9 Top Team Management Skills That Make You a Great Leader

Are you a newly appointed team manager or an existing one looking to improve your team management skills? You are at the right place.

Whatever the organisation’s vision, goal or service, a great team and an excellent manager can achieve great results.

Most of the time, the employee quits the boss, not the job or company. Obviously, the boss will be the team manager.

So with an excellent team manager, your company can avoid employee turnover. Also, he/she can direct the team in the proper direction for desired results.

Let us go through the 9 essential team management skills which you should possess to make yourself a great team manager.

What is team management?

Team management is a series of activities done by an individual, like a manager or a leader. In team management, the manager will have to optimise and guide the team members to reach the desired goal within a specific time.

Team management includes many different sets of responsibilities and activities like creating a team, collaborating with the team, assigning the works and more.

In every field and organisation, there will be a team and a team lead or manager. Otherwise, there will be a founder or leader who manages the team.

Team management skills are necessary for all sectors and industries regardless of the size of the business.

9 Essential skills for effective team management

As a team manager, you have to deal with different types of work and many different organisational tasks like – organising the meeting, presenting the end product to the clients or boss, and many. To deal with diverse works especially while handling tech startup team structure, you will need some good skills to manage them effectively.

Nowadays, many companies are going remote, WFH is highly appreciative of many employees. So there are many possibilities for managing a remote team and it requires high-level skill sets.

So let’s talk about the skills.

1. Effective communication

Whatever the work may be, the team members should get a clear explanation of the work before starting it. Communication skills will be a top priority for team managers to deal with the team members smoothly.

Think that you explain a work the team members didn’t understand properly, then we can’t expect the desired results from the team. Because they have different ideas about the task.

Also, your communication needs to be clear and simple to be understood by the team members. Don’t include jargon or complex expressions while communicating. Be more positive and constructive while communicating.

As a team manager, there will be many possibilities to communicate with other higher authorities of the organisation. Then you have to be so confident to talk with them.

In communication, there is another sector that is highly essential – Active listening.

Not just communicating, you have to listen to your team members about their views about the work. Before you solve a problem or confusion, make sure you actively listen to the confusion for better understanding.

Having good communication skills – Simple and clear communication, confidence and listening is really important when you lead a team to avoid confusion and easy team management.

Try to improve your communication skill by practising before talking to your team members. Ask for feedback from your team members, let it be positive or negative and improve yourself.

2. Strong decision making

You lead a team, and the team runs by your decision.  For managers, making decisions doesn’t occur occasionally, it will be a routine day to day task.

If you are an employee, who has recently been promoted to a lead, then you have to highly improve your decision-making skills. As an employee, your decision only affects you, but as a lead, it affects your whole team.

So you have to think about all the consequences and results before making a decision. It’s 2021, and reaching for data and stats before making a decision is very clever.

But be sure when to take time and when to make a decision spontaneously. There will be some situations where you have to make critical decisions.

When you are with higher authorities, you won’t get much time to make a decision. So, improve good decision-making skills.

To improve your decision-making skills, interact with your senior officer whenever you get a chance. If you have time to decide, have a discussion with your teammates about the issue.

3. Ability to delegate

Delegation stands out as one important skill for team management.

Every team manager should know which work can be done by whom. How much time is needed to complete work by a specified person?

Without this knowledge team management will be so difficult. Also, micromanaging is not suitable for effective team management.

To improve your delegation skill, talk to your teammates, understand them by reviewing their works. Be accurate on the strengths and weaknesses of your teammates and assign tasks according to it.

4. Quick problem solving

You are handling the team, and the problem is inevitable. Quick problem-solving skill is really a crucial skill for every team manager.

If a problem arises, then team leaders are the ones who should act instantly so that the problem won’t evolve. Like that, they should be prepared to face the challenges, evaluate them and eradicate them.

For effective and quick problem solving, have a one to one meeting with the team members once a week to spot the problems in advance and solve them before they become an issue. Listen to your team members’ activities and their work progress in the meeting.

To improve your problem-solving skills, listen to the problems and focus on the solutions. Sometimes it will be difficult, but it gets easier when you act beforehand.

5. Giving constructive feedback

All the team members are working day to day and completing their works with their full potential. But sometimes, they lose track of their work’s impact in the big picture.

So it’s important to give feedback, both positive and negative ones. By doing this, the team members will get motivated to perform better.

Points to be considered before providing feedback.

• • • Be honest, not harsh.
    • If there is any negative feedback on behaviours, be specific with time and place when that happened.
    • Also, mention the positive feedback first.
    • Make the feedback meeting a two-way communication.
    • Offer some recommendations and guidance for improving themselves from your experience.

6. Easily approachable

It is really important that every team member should approach the team manager easily without any hesitation. If your door is closed for approaching, then it will reflect in your work.

So be open and friendly with your team members. Give value to the suggestions and questions raised by them.

Some management tips to follow that’ll make you more approachable are:

• • • Be an approach-friendly person. Leave your room or desk, approach them first and ask how their work is going.
    • While communicating with them, listen proactively.
    • Share your experience and business thoughts.
    • Try to learn more about their interests.

7. Willing to change

As a leader, you not only monitor your team members, you also learn from them. To excel in any position, you need to learn, learn and learn, this won’t change for team managers.

As you are in a position of authority, that doesn’t mean you can manage your work with all your past experience and learning.

You should learn from your team members and get feedback about your leadership from your team members and change according to the feedback.

Sometimes you may have a young professional, and he/she may freshly graduate who will be so good in modern technology of your expertise. So learn from them and make yourself a good team manager.

Apart from learning, you also have to improve your professional skills in line with the recent trends.

8. Emotional intelligence

As a leader, you are going to lead a team of humans. Every individual differs in character and emotions, and you also have specific characteristics.

To manage a diverse range of people, you need to know how to control your emotions and empathise with them.

Also, you have to interact with other members other than your team like the clients, founders, other team members. To manage a good relationship with them, you need to be aware of your emotions.

Strong emotional intelligence will create a positive workspace for your team members, which creates a way for an easy approach.

9. Organisational skills

Organisational skills are one of the essential skills every manager should master. As a higher authority, you will be handling many tasks to complete a project or task.

You will be juggling many responsibilities like organising meetings with your team, meeting with another team, meeting higher authorities, budgeting, assigning work to different team members and more.

To make sure all the works are going smoothly, then you should possess strong organisational skills. One easy way to organise your work and your team members’ works is using team management tools.

Conclusion

You need more than a title to lead a team effectively. So always hone your team management and professional skills to smoothly manage your team members.

Be ready and consistent as a leader and be an example to your team members. Try to be more friendly and positive, don’t be an inspector to them. Better team management means better productivity. And you will no longer have the fear of meeting a deadline of a project or product.

If you think you lack some skills, or you need to improve your skills, then take a course or learn them via the internet or have a chat with your mentors. Time management skills are one such important skill for you to learn.

Keep in mind, with an excellent team manager a company can avoid employee turnover.

Never stop learning and never stop hustling. Happy team management!

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