I believe in a ‘service’ approach. Our Staff didn’t work for me—my job was to resource the staff and let them do their job. I didn’t believe in the traditional hierarchy. My customers were our staff. Their customers were children and families. If I resourced our staff well then that would mean the children and families would be well served.
I also believed in meeting monthly with each staff member to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about. It was a non-threatening way to talk and they were in charge of the agenda. The nonprofit I managed was selling people skills so it was critical to give our staff ‘face time’—especially in a time of social media when we send emails as opposed to talking. Relationship-based supervision is a buzzword but it matters as it is important that everyone gets along well at work.
