What is the main concern of first-level managers?

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  • Challenge of the First Level
  • Human Relations
  • Technical Competence
  • Mix of Skills
  • Decline of the Position
  • Confusion of roles
  • Specialization of skills
  • Rise of unions
  • Crossfire of Demands
  • Success at the First Level…
  • …According to Outside Observers
  • …According to Subordinates
  • …According to First-Level Supervisors
  • Improving the Situation
  • Supervisors to Use New Levers
  • Managers to Shore Up the Position
  • What are the responsibilities of first level management?
  • What is the first level of management in a company?
  • What is the primary responsibility of first level managers quizlet?
  • What is the most important skill for a first level manager?

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Performing well as a first-level supervisor is like walking the circus high wire. In both positions, the ability to maintain one’s balance when shifting forces pull in opposite directions is a measure of one’s success. First-level supervisors must be able to harmonize the demands of management, the demands of the collective work force (often represented by unions), and the demands of workers with the requirements for doing the tasks at hand. These needs are more often than not conflicting and even at times mutually exclusive. First-level supervisors usually have mixed emotions about their situation and often lose their sense of identity as they try to perform this precarious balancing act. Today these supervisors are part of management, but chances are they were once among the employees they are now trying to supervise. Although first-level supervisors have the responsibility for implementing the goals of upper management, their organizational authority to carry out the necessary actions is frequently unclear and often insufficient. By allowing these lowest-level managers to use the levers of influence inherent in their position, higher-level managers will be improving the performance of the whole organization.

“Our supervisors can probably have more influence on our productivity, worker absenteeism, product quality, morale of our work force, labor relations, and cost reduction than any other group in the company,” the vice president of personnel at a manufacturing company recently told us. We were there to do research on the function of first-level supervisors.

“If we don’t do something soon, we’re going to lose our best foremen—it’s no wonder that they’re turned off, given the pressures they have to live with,” the plant manager at the same company said.

Being a first-level supervisor is one of the most difficult, demanding, and challenging jobs in any organization. Buried in an organizational web, this person must be adroit at administering a unit and at perceiving which, among all the daily tasks delegated downward, are the most important to accomplish. Through such administrative competence, he or she must be able to link the unit’s accomplishments to the functioning of other organizational subunits.

Even at the first level, a supervisor must be able to think and act in terms of the total system of operation.1 This includes defining and assigning priorities, planning and organizing, and programming and coordinating the operating tasks of a department so that the objectives of both the department and the company as a whole are achieved.

Furthermore, the first-level supervisor must excel in interpersonal skills. More and more, the trend is for employees to be a heterogeneous group of individuals, many of whom are not especially dedicated to their jobs, their departments, or their companies. Handling the variety of attitudes and values in this multiple-generation worker base has become extremely difficult. Also, the work force is aging as the post-World War II babies reach middle age, and challenges to mandatory retirement are widening the age spread.

Along with age, the increase in working women and minorities has become a factor in the work force. Supervisors must learn to deal with these new workers and yet guard against discriminatory practices. Also, the fact that the educational level of the work force has continued to rise means that the supervisor does not often maintain an educational advantage over the worker. (In 1977, more than 90% of the U.S. population between 20 and 29 were high school graduates, and 8 million Americans were enrolled in colleges and universities.)

Challenge of the First Level

In addition to the increasing pressure for administrative and clerical efficiency at the first level, two areas of supervisory competence that are continually problematic are human relations and technical knowledge. Workers are no longer conformists who without question accept the rules and procedures that management lays down. No longer do they take authority at face value.

Human Relations

Many workers view their jobs as necessary evils to provide the resources for fulfilling their lives in leisure time, which they are pressing harder and harder to increase. It is the first-level supervisor who must cope with such workers face to face and day to day. Being able to communicate effectively is vital. In a recent study of 25 middle managers, the materials manager of an electrical company expressed a theme common to the group: “Being able to work with people is the most important characteristic a first-level supervisor can have. I can buy technological expertise, but it’s hard to find someone with good, basic communication skills.”2

Technical Competence

First-level supervisors must of course have technical competence in the areas they supervise. The supervisors must be able to perform the specific tasks they ask their workers to do and must, to some degree, understand the equipment and the process technology they manage.

