--- title: About Kevin Burns | KevBurns description: Kevin Burns watched ten people quit to follow their supervisor. Since then, he's helped industrial supervisors become the boss good people follow. image: https://www.kevburns.com/hubfs/home_300x175-1.jpg --- About Kevin Burns | KevBurns [![KevBurns Learning: We teach industrial supervisors how to be really great leaders.](https://www.kevburns.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Kev-Burns-Learning-white.png?width=240&height=118&name=Kev-Burns-Learning-white.png "KevBurns Learning: We teach industrial supervisors how to be really great leaders.")](https://www.kevburns.com/) - [About](https://www.kevburns.com/about-kevin-burns) - [Supervisor Academy](https://www.kevburns.com/supervisors) - [7 Reasons to Not Work With Us](https://www.kevburns.com/7-reasons-not-to-work-with-us) - [52 Benefits of Safety](https://www.kevburns.com/52-benefits) - [Hope Calculator](https://www.kevburns.com/calculator) - [Issues](https://www.kevburns.com/safety-issues) - [People](https://www.kevburns.com/people-issues) - [Safety](https://www.kevburns.com/safety-issues) - [Escalations](https://www.kevburns.com/escalation-issues) - [Resources](https://www.kevburns.com/books) - [Books](https://www.kevburns.com/books) - [Newsletter](https://www.kevburns.com/newsletter) - [Downloads](https://www.kevburns.com/downloads) - [Case Study NBU](https://www.kevburns.com/nbu-case-study) - [Case Study WCC](https://www.kevburns.com/wcc-case-study-2026) - [ROI Videos](https://www.kevburns.com/videos) - [Speaking](https://www.kevburns.com/speaking) - [Media/Podcast](https://www.kevburns.com/media) - [Blog](https://www.kevburns.com/blog) - [Contact](https://www.kevburns.com/contact-us) - [About](https://www.kevburns.com/about-kevin-burns) - [Supervisor Academy](https://www.kevburns.com/supervisors) - [7 Reasons to Not Work With Us](https://www.kevburns.com/7-reasons-not-to-work-with-us) - [52 Benefits of Safety](https://www.kevburns.com/52-benefits) - [Hope Calculator](https://www.kevburns.com/calculator) - [Issues](https://www.kevburns.com/safety-issues) - [People](https://www.kevburns.com/people-issues) - [Safety](https://www.kevburns.com/safety-issues) - [Escalations](https://www.kevburns.com/escalation-issues) - [Resources](https://www.kevburns.com/books) - [Books](https://www.kevburns.com/books) - [Newsletter](https://www.kevburns.com/newsletter) - [Downloads](https://www.kevburns.com/downloads) - [Case Study NBU](https://www.kevburns.com/nbu-case-study) - [Case Study WCC](https://www.kevburns.com/wcc-case-study-2026) - [ROI Videos](https://www.kevburns.com/videos) - [Speaking](https://www.kevburns.com/speaking) - [Media/Podcast](https://www.kevburns.com/media) - [Blog](https://www.kevburns.com/blog) - [Contact](https://www.kevburns.com/contact-us) # I Give Supervisors the People-Leading Skills Employees Want in a Boss #### Ten people quit their jobs to follow their supervisor. That's when I started studying what makes a boss good people want to work for. [Let's Talk](https://www.kevburns.com/contact-us) People who show up and stay. Employees who recommend their employer. Safer work, and fewer problems reaching you. ## Ten People Walked Off the Job to Follow Their Supervisor It was a safety meeting in a remote community hall near oil rig operations. The management team was still furious about something that happened three months earlier. Craig, the safety manager, pulled me aside. "Do you understand what's happening here? We didn't just lose a rig manager. His entire crew of ten people quit and followed him to another company." Ten people risked their livelihoods to follow their supervisor. "Well, damn," I said. "We need to make more supervisors like that." Good people want to work for a good boss. Those ten people proved it. That moment started my 20-year mission to understand what makes a supervisor worth following, and how to develop more of them. ## Every Metric Leads to One Place In company after company, I saw the same thing. Problems landing on a manager’s desk. Safety incidents. Turnover. Engagement. Quality. Each department worked on its own number, and nobody looked at all of them together. When I did, the same supervisors showed up behind every one of them. Your culture isn’t built by any one department. It’s built, or broken, by the supervisors who show up with your crews every day. ## What I Discovered About Great Supervisors 1 **Great supervisors create relationships worth following.