Training is an important part of leadership. It is one thing to issue an instruction, but another to have the instruction carried out intelligently, with an appreciation of its consequences. One of the selection tests for army officers during the war was to require the candidate to have a tent erected by two assistants by giving them instructions. The assistants never disobeyed an instruction, but would always carry it out in the least helpful manner. It is not recorded that any candidate succeeded in passing this test completely. The example is not quite a fair one as the purpose of the assistants was to obstruct, but it illustrates the point that successful work requires not only obedience to instructions, but intelligent and active co-operation by people who understand what the supervisor is trying to achieve. This involves training at various stages.

A supervisor can expect that except for raw apprentices and trainees, the people who come to him will already have the basic skills to equip them for the work being done in the department. In addition to these skills, however, they will need to know the special problems of the work coming into the shop, and any special procedures and standards in use there. Efficiency can be increased if the foreman ensures that everyone understands these routines so that he can carry them out with a minimum of special instruction. Close supervision on the field was not only impracticable, but superfluous. Some supervisors show great skill in dealing with crises, but if a supervisor’s day is spent in dealing with one crisis after another, it may be time for him to ponder whether there is not something he could do by way of training or forward planning to avoid many of these crises (where there is good planning, and where people are properly trained, there is little need for close supervision and order giving).

It would be wrong to assume that leadership always comes, or even should always come, from the man who is formally in charge of the group. He certainly has the duty of co-coordinating the activities of all his subordinates and ensuring that they work harmoniously, but he has no monopoly of understanding the law of the situation. A work team will have in it people with special knowledge, and it would be rash to assume that all supervisors know more about the individual jobs of their subordinates than they do themselves. A maintenance foreman, for example, may have a very good understanding of the work of all his subordinates, but he is unlikely to know as much about electricity as the electrician, or about plumbing as the plumber, if his own trade is joinery. » Read more: The Manager – Leadership and Training