Leadership involves creating a compelling vision of the future, communicating that vision, and helping people understand and commit to it. Managers, on the other hand, are responsible for ensuring that the vision is implemented efficiently and successfully.

The Difference Between Managers And Leaders 

There's only so much that you can achieve working on your own, that's why it's important to delegate effectively. To successfully delegate:<ul><li>Explain what your team's role and goals are. Or even formalize it in a team charter, which can also be useful for keeping the team on track.</li><li>Think about the skills, experience and competencies within your team, and start matching people to tasks. </li></ul>

The Importance Of Delegation

Whatever approach you prefer to adopt, you also need to bear in mind that different people have different needs when it comes to motivation. One size does not fit all. Some individuals are highly self-motivated, while others will under-perform without managerial input, and you need to be able to handle both.

Motivating Your Team

Teams are made up of individuals who have different outlooks and abilities, and are at different stages of their careers. Some may be challenged by the tasks you assign and need help while others may be unchallenged, and may be looking for opportunities to stretch their skills. It's your responsibility to develop all of your people and doing so makes you a manager people aspire to work for. The most effective way of developing your people is to ensure that you give regular feedback to members of your team.

Developing Your Team

Meetings of all kinds, and regular ones in particular, are notorious for wasting people's time, so it's well worth mastering the skill of running effective meetings.Being in charge, it’s easy to assume you know what others are saying, or that listening isn’t important and that your solutions are better. But learning active listening is key as it allows early detection problems, avoids costly misunderstandings, and builds trust within their teams.

Communicating With Your Team

<ul><li>Understand fully what your boss wants from you and your team so you'll be better able to meet with their approval.</li><li>Ask your boss to coach or mentor you. You can usually learn a lot from him, but he may not be proactive about offering this. Think through things as far as you can before you approach them.</li><li>Look after your team and protect it from unreasonable pressure. Learn skills like assertiveness and win-win negotiation, so you can turn work away or negotiate additional resources.</li><li>Manage interactions with other groups. Use stakeholder analysis to identify groups relevant to you as well as what they want and what they offer. </li></ul>

With People Outside Your Team

When you are faced with potential discipline issues, take time to gather information about the situation, decide what you're going to do, and act. Discipline issues often get worse and rarely go away by themselves, bringing conflict to the team.<div>Use these rules-of-thumb to decide if you need to take action. If the answer to any is yes, then you need to arrange a time to speak to the employee in private: <ul><li>Does the issue affect the quality of the employee's deliverable to the client?</li><li>Does the issue adversely impact the cohesiveness of the team?</li><li>Does the issue unnecessarily undermine the interests of other individuals in the team?</li></ul></div>

Managing Discipline

<ul><li>Thinking your current job knowledge and technical skills are enough to be a manager. Good management and people skills can be more important than technical skills.</li><li>Failing to consult regularly with your boss, in an attempt to show that you can cope on your own.</li><li>Approaching your boss without having thought a problem or its solutions through.</li><li>Failing to assess what your customers want from you and your team.</li><li>Using your authority inappropriately or not in the interests of the organization.</li></ul>

