• Adapt to each person you oversee. Look at employees as individuals. Get to know their strengths and weaknesses and deal with them accordingly.

• Don’t be a know-it-all. Ac­knowledge your own humanness. Turn to employees for advice on how you can be a better supervi­sor to them.

• Learn to let go. Don’t micromanage. Trust employees to do their jobs. Cultivate their growth by giving them a little more than they think they’re capable of doing.

• Stay available. Keep your door open, and let employees know they can come to you at any time to discuss any issue that affects them positively or negatively.

• Work for employees’ goals. That means first knowing what an employee’s goals are. Then, serve as a mentor, and strive to do what you can to advance a person’s professional goals.

Choose from among these categories:
• Factual. “What did you have for lunch?” or, “What is 357 times 62?” Some questions have only one correct answer — truth that can be objectively confirmed.

• Interpretive. “What does that painting look like?” Even if a question has more than one correct answer (“A blue cow,” or “a blue dog”), an interpretive question calls for evidence, some kind of supporting material that others can validate.

• Evaluative. “Do you like eggplant parmigiana?” Questions regard­ing opinions or beliefs have no correct or incorrect answer, but they can tell you a lot about the other person’s point of view.

• Empowering. “What would you do about Sarah’s problem?” Sometimes you want to urge someone to action, without directly telling him or her what to do. In these cases, ask ques­tions to show you’re interested in the other person’s ideas and trust his or her judgment.

• Broad vs. focused. The questions above can be asked in different ways, depending on whether you want a lot of information or a single answer: “How many different animals could that painting look like?” vs. “What specific animal do you see?” Think before you ask, so you don’t have to backtrack.

• Follow-up. “What do you mean by that?” This is one of the best questions you can ask in almost any category, because it invites the other person to think more deeply and share more information.