Leadership Alignment in Supervision

Why Supervisors Delay the Conversation They Know They Need

Mullins opened with a simple ask: think of one supervision talk you keep putting off. You may know the words, and it may even be on your calendar. It still feels hard, so you wait. Waiting makes the moment easier and the problem bigger.

She framed that delay as behavior, not as a flaw. The driver is often negative reinforcement (behavior that removes something unpleasant). The chain is easy to spot. Late reports pile up, and you expect a tense talk. You put it off and do other work instead. The knot in your chest loosens right away. That relief teaches you to delay again next time.

Mullins called this a time scale problem. The right move is clear, but the payoff for it is slow. Relief comes in seconds. The late reports, the skill gap, and the strain in the relationship all show up later. By then the fix costs more. She was blunt that none of this makes a supervisor weak.

It is not a character flaw.

From the talk — Allyson Mullins

Six Ways Supervisory Avoidance Shows Up at Work

She walked through six patterns and asked the room which ones they knew. One: you delay feedback about work like late or thin paperwork. Two: you take over a task instead of coaching the person through it. Three: you over prepare before you ask anyone for help. Four: you say yes to an unrealistic request to show goodwill. Five: you hint at the issue instead of saying it plainly. Six: you clear easy tasks while the hard one sits.

Mullins named two of the six as her own. She over prepared before asking for help, and she cleared the quick work first. Many in the chat picked the same two. Others picked taking over the task instead of coaching it.

Her point was that avoidance can look like productivity. More research, better notes, a clean inbox: all of it can be real work. It counts as avoidance when it delays the supervision act that is needed. So the useful question is about function. What does the delay get you in this context, right now?

Just know that avoidance is real.

From the talk — Allyson Mullins

Rules, Effort, and Urgent Demands: The Other Drivers of Delay

Relief is not the only variable. Mullins pointed to rule-governed behavior (acting from a learned rule). Her own rule was that a competent leader has all the answers. So she hunted down resources alone, because asking for help felt risky. The rule narrowed what she would do. When her organization grew and policies changed, that approach stopped working.

What changed it was a supervisor who modeled a different pattern. She said what she knew and flagged what she might be missing. She asked to be told if the context called for more. When she did not know, she said so and came back with the answer. She took feedback without getting defensive. Mullins kept the value of competence. The behavior she used to show it changed.

Three more variables round out the picture. Response effort (how hard the action is to do) tends to be higher for the aligned choice. It takes more time, more prep, or more nerve. Competing contingencies (other demands pulling you away) also crowd it out. A family calls, or a supervisee needs you right now, and those things should come first. And delayed consequences cut both ways. The costs of waiting arrive late, but so do the benefits of acting.

But that doesn't always mean we do it.

From the talk — Allyson Mullins

The Four Domains, and What a Reflection Score Is Not

The session included a 16-item self-assessment that Mullins shared by link and QR code. Results came back right away. Mullins was careful about its limits. It is a private reflection aid, not a validated measure. It is not a diagnosis, an employment review, or an objective score of how well you lead. Nobody had to share a result out loud.

The tool maps onto four domains. Values clarity is knowing what you want your behavior as a supervisor to stand for. Psychological flexibility is acting on those values while discomfort is present. Systems alignment is whether your work setting makes that action realistic. Behavioral follow-through is turning the intention into a response you can see and check.

A low domain is not a verdict, and a high one is not a trophy. Mullins asked people to sit with four things. Your highest domain, your lowest domain, one item that stood out, and one supervision situation tied to those results. Notice which items felt easy and which created tension. Nothing had to be resolved in the moment.

It's a cue to look more closely.

From the talk — Allyson Mullins

Values Clarity: What You Want Supervisees to Experience From You

Values clarity starts with three questions. What matters in this situation? What do I want my supervisees to experience from me, over and over? Does my current behavior express that value, or does it just follow a familiar rule? That last question is the sharp one, because a rule can survive long after it stops working.

Mullins used two of her own values as an example: conscientiousness and clarity. Conscientiousness shows up as wanting to weigh every factor and bring the best answer. Clarity shows up in how she writes and speaks to a team. She has adopted the idea that being clear is a kind act, not a harsh one. People in the chat named values like support, compassion, integrity, and accountability.

