The Missing Muscle Every Supervisor Needs
Read time: 3-5 minutes
Most supervisors are told to “be leaders,” but nobody teaches them how to read the room.
We send supervisors to leadership workshops and tell them to “empower their teams.” They come back energized, ready to transform their people, only to default to old patterns within days.
Why?
Because we teach them what to do, but not when to do it.
That missing skill, situational fluency, is the difference between supervisors who struggle and those who thrive.
Mary’s Breaking Point
Mary stood in her school kitchen, watching lunch prep unravel.
A new employee contaminated a cutting board with raw chicken… again. Another left dairy products out at room temperature. Eight weeks in, the new hire still couldn’t dice onions properly.
At sixty, with retirement in sight, Mary felt exhausted.
For fifteen years, she’d been an excellent assistant kitchen manager. She was reliable, detail-oriented, and great at execution. When she was promoted to head manager, she brought one primary tool with her: management.
Her approach never changed.
Identify the problem. Demonstrate the correct way. Monitor for compliance.
When people made mistakes, Mary fixed them herself.
When motivation lagged, she added checklists and oversight.
The result?
Four employees transferred out in one year
A skeleton crew of five in a kitchen built for eight
Rising frustration on all sides
The wake-up call came during an unannounced inspection. Despite Mary’s high standards, logs were incomplete and multiple violations slipped through. Worse, three transfer requests from her kitchen were already on the director’s desk.
“You’re one of our most skilled managers,” he told her, “but we need to talk about what’s happening with your team.”
The Missing Muscle
Mary had fallen into a common trap: she was constantly managing situations that needed leadership.
Think of riding a bike. It requires two functions:
Steering (leadership—direction, vision, development)
Pedaling (management—execution, consistency, control)
Without both working together, you either stall out, or crash.
Some moments demand tight controls. A safety violation isn’t a coaching opportunity, it’s a management imperative.
Other moments require leadership. A capable employee struggling with confidence doesn’t need more oversight, they need development, trust, and perspective.
Mary wasn’t choosing incorrectly.
She wasn’t choosing at all.
The Transformation
Mary’s breakthrough was simple, and a bit uncomfortable.
She began logging her daily interactions and asking one question:
“What did this situation actually need from me?”
Patterns emerged quickly:
Safety violations responded best to clear management
Over-managing routine tasks created resentment
Managing emotions backfired
Leading skill development built confidence
Within six months:
Zero transfer requests
Highest inspection scores in the district
Renewed energy and purpose
Instead of retiring, Mary extended her career and this time she was a developer of people, not just a fixer of problems.
Building Your Situational Fluency
This is what most leadership training misses.
We teach feedback techniques and vision statements.
We don’t teach how to diagnose moments and choose the right response.
Situational fluency starts with three practices:
1. Pause and Assess
Before responding, ask: “What does this moment need from me?”
Not what feels comfortable, but what will actually serve the situation.
2. Practice Mode-Switching
Choose one interaction or person per day where you consciously decide how to respond. Be directive when management is required. Ask questions when leadership is needed.
3. Seek Feedback
Ask your team in 1 on 1 conversations:
“When do you need more direction from me?”
“When do you need more autonomy?”
Their answers reveal where your fluency needs work.
The Payoff
The best supervisors aren’t those who choose between managing and leading.
They’re the ones who can do both, and know when each is needed.
When you develop situational fluency:
Problems get solved appropriately
People develop faster
Results improve
You stop exhausting yourself with the wrong tool
Your Next Step
Tomorrow, pause before your first team interaction.
Ask yourself:
Is this a moment for management’s clarity, or leadership’s development?
That pause… that moment of conscious choice… that is where exceptional supervision begins.
Your team doesn’t need you to be a great leader or a great manager.
They need you to know which one they need and when they need it.
That’s situational fluency.
That’s the missing muscle.
If you want to develop situational fluency in yourself or your supervisors and stop defaulting to habits that undermine trust and results, I help organizations build this skill deliberately.
👉 Schedule a strategy conversation by clicking here
We’ll work together diagnose what’s going on, and partner together to deliver the team and organization you desire.