Technological changes continue to occur rapidly, though, and supervisors can no longer hope to understand completely all the complex equipment and processes they are in charge of. New products and new processes abound—computers, plastic molding, electronic test equipment, temperature-and pressure-sensitive distillation, component machining, complex metal alloy foundries, acoustic devices, and synthetic rubber, to name but a few.

Having good technical skills gives supervisors both enough understanding to deal with the many specialists brought in to accomplish the units’ objectives and the ability to train subordinates in their tasks.

Mix of Skills

Despite the difficulty and challenge of the first-level supervisor’s job, many upper-level managers fail to appreciate its merits or its requirements. Although most of them agree that the human relations aspect of the job is important, they often promote a supervisor for such skills as record keeping. Although the mix of skills needed for each position varies from situation to situation, managers often fail to perceive the particularity of the task required, the type of people being supervised, or the stage the organization is going through.

One general supervisor at an auto manufacturing plant said: “For some reason, our supervisors just aren’t able to switch between our departments; they may be great in materials handling, but they have a hell of a time in welding. It’s almost like it’s a different job!” Supervising highly skilled welders requires a different blend of skills than supervising semiskilled laborers.

To overcome the growing pains and technical difficulties of starting up production or of making a major product changeover, the supervisor must emphasize technical skills rather than interpersonal relations, which must be downplayed in the rush to finish technical tasks. During stable periods, however, administrative and interpersonal skills rise in importance in the first-level supervisor’s order of priorities.

Decline of the Position

Although a person serving as a first-level supervisor is performing a major function, the position has often been labeled “the man in the middle,” “the forgotten man,” “the master and victim of double talk,” and “the marginal man.” Such descriptions not only indicate the male domination of the position but also its degeneration to one of “being on the edge,” “being victimized,” and “fading in importance.”3

Confusion of roles

The causes for the decline of the first-level position are manifold. Over the years confusion has developed about what to expect of supervisors and what role to give them. The position has two very separate roots.

One root is the master craftsman of the past. He was a real entrepreneur—bidding on jobs, hiring employees to perform required tasks, and managing their progress. Like the subcontractor of today, the master craftsman took on the difference between the revenues for jobs completed and the costs associated with those jobs as his own profits or losses. The master craftsman’s skill and knowledge of the job were the key ingredients on which these profits or losses depended.

The other root is the “lead man,” the foreman of a gang of workers performing manual labor. Like the lead dog or lead horse of a work team, the lead man served as an example for other work-crew members. He often set the pace by calling out a cadence to synchronize the crew’s physical movements. The lead man was part of the actual work, and yet he was responsible for the behavior of the whole group.

The amalgamation of these two roles has resulted in today’s confusing hybrid. Peter Drucker notes: “From the master craftsman the supervisor of today has largely inherited what is expected of him. From the lead man he has, however, largely inherited his actual position.”4

The word supervisor has conflicting connotations. A supervisor not only commands, directs, controls, and inspects but also takes responsibility for, leads, shepherds, administers, guides, consults, and cares for. Just how the connotation varies from situation to situation and from person to person is in itself a reason for the ambiguity—and the decline—of the first-level supervisor’s role.

Specialization of skills

Another cause of the decline is the rise of staff service departments in such fields as quality control, production planning and control, industrial engineering, personnel, maintenance, and cost accounting. Most of these staff service departments were created to handle the new demands of scientific management in the 1920s and 1930s. The more recent growth of specialization and professionalization within companies has been noted as an important trend of the twentieth century.5

Each staff group wants to have a say in the job, to establish a power base, and to protect its area of expertise. Its success in meeting these needs has eroded the authority of first-level supervisors. As Thomas Patten points out: “The foreman found himself in effect surrounded by specialists who were taking over parts of what had formerly been his job. He was left with little to do except administer the plans and programs devised by the service departments.”6

Rise of unions

A further influence has been the rise of the unions, which have stripped supervisors in unionized plants of much of their remaining authority. Rather than always dealing directly with workers, the supervisors have become more dependent on, and are quite often the target of, the union. It has become increasingly difficult to hire or fire without union involvement. Hiring often has to come from the union list, firing has to follow a strict interpretation of the contract, often requiring a number of warnings. Layoffs are normally by seniority, not according to productivity. Disciplinary action was formally taken away from the prerogative of the first-level supervisor’s judgment and set down in black and white.