** They don’t just manage tasks. They connect with people in ways that build real trust and respect. People stay for them, speak up for them, and work safely for them. 2 **People-skills can be taught.** Promoting your best employee and hoping they figure out the people side is a Hope Promotion. You need a plan for the people side.  Develop supervisors on purpose so they can lead as themselves.   3 **Care is the foundation of everything.** When supervisors care about their people, everything else follows: fewer problems, safer crews, and people who stay. That’s a CareFull Supervisor: full of care for the work, how it’s done, and the people who do it. ## Why I Built PeopleWork Supervisor Academy Other programs offer leadership training. I built the PeopleWork Supervisor Academy to create complete supervisors: frontline supervisors whose people-leading skills match their technical skills. It takes under ten minutes a day, without taking them off the job. It’s coaching, not training. For eight weeks, supervisors watch a short daily video lesson. Once a week, they meet live on Zoom with their fellow supervisors and me for a one-hour coaching session. For the next 50 weeks, the learning continues with short videos twice a week. I've also written two books on this: *The CareFull Supervisor* and *PeopleWork: The Human Touch in Workplace Safety*. Both draw on my work with more than 1,000 supervisors across industrial companies. ## What Supervisors Say > I've learned that I can be more effective by involving my team and asking their opinion rather than always telling them what to do. It brings them into the team. > > \- Rodney Trawick > For so many years I worked alone. Now I have a more team-oriented focus and a whole new skillset to create a great work environment for my team. > > \- Linetta Keir > After just a few weeks, I've become a better listener and give more positive feedback. I now look at my team as an elite team and treat them that way. > > \- Billy Greenough ## What This Means for Your Company When supervisors learn to connect with their people, the results show up everywhere, not just in safety numbers. Good people stop leaving for your competitors. Supervisors handle the people problems themselves instead of sending them upstairs. Safety stops being something you enforce and becomes something your people believe in. Your supervisors are already there every day, building your culture or wearing it down, whether you've developed them or not. The question isn't whether supervisor development matters. It's whether you're going to do it on purpose. [Let's Talk](https://www.kevburns.com/contact-us) ## Frequently Asked Questions Who will my supervisors work with?  With Kevin. He's in every video lesson, and he leads every weekly coaching session on Zoom.  Why is it all done virtually? So your supervisors never have to leave their crews. A lesson takes under ten minutes, wherever they are, and the weekly coaching session is scheduled around your operation. We have many supervisors who join our coaching sessions from their trucks as they work with their crews. Where does the approach come from?  Nearly 30 years of working with industrial companies. We've watched successful supervisors, talked with them, interviewed them, and paid attention to what actually works. We've also studied what employees expect from their supervisors, how they want to be treated, and what motivates them. More than 1,000 supervisors have been through the Academy since.  ## Let's Talk Tell us what you're seeing. Talk with Kevin directly, and you'll come away with a clearer picture of what's behind it, and whether it makes sense to work together. If it isn't a good fit, we'll tell you. - [About](https://www.kevburns.com/about-kevin-burns) - [Supervisor Academy](https://www.kevburns.com/supervisors) - [Blog](https://www.kevburns.com/blog) #### © 2026 PeopleWork Align Inc. [![Kev-Burns-Learning-white](https://www.kevburns.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Kev-Burns-Learning-white.png?width=180&height=89&name=Kev-Burns-Learning-white.png "Kev-Burns-Learning-white")](https://www.kevburns.com)