What I learned from the Worst Mistake I Made as a Supervisor
Of the many things I’ve been able to do since I started my professional career, supervising a team is one of my favorites. It’s why, when I founded JTC, I knew I wanted to offer supervision and mentoring support to organizations that were experiencing gaps in leadership and needed outside support while they were in the process of hiring or needed support and mentoring for managers and directors. What I have learned about supervision is not just from times I got things right but, more importantly, from being able to hold myself accountable when I’ve made mistakes. And it is in the spirit of self-accountability that I share the worst mistake I made as a supervisor.
When I first came into a leadership role where I would be hiring and supervising a team of professional staff, I was incredibly excited to take the best of what I’ve experienced and combine it with the kind of support I wish I had earlier on in my own career. I knew that above everything else, I needed to show up with consistency, authenticity, and to model healthy boundaries. And I was very fortunate to have a consistent and caring supervisor of my own, who believed in me, held me accountable with compassion, and also prioritized her life outside of work. I attended trainings for new managers and collaborated with the other directors in my organization to learn with and from them.
Supervising a team was even better than I expected. Even when I had to approach a supervisee with a difficult conversation, I held the belief that if done with care, it could bring us closer and strengthen us both.
Within the first couple of years in this position, our organization endured co-occurring crises. While we were an organization that dealt with trauma and crisis regularly in our work, we hit an inflection point when two colleagues experienced medical crises at the same time. These were colleagues who I loved and respected dearly- we all did- and it was scary and hard to see them suffer. As we often do in times of crisis, I wanted to be able to help in tangible ways. I knew they both had strong personal support systems, and so I offered to take on additional responsibilities at work so they could rest easier knowing that their team would ensure that the work continued while they cared for themselves.
After we first shared the news with our staff, I said something additional to my team. I still remember where I was standing and the knot in my stomach as I said it. I said to them, “You know that I try to model what I preach about boundaries and self care. In this rare occurrence because of what is happening right now, I’m going to ask you to do what I say and not as I do.” In that moment I was acknowledging to them (and to myself) that I was going to prioritize work even if it meant that my usual boundaries had to come down a bit. I told myself it was a temporary and reasonable response to the crisis. And I still believe it was. The problem was that I didn’t internalize the “temporary” part of that equation.
I think when we are acting in the middle of a crisis, we can enter a kind of meditative state. In that moment, we know with absolute clarity what we need to do, where we need to be. And it can feel good to help. I felt so much better knowing I was supporting my colleagues in the way they needed me to. All the powerlessness I was feeling about their medical diagnoses could be channeled into actions I could take. They both recovered. They returned to work.
But I forgot to turn off my crisis mode. I stayed in a place of hyper-vigilance even when the crisis was over. One of the signs of burnout or “trauma exposure response” is a feeling of grandiosity- I over inflated my sense of importance in my job. I didn’t rebuild or reestablish the boundaries that I took down for what was meant to be a short period of time.
I was exhausted. Yet I found ways to confirm this false narrative of my importance like constantly responding to emails late at night or on vacation. I never stopped checking my emails. No one needed me to act with this level of urgency, but I found ways to justify what I needed to be on all the time. I can remember a New Year’s Eve where I was glued to my phone because of a local domestic violence homicide, and despite being quite ill and having almost no voice, gave an interview the next morning to a local newspaper. I started to treat my work like it was life or death.
And still I would encourage my team to care for themselves, to hold firm and healthy boundaries to protect their wellbeing, and would often remind them that there were “no prevention emergencies” so we didn’t need to treat our work as if we were in on-call positions. I was saying to them what I had stopped believing for myself.
At this time, I would lead a session on burnout and sustainability for all of our new staff and volunteers and included a Ted Talk by Laura van Dernoot Lipsky on the concept of Trauma Stewardship. In it, she described her own experiences, and defines the different trauma exposure responses. I would share this to help promote collective and self care. I had worked to get copies of her book for every employee at the organization; we even sent our whole staff to her institute. I believed in her work so much, and yet, as I listened to her video again and again, I began to feel immense shame. She would remind us that doing this work while burning and numbing out is not responsible or ethical, and yet here I was doing it myself. I wanted desperately to show up for my colleagues and especially for my team. But by not showing up for myself, I reached a point where I could not go on. Laura described her moment of reckoning on the cliffs in the Caribbean. I found myself on my own metaphorical cliff. If I continued this path I had created, I was going to fall off. I had to climb back down to safety.
I carried a false sense of urgency believing a self-imposed narrative that the organizations and team that I loved needed me and that I needed to show up for them regardless of how I was doing. But by staying in this place of urgency and hypervigilance for a prolonged period, I found myself unable to show up for anyone.
Because I had such a supportive supervisor and colleagues, climbing back down was taking a 6 week mental health leave. I needed a hard reset on my relationship to my work. I was open with the organization and others about why I was taking this time off. It was a huge sacrifice for the organization and a financial sacrifice for my family. But that leave saved my life. And now, with JTC, I am dedicated to supporting others to never have to reach that point. To be able to build sustainable practices that support our wellbeing rather than destroy them.
In times of crisis we have to go above and beyond. But we cannot stay in the beyond and be the consistent and authentic leaders our colleagues and organizations need. If you find yourself in a routine of not practicing what you preach to others, find that your work internally does not match the work you offer to others, or find yourself growing resentful when others take care of themselves, let’s talk.