And, even when the strict letter of the contract is followed, grievances are often filed by the union steward. The company, in some instances, has failed to support the supervisor in a legitimate claim against the union. When such actions have eroded the power base of first-level supervisors, they have been bypassed by workers and union officials, and workers have taken their problems to the union steward instead. The first stage of any grievance procedure—talking with the supervisor in charge—has become lip service. “Don’t talk to him, he doesn’t know anything” has become a self-fulfilling prophecy on the shop floor.

The union has been a co-conspirator in usurping the first-level supervisor’s prerogative to set work standards. Setting work standards—the one domain supervisors had prided themselves on and that had been considered their territory—has become the domain of the industrial engineering and industrial relations departments working with the union.

The union has also served to lower the prestige of the first-level supervisor by winning large wage increases, improved working conditions, and job security for its members. First-level supervisors have seen workers’ wages rise more rapidly than their own; they have not had the same job security that the workers have fought for; they can be fired or demoted at a moment’s notice; and the Taft-Hartley Act effectively precludes them from organizing.

Crossfire of Demands

The first-level supervisor is a “person caught between”—primarily between middle management and the work force. Both groups have very different values and priorities. Middle managers tend to be interested in cost, efficiency, and performance; workers tend to be more interested in wage rates, security, and comfort. Managers usually believe that hard work leads to advancement; workers often see little point in exerting themselves. To management, the labor contract and work rules seem restrictive; to labor, they seem protective from unreasonable management demands. Managers are concerned about the status of their positions; workers want recognition for work well done. Managers usually identify strongly with the company; workers often have little company loyalty.

The first-level supervisor is caught directly in a crossfire of values and priorities:

• The supervisor often does not know the objectives and policies of top management but heavily influences what management can accomplish.

• The supervisor is not part of the work force but depends heavily on its acceptance.

• The supervisor is in the first line of management but has little authority.

• The supervisor is a member of management but is far removed from the locus of decision making.

• The supervisor is limited by precedents and company culture but serves as the agent of change, without whose action little occurs in the company.

• The supervisor establishes standards and precedents but has little information or knowledge on which to base decisions.

• The supervisor is supposed to spend much time on interpersonal relationships but finds that much of that time is needed for record keeping.

• The supervisor is supposed to have a position of leadership but feels that leadership traits are suppressed because of the low self-image associated with the position.

• The supervisor is asked to identify with the values and aspirations of management but is at a dead end in career progress and development.

• The supervisor is usually young and deals with a young, diverse, new type of working person but is evaluated, trained, and rewarded by older, more conservative, more authoritarian supervisors.

This combination of role confusion, increase in staff services, overlap of power with the unions, and conflicting demands has reduced the position of first-level supervisor to just a shadow of its earlier form.

Success at the First Level…

As we can see from the often ambiguous and contradictory findings, success is difficult to identify. Sometimes it means productivity, sometimes satisfaction, and sometimes quality of work life. What is successful to employees is not always the same as what is successful to management, and that is not necessarily the same as what is successful to the first-level supervisor.

…According to Outside Observers

Our knowledge of what makes a successful supervisor is still quite incomplete. However, several studies have been carried out since the end of World War II.

A pioneering effort was a three-year study (1947–1949) conducted by Aaron Q. Sartain and Alton W. Baker in the offices of Prudential Insurance Company in Newark, New Jersey.7 Two samples of matched pairs of work groups, 12 in each sample, were carefully selected. The samples were statistically alike with regard to number of men and women, marital status, average age, education, years of experience, salary grade, average distance from job to home, and average score on a battery of psychological tests for each pair of work groups.

However, the productivity differences between the two samples of work groups were statistically significant. Prior to the study, characteristics of the group leaders (supervisors) such as age, education, experience, and salary were thought to explain the differences in group productivity, but the study did not show that any of these factors makes a difference.

What it did show is that the high-productivity groups had more pride in their work than the low-productivity groups. Supervisors of high-productivity groups usually supervised in a more general manner than did supervisors of low-productivity groups. These latter supervisors closely watched their workers and gave greater amounts of instruction to them. Overinstruction was an easy way to oversupervise.

