Overcoming Barriers to Success

In her new book, Being a Supervisor, Gigi Schweikert outlines eight tips for eliminating teachers' barriers to success.  Here are a few examples:

Offer choices.  Offer employees choices in how they carry out or perform job expectations.  We need a bulletin board for Week of the Young Child.  What would you like to do? Or perhaps, Teachers are bunching up in a group or chatting on the playground when they should be interacting with the children.  How can we make sure that all children are supervised outside?

Give individual attention.  Give one-on-one attention to the employee with weekly meetings, working alongside the person in the classroom, taking the employee out to lunch or talking on the phone about how the day went.  It was really fun to watch you interacting with your class this afternoon.  I'm curious about your thoughts — how do you think it went today?

Let the employee vent.  Provide a culture that allows for venting.  Listen to the employee, repeat to see if you understand her feelings, and then help her deal with the issue.  

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