| dc.description.abstract | Supervision is nothing new. In Biblical times Moses appointed supervisors, during which time delegating as a management technique came to the fore. There are conflicting
opinions about what the task of the supervisor entails,
but it has been proven conclusively in literature that the
supervisor must have technical, conceptual and interpersonal
skills. Since the latter can be regarded as the most
important, (Taylor, 1975; Terry, 1978) it should be
given the most attention during supervisory training.
Supervisory training is more than just the presentation of
formal lectures. It also implies self development and
therefore supervisors must be made aware of individual
strengths and developmental needs. The various schools
o-f: thought in the theory of learning have made an excepational contribution to the design of certain training
methods, such as behaviour modification and -modelling, but it
is important that training personnel do not follow just
single theories. The schools of thought in the learning
theory largely complement each other and therefore it is
important for the training official to develop a broad
perspective in this regard.
A need for management, a need for power and sensitivity
for the needs of others calls for training of supervisors
in "sensitive relation forming" and, as an intergral part
hereof, also leadership and communication skills. This
approach aims at, amongst other things, elevating self-actualization of supervisors. From this investigation
it appears that the application of formal classroom
techniques, followed by group discussions, where the
emphasis falls on "sensitive relation forming", as well
as leadership and communication skills and feed-back of
behavioural dimensions by trained observers, had a positive
effect on the self-actualization of supervisors in a
certain chemical practice. | en_US |