The supervisors of the low-productivity groups made a larger number of requests for promotions and salary increases, but a lower percentage of their requests was approved. The supervisors of the high-productivity groups were more critical than their counterparts.

Finally, and perhaps most important, the high-productivity supervisors talked about their people; the low-productivity supervisors talked about their jobs. The researchers classified the former group as “employee oriented,” the latter as “work centered.”

Sartain and Baker concluded their analysis of this study by noting that there are no ironclad rules for supervising.

The Institute for Social Research, under the direction of Rensis Likert, followed the Prudential study with a number of similar studies in a variety of settings. The findings from these studies can be summarized as follows:

• Supervisors viewed themselves more favorably than did their subordinates.

• Employees in the high-productivity groups liked their work less than their counterparts in the low-productivity groups. (A happy worker is not always the most productive worker.)

• As a general rule, the better supervisors spent more time in meetings with their employees.

• The supervisors of the more productive groups were judged by their employees to have greater influence with top management.

• Keeping subordinates informed, thinking of them as individuals, taking an interest in them, soliciting their opinions, and developing an atmosphere of trust were traits of the better supervisors.

In a later study, Saul W. Gellerman analyzed the jobs of 12 first-line supervisors in the packaging plant of a major food-processing company.8 Gellerman followed each of the supervisors through the plant for an entire shift, noted every move, and questioned each course of action.

Gellerman found three supervisors (A, B, and C) particularly interesting. For each of these supervisors Gellerman detected a number of important elements of substance (what is done) and style (how it is done). How their superiors described their ways of supervising is shown in the Exhibit.

Exhibit Gellerman’s Study on Quality of Supervision

What is certain is that the job of first-line supervisor is an extremely difficult and demanding one that requires shifting sets of information, skills, and abilities. A successful supervisor seems to have the ability to balance the demands of task, employees, union, and management with his or her own needs for esteem and respect. But this balancing act takes place in a ring where not all of these demands can be met at once.

…According to Subordinates

Employees’ attitudes often reveal the quality of supervision. To see what good first-level supervisors are like, it is useful to hear what subordinates want from their leaders. And to see what kind of supervision encourages the development of first-level supervisors, it is helpful to hear what they think of their managers.

A 1969–1970 survey of working conditions shows workers’ satisfaction to be significantly correlated with the adequacy of resources and the competence of their supervisors.9 Workers said that “people orientation” is important to them but is not the only thing that contributes to their satisfaction and productivity. Supervisors whom the workers viewed as effective combined “people management” with competence at the job, maintenance of high performance standards, and ability to supply workers with adequate help, equipment, and information related to their jobs.

In 1977, a national restaurant chain we interviewed undertook a confidential survey of its employees as part of an attempt to find the cause of a corporate sales plateau. The results of the survey were quite revealing:

• The employees felt they had little job security since most of their rights depended on the esteem in which particular managers held them. The rate of turnover was high because the company had a policy of moving managers throughout the organization.

• This rapid turnover of management personnel created another concern—each new manager seemed to expect a different standard or a different type of performance from employees.

• There was a general feeling that managers who had been hourly employees in the past could deal better with the hourly employees than managers without hourly experience who had come straight through the corporate training program.

• Managers were very quick to correct but slow to reward. Employees felt a definite lack of encouragement and praise.

• Most employees felt that their performance had never been evaluated and that they did not know where they stood with the managers.

• Several employees felt that it was common for them to get “bad shifts” as punishment and that they never found out whether they had done something wrong until the schedule was posted. Only when they inquired of management did they find out what had gone wrong.

• Some expressed the feeling that they would like to go into management except that they saw the constant squeeze on managers—the conflict between the desire to be a “good guy” and the ability to produce the results that upper management demanded.

Overall, there was a strong correlation between how the employees ranked their unit managers (supervisors) and the performance of their units. The better supervisors produced better operating results.