Traps To Avoid

<div>
<a href="https://www.mindtools.com/content"> <img src="https://www.mindtools.com/media/Responsive-Images/Authors/mindtools-team.jpg"></a>
The Core Skills Needed to Manage Your Team 
So you've just got a new job as a manager. Congratulations! Or maybe you've just been given the task of pulling a new team together. What a challenge!
Either way, whether your team exists already or it's your responsibility to create it, what do you do next?
This article looks at some of the key things that team managers need to do if their team is to thrive and succeed. These range from choosing the right people and deciding who does what, to communicating with, developing and motivating people. It also covers some of the most common pitfalls to be avoided.
<img src="https://www.mindtools.com/media/Resized-Images/Articles/Team_Management/26_IS_6103831_mbbirdy_2x1.jpg">
<h2>First Things First</h2>
But before that, some definitions are useful. What is management, exactly? And how does it differ from leadership?
A good starting point is the Warren G. Bennis quote that "Leaders are people who do the right things; managers are people who do things right." Leadership involves creating a compelling vision of the future, communicating that vision, and helping people understand and commit to it. Managers, on the other hand, are responsible for ensuring that the vision is implemented efficiently and successfully.
Of course, these two roles overlap - and, to be fully effective, you need to fulfill both roles. However, the focus of this article is on the specific skills and responsibilities of managers, and on the tools available to them. After all, there's no point energizing people to work towards a fabulous vision of the future, only to fall flat on your face when it comes to implementation.
<h2>The Importance of Delegation</h2>
<h2>Motivating Your Team</h2>
Another key duty you have as a manager is to motivate team members.
This helps you learn a number of core approaches to motivation - <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_74.htm">Herzberg's Motivation-Hygiene Theory</a>, <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/human-motivation-theory.htm">McClelland's Human Motivation Theory</a> and <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTMM_57.htm">Sirota's Three Factor Theory</a> are particularly useful.
<img src="https://www.mindtools.com/media/Images/NewsletterBonuses/small_be-a-successful-manager-cover-new.jpg">
<h2>Developing Your Team</h2>
Teams are made up of individuals who have different outlooks and abilities, and are at different stages of their careers. Some may find that the tasks you've allocated to them are challenging, and they may need support. Others may be "old hands" at what they're doing, and may be looking for opportunities to stretch their skills. Either way, it's your responsibility to develop all of your people.
Your skills in this aspect of management will define your long-term success as a manager. If you can help team members to become better at what they do, you'll be a manager who people aspire to work for, and you'll make a great contribution to your organization, too.
<h4>Tip:</h4>
If you have to bring a substantial number of new people into your team, read our article on <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newLDR_86.htm">forming, storming, norming and performing</a> to learn about the stages you can expect your team to go through. You can do a lot to help your people through this process!
<h2>Communicating and Working With Your Team - and With Others</h2>
Communication skills are essential for success in almost any role, but there are particular skills and techniques that you'll use more as a manager than you did as a regular worker. These fall under two headings: communicating with team members, and communicating with people outside your team. We'll look at each in turn.
<h3>Communicating With People in Your Team</h3>
Many meetings include <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html">brainstorming</a> sessions. As a team manager, you'll often have to <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/RoleofAFacilitator.htm">facilitate</a> these, so you'll need to be comfortable with doing this. There's more to this than simply coming up with creative ideas, as you do when you're just a regular participant in such a session: read <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/brainstm.html">our article</a> to find out how to run brainstorming sessions. Make sure that you understand where they can go wrong, and what you can do to avoid this.
Don't fall into this trap. Most good managers are active listeners: it helps them detect problems early (while they're still easy to deal with), avoid costly misunderstandings, and build trust within their teams.
<h3>Communicating With People Outside Your Team</h3>
Your boss is probably the most important person you need to communicate with. Take time to understand fully what your boss wants from you and your team - if you know exactly what she likes, and how she prefers this to be delivered, you'll be better able to meet with her approval.
Don't be afraid to ask your boss to coach or mentor you: you can usually learn a lot from him, but he may not be proactive about offering this. If you're approaching your boss for advice, make sure that you've thought things through as far as you can. Introduce the subject with a summary of your thinking, and then say where you need help.
Also, as a manager, part of your job is to look after your team and protect it from unreasonable pressure. Learn skills like <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/Assertiveness.htm">assertiveness</a> and <a href="https://www.mindtools.com/CommSkll/NegotiationSkills.htm">win-win negotiation</a>, so that you can either turn work away, or negotiate additional resources.
<h2>Managing Discipline</h2>
However much you hope that you won't have to do it, there comes a time in most managers' careers when they have to discipline an employee. Discipline may be subtly different from basic feedback, because it doesn't always relate specifically to the employee's work. You can give feedback on their phone manner, for example, but handling problems with timekeeping or personal grooming can need a different approach.
Obvious breaches of the law or of company policy are easy to identify and deal with. But what of other situations? On one hand, you don't want to seem petty. On the other hand, you can't let things go that should be dealt with.
Use these rules-of-thumb to decide whether you need to take action. If the answer to any is yes, then you need to arrange a time to speak to the employee in private.