A value does not pick one action for you. It points in a direction, and you choose a behavior that moves that way. Mullins defined leadership alignment as knowing what you value, acting toward it, and staying open to rechecking your assumptions. Recalibrating does not mean dropping a core value when things get uncomfortable. Often the value holds steady while a rule or a habit changes. She also used leader and supervisor as the same word on purpose. If you supervise, you lead, no matter what the org chart says.

What matters in this situation?

From the talk — Allyson Mullins

Psychological Flexibility: Acting While the Discomfort Is Still There

Psychological flexibility (acting on values while uneasy) is what Acceptance and Commitment Training (a therapy approach that builds flexibility) works to build. Mullins cited a pilot study that supports the idea. Flexibility may help professionals keep working well while discomfort is present. The skill is not calm. The skill is movement.

She listed the internal barriers supervisors meet. Fear of looking incompetent. Expecting conflict. Not wanting to let someone down. Plain uncertainty. And the thought that you need to say this perfectly before you say it at all. She asked which one competes most with aligned action. The chat answered with discomfort, uncertainty, and fear of appearing incompetent.

This is where the opening exercise paid off. Feet on the floor, shoulders down, one slow breath. Then notice that you can feel the discomfort and still choose your next action. You do not have to feel calm, confident, or certain first. The question is whether you can act on your values while the feeling is still in the room.

the goal is not to eliminate discomfort.

From the talk — Allyson Mullins

Systems Alignment: Does Your Setting Allow the Right Action?

Systems alignment asks a blunt question: do your work conditions let you act on your values? Mullins cited research where higher work demands predicted exhaustion and disengagement. Supervisor support and psychological flexibility were partial mediators in that work. They help, but they cannot fully prevent burnout. Mullins uses one guide question when her values clash with an organizational push. Can she still lead in a way that feels authentic?

The chat filled in the real barriers fast: time, caseload size, weak communication systems, and competing expectations. Several named being handed a directive from above. They had to pass it down, even when they disagreed with it. Values and the organization's contingencies do not always match, and naming that gap beats pretending it is not there.

Then Mullins turned the lens around. You are part of your supervisee's environment too. How you react makes questions, mistakes, help seeking, and feedback more likely or less likely. That is psychological safety (feeling safe to speak up). She cited Edmondson's 1999 study. Teams with more psychological safety asked more questions, talked about mistakes, and sought feedback. That learning behavior helped explain the link between psychological safety and team performance. A later study she cited tied inclusive leadership to more psychological safety. That safety was linked to more work on quality improvement, and it helped reduce the drag from status differences.

Her test case was short. A supervisee says they think they made a mistake and do not know how to fix it. One reply is: we already reviewed this, why didn't you ask earlier. The other is: thanks for bringing it to me, let's look at what happened and pick next steps. Mullins stressed that safety sits fine next to clear standards and accountability. It builds the conditions for learning, not an excuse from expectations.

Behavioral Follow-Through: One Observable Step With a Date On It

Good intent does not change a team. Mullins said conditions have to be arranged for the behavior to happen. That means antecedent strategies (things set up before the behavior), like training and observation. It also means consequence strategies, like feedback and reinforcement. The same logic applies to your own behavior, not just your supervisees'.

So the plan has a fixed shape. Name the event that usually cues your delay. Name what you normally do. Then name the new response you will do instead. Attach a specific date and time. Last, say how you will know you followed through. Keep the step small enough to finish and plain enough to measure. If a reader cannot see it happen, it is not an observable action (a step another person can watch).

Mullins also sorted barriers into three buckets. Some things you control, like whether the meeting happens and how clearly you deliver the news. Some you can influence, like asking another department to rework a process with you. The rest you advocate for. You name the pattern across your supervisees, take data, and run a small pilot of your own. Then you bring the result to the organization. Advocacy does not promise a system change. It still beats silence.

Her own example made it concrete. In one-on-ones she let the supervisee fill the hour with caseload updates and barriers. Her feedback waited until the last two minutes, and that was her escape route. The change was to protect time and space for feedback inside the meeting. That way her supervisee could ask questions and actually digest it. The rest of the time went to support. She closed with a warning for behavior analysts: knowing how behavior works is not a plan. Without a stated when, where, and how often, follow-through fades, especially when every cue in your setting stays the same.

values, policies, and expectations do not reliably produce behavior.

From the talk — Allyson Mullins