…According to First-Level Supervisors

James W. Driscoll, Daniel J. Carroll, Jr., and Timothy A. Sprecher, in recent research, asked first-level supervisors about the amount of control they had over factors that motivated their subordinates. Their findings reaffirm the generalizations we presented earlier:

“Unfortunately, these first-level supervisors are still ‘the man in the middle.’ (The only change is a semantic update in gender.) They report no more control over the things they consider important than over the things they consider unimportant. It is quite likely this lack of control generates very high levels of frustration in first-level supervisors. They are held responsible for producing organizational results through their subordinates, but they lack control over the means to motivate these workers.”10

Research we recently completed at several plants confirms that this attitude is widespread. A quote from a general foreman summarizes a common complaint: “They (upper management) have completely taken away our ability to get things done. We are still responsible for things that we have little control over—absenteeism, purchasing parts, quality, labor relations, maintenance. When we go to them with some problem, to get some help, all we get is, ‘Fix it, make it go away.’”

By giving control of these factors to first-level supervisors, middle and top management could help the supervisors motivate their subordinates. Driscoll, Carroll, and Sprecher discovered that the higher-level managers very accurately perceived this control discrepancy between what is important and what the first-level supervisors control: “Basically, these first-level supervisors seem to be in an unwinnable situation. They need help, and their bosses seem to know it.”

Such a finding suggests that an important starting point in designing a program to make supervision effective is not changing the behavior of first-level supervisors but convincing those who manage them to yield some control.

Several researchers have recently studied what first-level supervisors want from their jobs. In their sample of 300 first-and second-level supervisors at Allied Chemical Company, Michael J. Abhoud and Homer Richardson found that, out of 10 factors evaluated, first-level supervisors ranked interesting work first and salary second.11 The second-level managers ranked salary first and interesting work second. Other factors ranked evenly by both levels of managers include, in descending order, chance for promotion, appreciation for work done, good working conditions, job security, loyalty of supervisors, “feeling in on things,” tactful discipline, and help on personal problems.

In a survey of 65 first-level supervisors, Paul W. Cummings asked the respondents to list their motivations for accepting a first-level position. He noted that 90% of the respondents listed more money as a reason for accepting, 38% listed advancement, 48% listed the challenge of a new position, and 40% said they enjoy leadership positions.12

In a study of the attitudes of plant supervisors and salesmen, Sartain and Baker found that 78% of the salesmen rated their work favorably, whereas only 56% of the supervisors did so. The survey also indicated that the supervisors felt that they had fewer opportunities in their jobs for personal growth, development, and advancement than the salesmen.13

Obviously, the background of first-level supervisors has a lot to do with what they expect of this position, and their aspirations change as their service lengthens. A young process engineer, placed in a first-level supervisory position to be groomed for management, wants different things from the job than the 40-year-old lathe operator who finally cracks this lower rung of management.

Getting onto the lower rung is a time for remolding, but managers must be careful not to foster it in the form of stagnation. To expect that good wages is all that first-level supervisors want is a gross, misleading simplification. They may learn, however, that this is all they can expect from management. The opportunity is there for management to encourage these individuals to see the first-level job as a transition and to expect some career development from it.

Improving the Situation

If first-level supervisors are to succeed, they must first establish the informal authority and interpersonal influence to back up the responsibility that comes with their position. Then first-level supervisors must continue to deal with their immediate supervisors and their work force in a manner that minimizes the conflicts between the two groups and permits them to retain the authority to perform effectively.

A major reason that a first-level supervisory job seems so difficult to master is the decrease in its traditional authority, an increase in dependency on other people to get the job done, and an apparent lack of other operating levers. Many see this erosion of formal authority and increasing dependence as a condition to be straightened out by increasing the first-level supervisor’s authority. This is an unrealistic remedy. The decreasing power base of this lower-level manager is due to two pervasive organizational phenomena—division of labor into specializations and scarce resources of all types. Influencing people has to take forms other than exercising formal authority.

Supervisors to Use New Levers

Levers can be thought of as tools for influencing people in specific situations; none are applicable, however, to every situation. Levers such as job assignment, overtime, work conditions, equipment repair, and even hiring and firing are now often out of the supervisors’ control. Very few discretionary items exist in the operating budget. What are some of the available levers today? How can first-level supervisors exercise influence and get the job done without using the more traditional levers? They can:

• Use positive reinforcement in the form of incentive schemes, job redesign, and awareness of psychological needs, including peer group acceptance and pride.

