I supervise a few people at the office, and of course have a few supervisors myself. Of these two roles, I believe the more preferable one is that of the supervised and I'll explain why. Being a Boss of course has its perks, and I probably won't be trading it for a lower career opportunity. That said, being in charge comes with a lot of terms and conditions that need to be fulfilled by external forces.
One thing you start to realise when supervising is just how difficult people are to manage/supervise. There are so many challenges that arrive when trying to drive people to achieve certain organizational goals or results. We have personality, personal capacity, teamwork, work ethic and willingness amongst many other traits that likely hinder progress. I've noticed that of all these factors, perhaps attitude to work is the biggest issue that I face when dealing with my coworkers.
There are very few who voluntarily take up responsibilities and are ready to do little extras to achieve our organisational goals. Rather, I almost always have to follow up on certain tasks to get them done. Most of the times I simply identify the tasks I can perform on my own and just do them, simply because the time it'll take to convince them is likely better spent just getting the job done myself. I understand this isn't the best leadership tactic, as being leader is all about inspiring/driving your team to achieve results.
Yet when you have certain people who simply don't want to be inspired, I wonder what can be done. I don't want to be the one that gives a bad appraisal or be the cause of a fellow coworker being laid off by virtue of my position. Yet results are really the only thing that matters to an organisation at the end of the day. If I could do everything myself I probably will. However, since working together is a necessity, I'll keep looking for ways to get the best out of the more difficult personalities in my unit. If anything, by the the end of it all, I should be a much better leader.