows.

1.Supervision is a  process of directing people, motivating them, controlling their actions, modifying  their behavior to fit then needs of the organization. Without this active intervention by supervisors, people would be passive or even resistant to organizational needs. They must therefore be persuaded, rewarded, punished, controlled, and their  activities  must be directed.

2.The average man is by nature indolent; he works as little as possible. He should the goaded.

3.He lacks ambition, dislike responsibility, prefers to be led.

4.He is inherently self-centered, indifferent to organizational needs.

5.He is by nature resistant to change.

Results of autocratic supervision based on the conventional approach

Most employees develop a sense of frustration, and finally they feel insecure in their job.Work slows down or stops completely when the supervisor is away.The employee’s needs for a feeling of importance and satisfaction are not met. Employees are kept dependent on the supervisor, thus, they have no opportunity to show initiative. Employees frequently either become aggressive or alternatively, identify closely  with supervisor (submissive “Yesmen”)

The New (Democratic) Approach (Human Relation concept)

With the change of times, with the increase in general educational level, and with the findings emerging from social sciences, the typical conventional pattern of dictation is yielding place to one of consultation based on the art and science of human relations just  as despotism in ruling mankind has been replaced by democracy with the gradual enlightenment of humanity. Thus a new concept of supervision has developed which is “group –oriented” or “employee-centered” rather than” production-centered.”

The view points of this new approach or new concept of supervision may be summarised as follows.

1.People are not be nature passive or resistant to organizational needs. They become so, as a result of experience in organisations i.e., as a consequence of the nature of organization, of administrative philosophy, policies and practices.

2.The motivation, the potential for development, the capacity for assuming responsibility, the readiness to direct behaviour towards organizational goals are all present in people. Management or supervision does not put them there. It is the responsibility of supervision to make it possible for people of recognise and develop these human characteristic for themselves.

3.The essential task of supervision is to arrange organisational conditions and  methods of operation so that people can achieve their own goals best by directing their own efforts towards organizational objectives.

4.Some people claim that the amount of salary is the major demand which the employee makes of his job; that, all that the worker wants is to be told what to do and to get paid for doing it. But it we look at  him and job in terms of sentiments, this is far from being as generally true as we would like to believe.

5. Most of us want the satisfaction that comes from being accepted and recognised as people of worth by out friends  and work associates. Money is only a small part of this social recognition. The way we are greeted by our boss, being asked to help a new employee, being given a job requiring  special skill-all of these are acts of social recognition.

Results of democratic supervision based on the human relations concept

• Employees produce a larger quantity and higher quality of work.
• Individual and group morale are high.
• Employees have a highly developed sense of group feeling.
• Employee’s basic needs to participate and to feel important are met.
• Employees feel secure.
• Employees seldom become aggressive.