• Try negative reinforcement—both the traditional type (write up, fire, suspend) and more indirect means (job reassignment, job redesign, forced overtime).

• Delegate the resolution of a sticky problem to a shop steward or another union official.

• Appeal to workers for support on the basis of having gone out on a limb for them or having given over some prerogative to them in the past.

• Appeal to workers on the basis of understanding their position, since first-level supervisors once stood in their shoes.

• Appeal to workers on the basis of previously agreed-on goals and plans for achieving them.

As can be seen from this list, the available levers have shifted from administrative and technical competence to competence in interpersonal and group relations. This employee-oriented area requires the development of nontraditional authority and power bases and an understanding of the subtle processes of influence and persuasion. The first-level supervisor must have the ability to analyze and resolve the various dependencies that management and workers have.

As one director of production for a large defense subcontractor we visited said: “I know in my gut that the real key to productivity that the general manager is pushing on and [the key] to better labor relations that the union is yelling about is my supervisors. Any investment in them in training, communications, time, energy, attention, or plain listening gets one of the best returns in this company.”

Managers to Shore Up the Position

Rather than contribute to the continued erosion of the first-level supervisory position, upper management should shore up the position by encouraging and training first-level supervisors to use available power sources to energize their situation. The end result would be an environment in which satisfaction and productivity abounds.

Upper management should recognize the difficulties associated with the position and help these supervisors develop a power base. Power can come from many sources: a mandate from management, personal confidence, a reputation for being able to tackle tough situations, loyalty of the work force, and dependence of the work force and management on the first-level supervisor’s knowledge and skills.

Both middle and top managers should strive to create an organizational environment in which first-level supervisors can perform their function most effectively. There are a number of steps that managers above first-level supervisors can take to help:

• Become aware of the actual working conditions of first-level supervisors. Don’t assume that the key to present-day first-level supervisory effectiveness is the same as it was 10 or 20 years ago. “When I ran that assembly line, I did things this way” is a meaningless and misleading appeal. Things aren’t the same!

• Keep first-level supervisors informed about the corporate perspective as it relates to their operation. To relate to upper-level management and to present the management viewpoint to the work force, first-level supervisors must know some of the long-term goals of the corporation.

• Keep first-level supervisors aware of upper-level managers’ priorities. Without a clear idea of these priorities, first-level supervisors risk disapproval of their actions.

• Educate first-level supervisors about new technological developments that might affect their job. Knowledge of the equipment and process technology they are supervising is essential for gaining credibility with both management and the work force and for exposing areas of potential improvement.

• Provide feedback on how well first-level supervisors are meeting management’s expectations.

• Provide first-level supervisors an opportunity on company time to work together on specific problems affecting their job. Such teamwork not only generates solutions where the problems are but also allows peer interaction and learning as part of the job—something that most managers take for granted and that first-level supervisors’ day-to-day routines lack.

• Assist first-level supervisors in keeping the work force up to date on any information that may affect their job. A good in-plant communications program administered through first-level supervisors can pay handsome dividends.14

• Provide training for first-level supervisors to improve their skills in dealing with people. Such a training program should include sessions on topics like being an effective listener, performance appraisal, motivation, disciplinary procedures, and labor relations.

• Encourage first-level supervisors to stand up for and express their beliefs to upper management.

In essence then, the first-level supervisor must become more political in both skill and outlook. The real key is the ability to understand, influence, and merge the two worlds of management and workers. First-level supervisors are forced to walk the high wire and, like the circus, their act is now in the center ring.

“I’m probably the youngest general foreman in the plant… I’m in the chassis line right now. There’s 372 people working for us, hourly. And thirteen foremen. I’m the lead general foreman…

“If you’re a deadhead when you’re an hourly man and you go on supervision, they don’t have much use for you. But if they know the guy’s aggressive and he tries to do a job, they tend to respect him…

“When I came here I wanted to be a utility man. He goes around and spot relieves everybody. I thought that was the greatest thing in the world. When the production manager asked me would I consider training for a foreman’s job, boy! My sights left utility. I worked on all the assembly lines. I spent eighteen months on the lines, made foreman, and eighteen months later I made general foreman…

“A lot of the old-timers had more time in the plant than I had time in the world. Some of ‘em had thirty, thirty-five years’ service. I had to overcome their resentment and get their respect. I was taught one thing: to be firm but fair. Each man has got an assignment of work to do. If he has a problem [derived from the work], correct his problem. If he doesn’t have a problem, correct him.

