Effective leadership is often seen as a soft, unattainable set of skills. Either you’re born knowing how to motivate and inspire people, or you aren’t. And while many team management skills are indeed “soft” — that’s to say, not learned in school — that doesn’t mean you can’t strengthen and hone them with time and repetition.
To become a better manager, it’s important to understand what qualities enhance collaboration and help every member of your team put their best work forward. Read on to learn more.
Active Listening
It’s important to have good ideas as a leader, but it’s equally valuable to be able to listen to other people’s thoughts. Collaboration hinges on having a team of people who all feel empowered and encouraged to put their best foot forward. Effective team leaders can facilitate this by creating an environment where everyone knows they will be given space to speak and be heard.
It sounds almost painfully simple, right? Listen closely and you’ll hear valuable things. But it’s a skill that many people need to actively develop. When you are meeting with your team to discuss an idea, don’t pass the time waiting to get your ideas across. When other people are speaking, listen carefully. Ask questions where needed, and give them as much time as they need to get their ideas across.
There are multiple benefits to being a good listener. Most obviously, it helps you access your team’s best ideas. Why work with a person at all if you aren’t going to listen to them? Active listening is also associated with higher levels of employee satisfaction and retention — both key benchmarks for determining success.
A staggering number of employees self-report feeling unseen or recognized by their management. Simply by showing that you value your coworker’s ideas, you can help people feel happier and more fulfilled at work.
Communication
As a team manager part of your job is to serve as a filter between executives and the rest of your staff. This filter goes both ways — channeling information wherever it is needed. This means that you need to be able to communicate the expectations and requirements of your business’s executives to your team in a way that will be actionable and productive.
It may also mean serving as an advocate for your staff, bringing forward their suggestions, complaints, and needs to the right people.
Part of this responsibility will involve the active listening that we discussed in the last heading. You also need to be able to understand how to frame a question or problem in a way that will be the most helpful and productive for the person hearing it. This is a soft skill that can’t be learned in the classroom but rather developed slowly over time throughout the course of many professional interactions.
Tech Comprehension
You don’t necessarily need to have a background in computer science to be an effective team leader. You should, however, understand the value of technology in the workplace, and be willing and able to integrate it seamlessly into your operations.
In many settings, this may mean incorporating data science and processing technology. In other contexts, it might mean stirring in automation, or other tools that are designed to free up small tasks to make more time for bigger-picture situations.
Many professional teams will have access to technology but lack the motivation or understanding to use it effectively. Good leadership can change this. Emphasize technological integration at the top, and watch this attitude trickle throughout the rest of the business.
A Willingness to Refresh Your Skills
Refreshing your skills doesn’t necessarily mean getting an entirely new degree. There are situations where getting our MBA is great, both for professional development and for ensuring that you have the knowledge necessary to continue doing your job effectively
Other situations can be handled effectively through single classes or skill boot camps that give you the knowledge you need in short six-eight week bursts. For example, if you are interested in learning more about data, you might find a class that focuses specifically on business analytics. You might not exit that course with enough understanding to change your career path, but you will understand what it takes to incorporate data into your place of work.
Create a Safe Company Culture
Company culture essentially refers to what it feels like to work for a business. You hear about big, splashy company culture examples in the news sometimes. A company switches to four-day work weeks or provides its employees with free yoga classes, and they might wind up in the news.
However, at its core, company culture isn’t necessarily about handing out perks. It’s about establishing continuity in your business. The things you say you believe in need to be reflected in how company policies are made, and in how people generally behave at work.
It is perfectly valid for a fast-paced, competitive work environment to be part of your company culture. However, your culture should involve protections for employees. For example, stress management classes or resources. Flexibility where possible.
Team leaders don’t always get to choose the company culture but they are often in charge of making sure it plays out as intended. Keep in mind that your employees take this very seriously, with many millennials reporting that company culture is a more important consideration to them than compensation when choosing a new job.
Good Project Management
Finally, and perhaps most obviously, you need to understand how to get a project off the ground and bring it in for a landing on time. Fundamental though this may be, it’s very common for work-related projects to bump into delays that cost money, and client satisfaction.
Good project management is largely a by-product of many of the skills described above. Listen and communicate effectively, and you’re sure to find that your team is well-positioned to fulfill their responsibilities on time.
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This post is made possible by Andrew Deen.
Photo credit: Shutterstock
