One of the most essential things that you need to try and master in business is the matter of how to properly and effectively manage your team. As long as you can do that, you are going to find that everything in your business is much more effective and efficient, and you are much more likely to see the kind of success you are hoping for. But how do you actually master your team management, and what are some of the things you need to focus on? Let’s take a look at some of the basics of this that you might want to bear in mind.
Top-Down Management As A Style
One of the first things you need to think about is how much you are practising a top-down management. Very often, it is this kind of management that is really going to work out, so you do need to make sure that you are thinking about it. What is top-down management? In simple terms, it’s just about making sure that you are keeping a close eye on everything in your team in a macro and a micro way. In the world of transport, you can think of this as fleet management, which would include details like finding wheel and tyre packages and bigger picture elements like where everyone needs to go and when. With good top-down management, you are much more likely to run your team effectively.
Respecting Others
If there is a lack of respect in the way that you manage your teams, you are going to have a harder time achieving what you want with them. Your team members need to know that you respect them, otherwise you are not going to get out of them what you really want to, and they are probably going to increase staff turnover in the long run too. So how do you show that you genuinely respect other people in your team?
Essentially, this comes down to the particulars of how you talk to people. As long as you are talking to them in a way which shows great respect to them as an individual, you should find that this is really going to help things along. Of course, it also means you are going to get the same respect in return, so on the whole it makes everyone a lot happier and more likely to work well together.
The Importance Of Delegation
We all know that famous idea about delegation being a strong sign of a good manager. Well, it’s true – if you want to manage your team well, you need to know how and when to delegate work to those underneath you. The best way to use this is when you need help and you have too much work to do in the timeframe given, and you want to make things easier for yourself. It also helps as a means of training your team up, and making them feel that you trust them and respect them in this way too. So it really is better for everyone if you are delegating often, and properly.
Your Self-Perception & Its Impact
The way that people respond to you in your team is always going to be influenced mostly by what your self-perception is. Therefore, improving your self-perception and the way you see yourself as a manager is going to improve the way they see you. As a result of that, you are going to have a much better time of being able to lead those people in the way you would hope. If you are struggling with this, it might come down to the way you think of yourself as a manager. Might it be that you need to re-appraise your own skills and abilities as a manager first?
Team Building
Anyone who has ever been in charge of a team will know that team building is one of the most important aspects to bringing the whole team together. As long as you make a point of specifically doing some team building from time to time, your team is going to have so much more success as a unit, and everyone is going to feel that they have a better sense of how to work together too. Whether you take them on team-building events away from the office, or you just design some in-house games you can play, it is going to make a huge difference to how you work as a team.
Everyone In Their Place
One of the most vital parts of running any team is making sure that everyone has their place. As the manager, that means that you need to know the specific role that each person is best at, and ensure that you are placing them in that role as necessary. If you can do that, you are going to find that you can get so much more out of them, and they will know how to work best with each other too. It might be that these roles change over time, but the important thing is that everyone knows why they are doing what they are doing, and what their current position is. If you can explain that to them, you are satisfying one of the most important parts of your role as manager.
Leading The Next Leader To Success
At some point or another, it is going to be necessary to promote someone else to the role of leader. It might only be temporary – such as when you are going away on holiday for a while, or when you are sick. Or it might be permanent, like when you move onwards and upwards or you just want to pass over the reins. Whatever the case, you need to start preparing someone for that as soon as possible. In any case, having someone in that role is going to mean that there are more people in the team who really know what they are doing, which can only ever be a good thing. You will find your job becomes easier too.