“If an hourly man continued to let the work go, you have to take disciplinary action. You go progressively, depending on the situation. If it was me being a young guy and he resented it, I would overlook it and try to get him to think my way. If I couldn’t, I had to go to the disciplinary route—which would be a reprimand, a warning.

“If they respect you, they’ll do anything for you. Be aggressive… I have to know each and every one of my foremen. I know how they react, all thirteen.

“There’s a few on the line you can associate with. I haven’t as yet… The more you get to know somebody, it’s hard to distinguish between boss and friend. This isn’t good for my profession. We work together, we live together. But they always gotta realize you’re the boss.

“I want to get quality first, then everything else’ll come. The line runs good, the production’s good, you get your cost and you get your good workmanship. When they hire in, you gotta show ‘em you’re firm. We’ve got company rules…that we try to enforce from the beginning.

“The case begins with a reprimand, a warning procedure. A lotta times they don’t realize this is the first step to termination… If you catch a guy stealing, the first step is a termination. In the case of workmanship, it’s a progressive period…

“There’s an old saying: The boss ain’t always right but he’s still the boss. He has things applied to him from top management, where they see the whole picture. A lot of times I don’t agree with it…

“Prior to going on supervision, you think hourly. But when you become management, you have to look out for the company’s best interests. You always have to present a management attitude.

“Out here, it’s a big job. There’s a lot of responsibility. It’s not like working in a soup factory, where all you do is make soup cans. If you get a can punched wrong, you put it on the side and don’t worry about it. You can’t do that with a five-thousand-dollar car.”

1. See Robert Dubin et al., Leadership and Productivity: Some Facts of Industrial Life (Novato, Calif.: Chandler & Sharp, 1965), p. 75.

2. See Thomas De Long, “What Do Middle Managers Really Want from First-Line Supervisors?” Supervisory Management, September 1977, p. 8.

3. See F.J. Roethlisberger, “The Foreman: Master and Victim of Double Talk,” HBR September–October 1965, p. 22; Thomas A. Patten, Jr., The Foreman: Forgotten Man of Management (New York: American Management Associations, 1968); and Donald E. Wray, “Marginal Man of Industry: The Foreman,” American Journal of Sociology, January 1949, p. 298.

4. Peter F. Drucker, The Practice of Management (New York: Harper & Row, 1954), p. 321.

5. See James G. March and Herbert A. Simon, Organization (New York: John Wiley, 1958); H.L. Wilensky, “The Professionalization of Everyone?” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 70, 1964, p. 137; and Charles A. Myers and John G. Turnbull, “Line and Staff in Industrial Relations,” HBR July–August 1956, p. 113.

6. Patten, The Foreman, p. 18.

7. See Aaron Q. Sartain and Alton W. Baker, The Supervisor and His Job (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972) for a description and analysis of this study.

8. Saul W. Gellerman, “Supervision: Substance and Style,” HBR March–April 1976, p. 89.

9. The 1969–1970 Survey of Working Conditions: Chronicles of an Unfinished Enterprise, edited by Robert P. Quinn and Thomas W. Mangione (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1973).

10. James W. Driscoll, Daniel J. Carroll, Jr., Timothy A. Sprecher, “The First-Level Supervisor: Still the Man in the Middle,” Sloan Management Review, Winter 1978, p. 34.

11. Michael J. Abhoud and Homer Richardson, “What Do Supervisors Want from Their Jobs?” Personnel Journal, June 1978, p. 308.

12. Paul W. Cummings, “Occupation Supervisor,” Personnel Journal, August 1975, p. 448.

13. See Sartain and Baker, The Supervisor and His Job.

14. Louis I. Gelfand, “Communicate Through Your Supervisors,” HBR November–December 1970, p. 101.

A version of this article appeared in the March 1980 issue of Harvard Business Review.

What are the responsibilities of first level management?

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