Demonstrating Strong Leadership

I agree that it can be difficult to identify potential supervisors, but many times, we are looking in the wrong place or we do not know what to look for.

Know your staff and their abilities. Take time to talk with them and find out if they have the desire to advance. If you invest the time to evaluate and train, the return on investment will be a team full of strong potential supervisors and managers.

It is also important to be a strong example for your staff. How do your employees view you? What type of manager are you, and what type of manager do you want to develop? There are three types of leaders:

Boss: This individual always demands that things are done their way. Their objective when entering an area is to find deficiencies in the work of the cleaner. They don’t listen to those they manage and will often say, “If you can’t do it, I can get someone who will.” They create an environment of insecurity and low morale, which can result in high employee turnover and building occupant complaints.

Resource: The Resource manager is the type that employees use to communicate with upper management — a desire for a pay increase, needing more time to do assigned work, or dissatisfaction with the company. This type of manager will also find themselves doing work that their staffs do not like doing. If they see that there is a deficiency in someone’s work, they will make the correction themselves. The employees often develop the attitude of, “If we do not want to do something, our manager will do it.”

Leader: This manager understands the goals of the company and how their area of responsibility contributes to the achievement of that goal. Their staff has a healthy fear and always wants to make sure that the work is the best they can provide. When they encounter something that prevents them from completing their task, they do not hesitate to approach their leader. Because of the respect they have, workers do not hesitate to implement changes the leader presents.

Now is the time to review how you lead your staff and the training that you may or not be providing to present and future managers. 

RON SEGURA, founder and president of Segura & Associates, has over 45 years of experience in all segments of the cleaning industry. Ten of those years were spent overseeing the cleaning of over 4.5 million square feet for The Walt Disney Company, as well as the management of the Document Services department. With eleven years of consulting both domestic and internationally, Segura & Associates has been assisting organizations to perform at maximum efficiencies. Ron has assisted hundreds of organizations in the reengineering of their operations so that they are able to provide a high quality of service and still meet budgetary requirements.