The success of a business or project often depends on the team working on it – if the team is unorganized, unfocused, and disoriented, the business or project often have no other choice but to fail spectacularly.
In such a poor team, deadlines get missed, priorities get overlooked, and proper organization and communication are scarce – as the overall consequence of poor teamwork, the professional reputation of your business takes a hit, and your client pool starts to shrink.
To make sure that doesn’t happen, you’ll need to improve your team’s workflow and introduce proper team management into your organization – here’s everything you need to know about how to manage a team successfully:
What is team management?
Why is team management important?
What does a management team do?
What are team management styles?
What is effective team management?
What are the key management skills?
What is team management?
What is team management
Team management is the ability to perform a number of activities that ensure a group of people carry out their work as planned.
It can be carried out by an individual or organization – in gist, it involves various organization and administration activities, including:
✅ activities that facilitate teamwork
✅ setting team priorities
✅ making sure the team priorities are carried out
✅ setting objectives
✅ efficient communication
✅ performance appraisals
Why is team management important?
Why is team management important_
Team management is important for an organization for 4 crucial reasons:
It facilitates effective team building
It boosts productivity
It promotes and encourages learning
It improves employee satisfaction
1. Facilitating effective team building 👨👨👧👦
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” – Michael Jordan
You can never stress the importance of proper teamwork in an organization enough – and team management facilitates teamwork through effective team building.
Team management makes sure that the right person does the right job – i.e. that his or her experience, education, and skills align with the expected results of the tasks.
And, when everyone performs the job they were trained and hired to do, employees are happier and generally more willing to cooperate with each other – resulting in better teamwork on the whole.
2. Boosting productivity ⌚
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller
It goes without saying that two heads think better than one – they also perform faster and are more likely to deliver quality results.
Team management and its implied chain of task allocation make sure the right people are paired up to craft new ideas and find efficient solutions to problems.
All of this results in a quicker turnover and fewer time-consuming do-overs.
3. Promoting and encouraging learning 🏫
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.” – Benjamin Franklin
A team that is constantly learning is constantly improving – and team management encourages learning, growth, and development of both the team and individuals within that team.
This is because proper team management encourages employee training, discussions, and a constant flow of information – all of which improve the teams’ knowledge and experience.
4. Improving employee satisfaction 🌻
“Think big thoughts, but relish small pleasures.” – Jackson Brown Jr.
Proper team management is concerned with finding the best ways to make a group of individuals work together as a team.
This may involve team building activities, appraisals where they’re due, as well as cultivating a supportive, transparent team atmosphere.
A group of individuals who feel comfortable working together in a team will be happier at work as a result – and they’ll also always show better results.
Clockify pro tip
The importance of team management for a successful business is undeniable – if you’re looking to improve your team management further, then check out our guide to the best team management software.
What does a management team do?
What does a management team do_
We’ve established what team management is, and why it’s important – now let’s see how team management works on a larger scale, in the form of a management team.
A management team is a group of managers that belong to the same organizational level – they meet up on a regular basis to share new information, make reports to their superiors, and make decisions that affect the company on the whole.
There are 5 types of management teams:
Staff management teams – They run individual departments. Their set of skills, abilities, and experience is specialized and tied to the department they are running.
Line management teams – They run specific departments, i.e. the ones that are involved in producing, delivering, and selling the company’s products (usually applies to companies that make physical products).
Boards – They are usually in charge of overseeing work and governance, and they meet up to make joint-decisions about the subjects they’re in charge of.
Councils – They are usually in charge of providing advice and input, as well as coordinating company-wide activities. They also meet up to make join-decisions about the subjects they’re in charge of.
Teams of executives – They are the top management group in an organization, and are in charge of making company-wide decisions together.
The elements that make a management team successful…
Here’s a checklist showing what each successful management team needs to have:
✅ The ability to define the company or organization goals precisely.
✅ The basic understanding of the priority activities the organization needs to focus on in order to reach the desired goals.
✅ Access to information crucial for making informed decisions.
✅ Efficient cooperation that facilitates the process of achieving team goals.
✅ An efficient way of processing the information crucial for achieving team goals.
✅ A workflow that makes sure that decisions made get turned into concrete actions.
That’s the theory about management within an organization, but practice is always more important.
And, bear in mind that each management team and the individual manager has its own way of managing teams, projects, and tasks.
This is also known as a personal team management style.
Team management styles
What are team management styles_
There are 9 main team management styles you can implement:
Coaching
Laissez-Faire
Democratic
Visionary
Transformational
Transactional
Servant
Autocratic
Pace-setting
Each has its pros and cons, but some are more efficient than others:
1. Coaching team management style
“Careers are a jungle gym, not a ladder.” ― Sheryl Sandberg
ℹ️ What’s it about? This team management style is focused on maintaining the employee’s professional development in the long run.
Famous Coach leader: Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook
What are these managers like? Coaching team managers like to pass on their knowledge and then watch their teachings result in employee growth. They overlook short term problems and failures because they expect their employees to learn from their mistakes and get better over time.
How do these managers provide motivation? Coaching team managers like to motivate their employees through a combination of rewards and trust – in the form of promotions and more responsibilities.
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