Supervision Is No Single, Isolated Skill, Essay Example

Abstract

Supervision is no single, isolated skill. Varied elements play into how it is performed always, and not the least of these are the personal factors within each individual’s life. To some extent, everybody supervises; home affairs have to be effectively managed, as do relationships, friendships, and work relations. The following will underscore how one woman has learned that every area of supervision in her life can serve to enhance the others.

Overview

The woman in question is a mother of four, active in her church, and enlisted in the Air Force Reserves. In attending to all the responsibilities of her life, both within the Air Force and in her personal, family sphere, she has developed a keen awareness of how supervision is a broad and extremely varied skill, with sometimes surprising applications and sources of motivation.

She is, first and foremost, aware of the importance properly conducted and obeyed supervision is in her position with the Air Force Reserves. Any arm of the military is going to rely heavily upon chain of command and procedural modes of action; the business world, in fact, has derived much of its structural model from the precision and sophistication of the military in establishing an effective hierarchy. In her career with the Air Force, she has absorbed how this is also a mutually advantageous arrangement: “Through PME (Professional Military Education), airmen and NCOs develop management management abilities that are valuable in any career, military or civilian” (Wall, 2009, p.8).

Then, activity in her church and her work with the children’s ministry has reflected many of the components of supervision she has dealt with in the Air Force. These factors, combined with raising and “supervising” four daughters, has infused within her an appreciation of the many ways in which supervision applies in all aspects of her life.

Elements of Supervision

One of the most valuable lessons the woman has taken from her life and her work is that leadership, a vital component to supervision, is in fact a collaborative process. It requires compliance, and there is no truly productive compliance without good leadership. This holds true in both a military circumstance and in attending to four children, for she has perceived that her

leadership qualities are most effective when those being supervised are not merely blindly instructed. Sharing reasons and information is key to empowering people, and this approach is just as sensible when the people in question are children. In regard to the latter, the woman has observed that this effective supervision of her children at home also equips the children to be better supervised elsewhere. “…Effective PI (Parental Involvement) is reported to improve…teacher morale and school climate” (Rose, 2010, p.75). Her children, supervised well at home, are essentially prepared to accept good supervision elsewhere.

The give-and-take aspects of supervision are as well evident in other facets of the experience. Planning and delegating, as in overt supervision, are more rigidly defined in the woman’s military life, yet the same principles of interactive contributions apply there as they do in her church ministry work. For any delegating to be productive, even that of assigning chores to children, a sense of each child’s or person’s inclinations and abilities is necessary. The woman has learned that taking these variables into account as the important components they are not only leads to better results, but enhances the task in question for all concerned. As leadership depends upon knowledge, so too do delegation and planning call for sensitivity and insight regarding all involved.

Lastly, if any supervisory skills lie inherently within a mother’s domain, they are those of motivating and communicating. Mothers have to learn new “languages” all the time, as the abilities of their children evolve, and there can be no motivation generated where there is no basic understanding. The woman has come to see how these demands in sharing information with children, at home or in church, has empowered her to be more skilled at communicating in adult spheres. In a very real sense she understands that the shifting talents of children require of her a

wider supervisory skill-set, and one that makes adult interactions easier.

Ultimately she believes absolutely in how supervision is not a dry and by-the-numbers role assigned in only work environments. It is a component of daily living, and in every sphere of her life.

References

Rose, R. (2010). Confronting Obstacles to Inclusion: International Responses to Developing Inclusive Education. New York, NY: Routledge Publishers.

Wall, Dr. J. E. (2009.) McGraw-Hill’s ASVAB, Second Edition. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Professional.