Managing a team during times of extreme uncertainty and upheaval provide unique challenges for us as supervisors. Learning to navigate complex times and complex relationships requires that we know and manage ourselves, maintain healthy open communication, and create a healthy, supportive, and productive environment that enables our people to thrive and bring their best. 

As we consider solutions to the challenges that we individually and collectively face, we often are served by the wisdom of our peers. Remote work removes us from those helpful, often uber-productive coffee chats and water cooler conversations where we share our struggles and brainstorm solutions to both individual and common supervisory issues. 

Supervisor Connects has been created as your dedicated space for this conversation.  This is a time to share, support, and learn from each other. Every meeting will explore a common supervisory issue that the group will determine ahead of time. A variety of resources to explore this issue will be utilized - from TED talks, to articles, to interviews with campus experts, etc. A mix of dialogue, activity, and open space for coaching will be included. This is a chart-your-course kind of experience...we will take conversations where YOU want to go in an effort to most serve you in your role as a leader at UMBC and beyond.

Each session will be held the fourth Thursday from 10:30 a.m. - 12 noon. July's Focus Topic: Powerful Questions to Support Remote Employees. Next month's focus topic will be posted immediately following this session.

Conversations will be facilitated by Jill Wardell, Director of UMBC's Workplace Learning, OD & Wellness department. We welcome you to join us for these exploratory, productive, and hopefully meaningful conversations!