Supervision is a process of knowledge exchange, social experience, and psychological support received by trainees in work, career, and professional development. It includes informal communication, usually between two people, over a long period, between an employee who has a large amount of relevant knowledge, wisdom, or experience, and an employee or student who has these qualities to a lesser extent. In this regard, the supervisors must have particular traits and specific demeanor to succeed in their activities.
One of the essential personality traits of a supervisor that makes him the ideal professional is adaptability. Nowadays, almost everything is changing – science is developing by leaps and bounds, new technologies are being introduced every day, approaches to how students need to learn and how teachers need to convey information are changing. In such an environment, the supervisor must be flexible and open to new ideas and knowledge to meet ever-increasing demands. Davis (2020) notes that especially important are such human qualities of a supervisor as humanity, kindness, patience, decency, honesty, responsibility, fairness, commitment, emotional balance, and self-criticism, which become professionally significant prerequisites for creating favorable supervision relationships.
The ideal supervisor is distinguished by the manner of communication. The ability to build effective and friendly communication is one of the most significant aspects of perfect supervisors who will never raise their voice or overstep the boundaries of what is acceptable in communicating with students. Beckett (2020) asserts that the supervisor must structure the work experience, transfer it to the young specialist, and clearly and consistently state the necessary information and comments on the trainee’s work data. Moreover, ideal supervisors should be leaders because they are not just teaching, but directing their students in the right direction, setting a good example, and encouraging. Only such a supervisor can earn credibility and become a professional who will be grateful for hundreds of students. It is also essential to have a desire to be a supervisor. Otherwise, it will be perceived as an additional burden, which sooner or later will affect the quality. The supervisor is required to have a sincere commitment to helping the wards, and not just from time to time to evaluate the results of their work.
Supervisors have a set of functions and responsibilities, the successful implementation of which makes them the ideal professional. According to Corey et al. (2020), these include maintaining and encouraging student learning, transferring organizational knowledge, values, standards, and norms, and developing students’ positive work attitudes and corporate spirit. Moreover, a vital aspect of the supervisor’s activities is identifying problem areas in the student’s professional training and studying these points.
Thus, based on the above characteristics of an ideal supervisor, a portrait of an ineffective supervisor can be drawn up. The traits of such an employee are partiality, inability, and unwillingness to perceive another point of view, different from his own, irresponsibility, incontinence in communication, demonstration of personal superiority, and indifference to the profession. Moreover, ineffective supervisors cannot communicate as they expect others to read their minds and meet their unspecified expectations. In other cases, they are incredibly boring to listen to when they try to communicate and convey their message to students. Moreover, such specialists love to criticize and, more importantly, they rarely praise students.
The personality of the supervisor plays a crucial role in the successful or negative adaptation of students or new employees. Supervisors must not only have the appropriate skills, knowledge or experience, but also be able to communicate them correctly and on time to students and new employees. Therefore, not every person is capable of performing the functions of a supervisor. In addition to excellent proficiency in occupational skills, supervisors must possess versatile knowledge, be carriers of the key values of corporate culture, as well as have several personal qualities and a particular model of behavior.