6 Tips to Successfully Manage Teams
Managing a team is a rewarding task that offers unique benefits and challenges. What follows are six ways to ensure you are successful at managing any kind of team.
Careful Selection
If possible, screen candidates based on a fair and standard format. This could be an entrance interview with basic questions about motivation, work styles and core competencies. Even if there are no choices, an initial interview with existing team members will allow everyone to understand preferences and backgrounds, which will help new team members better fit in and adapt to the subculture.
Proper Training
Some leaders have unrealistic expectations about employee performance and learning capacity. This means they expect employees to instantly become proficient with complex tasks and technologies that may take weeks to master. Regardless of competency, employees must be given time to process information and ask questions. This is a great way to introduce new ideas and to challenge existing, inefficient processes.
Team leaders can continue their professional development by getting an advanced degree, like a master’s degree that pertains to their career field. No matter what your field, a master’s degree can help you gain the necessary leadership experience to make a difference.
Learn Project Management
Every supervisor and team leader should be familiar with the basic principles of project management. However, they must also be prepared to train and help team members master these project management techniques and systems. One good solution is to use popular project management software. This will help team leaders better manage assignments and scheduling, as well as increase productivity and accountability.
Empower Employees
Employees need to be empowered to perform their jobs without direct supervision. This will reduce the supervisors’ work load, but can only occur when there are formal procedures and parameters that guide employees through the decision making process. Avoid micromanaging and setting up employees to fail through setting unrealistic standards.
Set Goals
Some team leaders only focus on daily operations, so they lose focus on the big picture. This can be remedied through quarterly goals collectively created by team members. These goals should be reviewed during every meeting to realign focus and energy. Be sure to offer team members rewards for reaching the goals.
Set an Open Door Policy
New employees naturally make more mistakes if they are uncomfortable asking questions or for feedback. Team leaders can continue their professional development by getting a degree like a Master’s of Civil Engineering. No matter what your field, a master’s degree can help you gain the necessary leadership experience to make a difference.
Finally, build a team subculture that welcomes change and innovation. If you want your team to be successful, you need to take steps to better yourself and improve your skills too. These tips can help you be a more effective leader.
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Anita Ginsburg
Anita is a freelance writer based in Denver, CO and often writes about business, finance, family and education. Originally from Fort Collins, she moved to Denver shortly after college. She graduated from Colorado State University in 2004 with a degree in business. In college, she picked up freelance writing as a side job and stuck with it through various jobs. She enjoyed her writing classes in college and decided to make a career out of it. She currently mostly covers business and finance topics, but enjoys writing about almost anything. She enjoys writing about other topics to learn more and improve her writing skills. A mother of two, she enjoys traveling with her family when she isn’t writing or researching. She likes to take her kids to different historical sites and new places whenever she gets the chance. Some of her favorite cities are on the East Coast.