<ol>
	<li>
Does the issue affect the quality of the employee's deliverable to the client (internal or external)?
A graphic designer regularly gets into work late, although he stays late to make up for this. Customers are sometimes frustrated by not being able to get through to him at the start of the day, particularly when he's working on rush jobs.</li>
	<li>
Does the issue adversely impact the cohesiveness of the team?
Individual designers tend to work on their own projects, with few meetings between design team members, so cohesiveness is not impacted. However people are noticing his lack of punctuality, and other people's timekeeping is beginning to slip.
</li>
	<li>
Does the issue unnecessarily undermine the interests of other individuals in the team?
The designer sitting next to the latecomer is unhappy that she has to field calls from clients before he reaches the office, and is unable to give a firm answer to the question "When will he be in?"</li>
</ol>

In this situation, the design team manager decides to speak to the latecomer because of the impact on his co-worker. They agree that coming in to work late is not a problem (he has a long commute, with heavy traffic en route) but that he will commit to being in by 9.30 a.m. every day to reduce the number of calls his co-worker has to field, and also give her a fixed time to give clients. He will work late to make up time, and will take on a task she doesn't like to make up for her extra phone handling.
When you are faced with a potential discipline issue, take time to gather information about the situation, decide what you're going to do, and act. Discipline issues rarely go away of their own accord, and they usually get worse, often causing considerable resentment amongst other team members.
<h2>Traps to Avoid</h2>
There are a number of common mistakes that new managers tend to make. Take care to avoid them!
These are:

<ul>
	<li>Thinking that you can rely on your existing job knowledge and technical skills to succeed as a manager. It is essential that you take the time to develop good management and people skills as well - these can be more important than your technical skills!</li>
	<li>Failing to consult regularly with your boss, in a misguided attempt to show that you can cope on your own.</li>
	<li>Approaching your boss without having thought a problem through, and without having considered how the problem could be solved.</li>
	<li>Embarrassing your boss, or letting her get a nasty surprise. Follow the "no surprises" rule.</li>
	<li>Doing anything that requires your boss to defend you to others. This can cause your boss to "lose face" with his peers and superiors, and it makes it look as if his team is out of control.</li>
	<li>Failing to talk to your customers (whether internal or external) about what they want from yourself and your team.</li>
	<li>Using your authority inappropriately - make sure that everything you ask people to do is in the interests of the organization.</li>
</ul>

Many of these points sound obvious, however, it's incredibly easy to make these mistakes in the rush of everyday managerial life.
<h4>Key Points</h4>
When you move from being a worker to a line manager, you need to develop a new set of skills, and make use of new tools and techniques. These will help you with the key management activities of organizing, motivating, developing and communicating with your team.
Above all, learn how to delegate effectively. However, also learn how to motivate people, develop team members, communicate effectively with people inside and outside your team, and manage discipline effectively.
And make sure that you avoid the mistakes that many new managers make!
</div>

The Core Skills Needed to Manage Your Team So you've just got a new job as a manager. Congratulations! Or maybe you've just been given the task of pulling a new team together. What a challenge! Either way, whether your team exists already or it's your responsibility to create it, what do you do next?

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career

Team Management Skills: The Core Skills Needed to Manage Your Team

The Difference Between Managers And Leaders

The Importance Of Delegation

Motivating Your Team

Developing Your Team

Communicating With Your Team

With People Outside Your Team

Managing Discipline

Traps To Avoid

IDEAS ABOUT

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9 Lessons for the First-Time Manager

5 Keys to Setting and Managing Team Expectations (Infographic)

People leave managers, not companies – 4 ways to better support your team

It's time to

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A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledgeto upgradeyour career

Team Management Skills: The Core Skills Needed to Manage Your Team

The Difference Between Managers And Leaders

The Importance Of Delegation

Motivating Your Team

Developing Your Team

Communicating With Your Team

With People Outside Your Team

Managing Discipline

Traps To Avoid

IDEAS ABOUT

MORE LIKE THIS

9 Lessons for the First-Time Manager

5 Keys to Setting and Managing Team Expectations (Infographic)

People leave managers, not companies – 4 ways to better support your team

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!

Bite-sized knowledge
to upgrade
your career