SUPERVISORY LEADERSHIP - N G Nair Malanjkhand, India

SUPERVISORY LEADERSHIP - N G NAIR MALANJKHAND INDIA

While it is a fact that higher the motivation and morale of the work group, higher will be, the level of discipline maintenance, the one is really set by the supervisors. The supervisors represent authority to the workers. Since authority to the workers. Since authority (of the management) has to take recourse to direction, regulation, restraint, and control of other’s behavior, it generally excites hostility among those who have to submit to authority. This is especially so if authority is exercised in the traditional manner where harshness accompanies ordering and where violation of rules is looked upon as a signal for exemplary punishment.

But, of late, it has been felt that exercise of authority need not be a disagreeable feature. It can be done in a more agreeable manner by making it more democratic. This is the art of leadership among supervisors. It is difficult to practice but the rewards are great. It involves a great amount of hard work, tact, diplomacy, and self-restraint on the part of the supervisors, but if they do not adopt these, the ultimate losers will be the supervisors and the industry.

A leader is one who has control over the behavior of others; the leader also directs the behaviour of others; the leader also directs behaviour of others. The authority to mould such behaviour of others is either by a despotic exercise of authority or by the willing cooperation of the followers, as many modern leaders in the democracies have indicated. It is now increasingly being realised that the leader who rules by authority will be less effective than the one who, having won the cooperation of his followers, persuades them towards the desired goal.