I’ve written before about why performance evaluations suck.

I haven’t changed my mind.

Too many performance evaluations are bureaucratic exercises that tell us remarkably little about whether someone is actually doing a good job. We create pages of competencies, ratings, boxes and narrative comments, then spend hours trying to find just the right words to describe somebody’s performance. Eventually, everyone signs the document, files it away and gets back to work. Then we do it again next year.

The problem isn’t that we evaluate people. The problem is that we often don’t have a very good idea what we’re actually evaluating.

If we want a proper performance evaluation, we have to start long before the evaluation.

It Starts With the Position Description

A proper performance evaluation begins with a rational position description. I’m not talking about the typical position description that says a supervisor “plans, organizes, directs and controls” and then lists another couple of dozen responsibilities written in bureaucratic language that nobody could actually use to determine whether the person is succeeding.

I’m talking about a position description that tells the supervisor, in plain language, why the position exists, what it is expected to accomplish, and how success will be recognized.

Before we can fairly evaluate someone’s performance, we have to establish the template against which performance will be judged. The position description should identify the major objectives and expected results of the position, along with reasonable measures or standards that tell us what successful performance looks like.

Now the supervisor has something meaningful to work from.

Instead of waiting for the boss to tell them what to do all year, the supervisor can look at the objectives of the position and develop action plan proposals for accomplishing them. That is an important distinction because the supervisor is taking responsibility for figuring out how the work can actually get done.

Throughout the year, the supervisor and manager can discuss progress toward those objectives. Circumstances will change, priorities will change, some proposals won’t work as expected and new opportunities will appear. The action plan may need to be adjusted, but the fundamental question remains the same: Are we moving toward the objectives established for this position?

By the time the formal evaluation arrives, we shouldn’t have to invent a judgment about performance. The supervisor should be able to look at the position description, the objectives, the action plans, and the results and say, “I did not do what I said I would do,” or “I did what I said I would do,” or, preferably, “I did what I said I would do, and I accomplished more than I originally proposed.”

Now we’re talking about performance.

Of course, professional judgment is still required. Not everything important can be reduced to a number, and circumstances outside the supervisor’s control can affect results. That’s why performance management requires conversation and judgment. But the foundation is there.

The position description establishes the destination. The action plan describes the proposed route. The performance evaluation determines how far we actually traveled.

That is a much more rational way to manage performance.

So What Is the Performance of a Supervisor?

Once we establish what the position is supposed to accomplish, we can finally have a meaningful conversation about performance.

When we promote someone into supervision, we change the nature of their work. They are no longer responsible only for doing their own job well. They are responsible for helping other people do their jobs well and for making sure the team’s work contributes to the objectives of the organization.

That means a supervisor’s performance has to be evaluated by what actually happens because that person is in the supervisory position.

Does the supervisor manage toward objectives, or does the work manage the supervisor?

I’ve used this distinction in leadership training for years. Some choices maximize our chances of getting where we have agreed we want to go, while other choices may get us somewhere but not necessarily to the destination. Plans are different from “do whatever is next.” Systematic thinking is different from “ready, fire, aim.” Managing toward objectives is different from simply managing the budget. Measuring true performance is different from counting tasks and activities hanging in space.

The effective supervisor knows where the organization is trying to go and helps the people they supervise understand what their part of that effort looks like. They establish priorities, anticipate problems, allocate resources and adjust when circumstances change. They don’t allow every new email, complaint or interruption to become the new organizational priority.

The ineffective supervisor simply does whatever is next. Something arrives, so they react to it. Another problem appears, so they chase that one. Someone walks into the office with an issue, and everything else stops. At the end of the day, the supervisor has been incredibly busy but may not have accomplished anything particularly important. Then the performance evaluation says, “Demonstrates strong organizational skills.”

That’s not measuring performance. That’s describing motion.

The same problem occurs when we count activity instead of measuring results. How many reports were completed? How many meetings were attended? How many cases were handled? How many calls were answered? Those numbers can be useful, but only if we understand what they mean.

A supervisor needs to know what good performance looks like and have some reasonable way of determining whether it is occurring. The important question isn’t simply, “What did you do?” It is, “What difference did what you did make?”

That’s a harder question, but it is also a much better performance question.

Performance Includes How the Supervisor Leads

Results aren’t the whole story. Supervision is a relationship business, although that doesn’t mean a supervisor needs to be everybody’s friend. What matters is whether the supervisor can build relationships based on trust, clarity, respect and mutual accountability.

One of the quickest ways to destroy those relationships is triangulation. Instead of talking directly to the person involved, the supervisor talks to somebody else, who talks to somebody else, until eventually the employee hears about the problem through the organizational grapevine. That’s not effective supervision. It’s avoidance.

A good supervisor has the courage to have the conversation. That doesn’t mean being harsh. It means being direct. If an employee isn’t meeting expectations, the supervisor should be able to explain what isn’t working, why it matters and what needs to change. If an employee is doing something exceptionally well, the supervisor should be able to say that, too.

That last part is more important than many supervisors realize. Most organizations are remarkably good at noticing mistakes. We notice the complaint, the missed deadline, the poor decision and the employee who screwed something up. We are considerably less consistent about noticing when people do something right.

A supervisor who only responds to failure eventually teaches employees that the safest strategy is to avoid attention. Recognizing good performance isn’t about handing out trophies or pretending mediocre work is excellent. It’s about paying attention. If we want people to understand what effective performance looks like, somebody has to notice it when it happens.

Communication presents another test. I’ve encountered plenty of supervisors who believe their position requires them to behave as though they always know exactly what they’re doing. They confuse authority with certainty and believe that admitting they don’t know something somehow weakens their position.

