Being a manager means being a good leader. Your team look up to you for guidance, and want you to give them direction, praise and assistance. They want a manager who can lead them to the correct thing to do, not just someone who barks orders and hands out discipline. To be an effective manager, you need to relate to your team members on a human level. As well as having the practical skills to get your job done, you should also know the best ways to keep your team together and ensure their motivation remains high.
Learn How to Deal with Conflict
Conflict among your team isn’t something that you want to have to deal with. If people aren’t getting along or there are disagreements all the time, it’s obvious that you need to do something about. Conflict can arise from many things, ranging from differing opinions to different working styles. Dealing with conflict requires you to be able to identify the sources of conflict that might be present in your team and find ways to manage them. This means not just putting out fires as they occur, but finding long-term solutions that reduce the amount of conflict in your team and increase productivity.
Improve Your Delegation Skills
Delegating is a vital skill for any manager. You can’t do all of the work yourself; in fact, your job as a manager is to help decide who should do what. There’s a lot more to delegating than you might think, though. You can improve performance within your team by choosing the right person for the job every time, which means that you need to know everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. Working together with your team makes this easier, as they can choose which tasks they are best suited to.
Recognise Employee Achievements
Employees want to be recognised for the work that they have done. No one wants to turn up at work every day feeling underappreciated. Even employees who previously felt passionate about their job could start to get discouraged if they feel that they’re not being recognised for the hard work that they do. It’s important to find ways to recognise achievements that will really be appreciated. Some of them may be small words of thanks, while other ways to hand out praise could involve bigger rewards. You need to avoid being patronising or falling short on your delivery.
Be There for Your Team
Being a good manager requires you to be a people person. If you want to manage your team well, you need to be there for them when they need you. This means making yourself available for them to come to you if they want to speak to you. You might have open office hours when they can drop in to see you. Or you could have regular meetings with your team members individually, as well as together. However you make yourself available to them, they will appreciate the help.
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You can improve efficiency in your team by becoming a more effective manager. Build your skills to manage your team better. You may also wish to check out our organisational skills course.