It doesn’t.

There is a tremendous difference between behaving “as if” and communicating with genuine confidence. A confident supervisor can say, “I don’t know. Let me find out.” They can say, “I was wrong.” They can say, “Here’s what we’re going to do, and here’s why.” None of that diminishes legitimate authority. In many situations, it strengthens it.

A proper evaluation should tell us whether the supervisor communicates directly and confidently, listens to people, explains decisions, addresses difficult issues and accepts responsibility for what they say and do. We aren’t looking for somebody who sounds authoritative. We’re looking for somebody people can believe.

Accountability Has to Be Part of the Evaluation

When something goes wrong, where does the supervisor’s attention go? Toward the solution or toward finding someone to blame?

The immature response is, “Whose fault is this?” The better response is, “What happened, what can I do about it, and what do we need to learn from it?”

That doesn’t mean supervisors should accept blame for everything that happens on their watch. It means they should understand their responsibility for the environment in which the work occurs. What did I know? What didn’t I know? What did I fail to communicate? What did I fail to anticipate? What needs to change?

Those are the questions that move an organization forward. Blame rarely does.

Are They Actually Doing the Job They Were Promoted to Do?

There is another question that ought to be part of every supervisor’s evaluation, and it is one we often overlook: Is this person actually performing the job they were promoted to perform?

We promote people because they were good at something. They were an excellent officer, technician, dispatcher, engineer, salesperson, analyst or whatever the previous job happened to be. Then we make them a supervisor and somehow expect the transition to happen automatically.

It doesn’t.

Sometimes the newly promoted supervisor simply continues doing the job they were promoted from. They become the best individual contributor in the department while the actual work of supervision gets pushed aside.

Function needs to be commensurate with rank. If you promote someone into supervision, you need them to supervise. That means planning, leading, developing people, managing performance, solving problems, allocating resources and making decisions. The question isn’t whether they could still do their old job. The question is whether they are doing their new one.

Ultimately, there is one question that may tell us more about a supervisor’s performance than almost anything else: Is the organization better because this person supervises it?

Are the people on the team becoming more capable? Are they learning to solve problems? Are they taking appropriate responsibility? Are good people being developed for greater responsibility? Are performance problems being addressed rather than ignored? Is the supervisor building capability or creating dependency?

I’ve seen supervisors make themselves indispensable by making sure nobody else can function without them. That’s not good supervision. That’s organizational dependency. The best supervisors eventually create teams that are stronger, smarter and more capable because they were there.

That’s performance.

Now Evaluate the Performance

If we’ve done the work correctly, the formal evaluation should not be a mystery. We have a rational position description, established objectives and expected results, reasonable measures of success, and action plans proposed by the supervisor. We’ve discussed progress throughout the year.

Now we can look at what actually happened.

The supervisor should be able to say, with evidence, “I did not do what I said I would do,” “I did what I said I would do,” or “I did more than I said I would do.”

The manager should then be able to have an honest conversation about why.

Maybe an objective wasn’t achieved because the supervisor failed to follow through. Maybe circumstances changed and the original objective was no longer appropriate. Maybe the supervisor encountered an obstacle they couldn’t reasonably control. Maybe they solved a problem that wasn’t even on the original plan but was far more important than anything they had anticipated.

That’s why the evaluation shouldn’t be a mathematical exercise. It should be an informed conversation about results, judgment, leadership, and responsibility.

Now Try This

Before you complete your next performance evaluation, forget about the form for a few minutes and look at your position description, objectives, and action plans.

Ask yourself whether you are actually managing toward those objectives or simply responding to whatever is next. Ask whether you know what meaningful performance looks like for your team and whether you have a way to recognize it. Ask whether you’re measuring results or simply counting activity.

Ask whether you deal directly with people when something needs to be said. Ask whether your employees know what you expect from them and whether they know when they’re doing something well. Ask whether you communicate with enough confidence to admit when you don’t know something or have made a mistake.

Ask whether you are actually doing the job of a supervisor or still primarily doing the job you were promoted from. Most importantly, ask whether your people are becoming more capable because you supervise them.

Then ask the hardest question of all: If I left tomorrow, would I leave behind a stronger team or a team that has become dependent on me?

Now try something else.

Give these same questions to the people you supervise.

Don’t do it because you want to know whether they like you. Give them the questions because they see things you don’t.

You may believe you communicate clearly. Do they? You may believe you recognize good work. Do they feel recognized? You may believe you give people appropriate autonomy. Do they experience you as trusting or as a micromanager? You may believe you deal with problems directly. Do your employees agree? You may believe you’re developing your people. Are they actually becoming more capable?

The differences between your answers and theirs may be more valuable than the answers themselves.

And don’t be too quick to defend yourself when you find a difference. If you rate yourself highly on direct communication and your employees consistently experience you as evasive, the important question isn’t who’s right. The important question is, What am I doing that makes them experience me that way?

That’s where a performance evaluation can finally become useful.

Not as a score or a form, and not as an annual exercise in bureaucratic compliance. It becomes useful as information, as a mirror and as an opportunity to become a better supervisor.

Because ultimately, that’s what a performance evaluation should do. It should help us see the gap between what we think we’re doing and what is actually happening.

A proper performance evaluation isn’t an annual ambush. It is the logical conclusion of a process that began with a clear understanding of the job.

Position. Objectives. Results. Standards. Action plans. Performance.

That’s a performance evaluation.

Everything else is paperwork.

As a final thought for now, consider using the self-evaluation at this link every quarter: First Line Supervisor Self-Assessment.