Just a few years ago, there was a clear difference between leadership and management. While a manager traditionally keeps a system running, leaders ensure that business goals are achieved by primarily influencing and leading people. Leadership is thus characterized more by informal and emotional factors and management by factual and technical ones. Nowadays, however, good leadership primarily means developing and establishing good team management.
The term team management refers to both the task and the ability to put the members of a team together optimally and then coordinate them in such a way that an effective workflow is created. The aim of team management is to use the skills and resources of each individual in such a way that the team can support and motivate each other. Successful team management increases productivity and reduces the risk of sickness-related absences and burnout. The ability to manage teams is in line with other skills such as leadership, emotional intelligence and the ability to actively listen. You can further develop all these talents and skills and work on them specifically to become a good leader.
In the modern working world, it is important to constantly reflect on your own leadership role. As a manager, it is increasingly important for you to create the right conditions for self-determined work, define goals and rules and ensure that these are adhered to. Ideally, you will be able to delegate all tasks and responsibilities in your team through good team management and enable your team members to work independently and autonomously in line with the company's goals.
A team that works well together and covers all key competencies opens up completely new opportunities for any organization. Today, it is important to be able to react quickly and adapt flexibly to changing market conditions. This is only possible if each individual within the team knows their tasks, coordinates optimally with colleagues and can contribute new ideas. With successful team management, you create the best basis for good cooperation, strengthen the commitment and morale of the team and thus ensure the future viability of your organization.
The key difference between team management and project management lies in the focus. While the project manager focuses on the organization and implementation of a project, the team manager mainly works on building a well-functioning team. Even if the areas of responsibility can overlap - after all, most teams always work on a project as well - the main focus is on organizing the team well so that everyone feels comfortable and can make the best use of their skills.
You need a functioning team as the basis for good team management. This makes it all the more important when selecting employees to ensure that the individual team members complement each other well in terms of both their skills and their character traits. You can also prevent friction and conflict if the team structure is right. There are two options for putting together your team: Either you opt for a homogeneous team made up of members who are similar to each other or you go for a diversified team.
Today, it is often the case that teams with different professional and cultural backgrounds work together. Teamwork takes place across borders and often the individual team members even work at different locations or do not even speak the same language. This often results in potential for conflict. In a homogeneous team, the individual members are relatively similar in terms of age, qualifications and cultural background. The advantage is that less time has to be planned for conflict resolution - instead, all team members have roughly the same level of knowledge and can start work more quickly. This creates better conditions for team efficiency.
Advantages of homogeneous teams at a glance:
On the other hand, there are also the disadvantages of team management with heterogeneous teams. Often, closed views are formed within a heterogeneous team that exclude different perspectives. There is a faster pressure to conform and the risk of a lack of flexibility and adaptability throughout the organization. As soon as tasks arise that require different qualifications and backgrounds, a heterogeneous group reaches its limits more quickly. Probably the biggest disadvantage of a heterogeneous team is the reduced creativity and limited approach to finding solutions.
A diverse team brings together a wide range of knowledge from different specialist areas and cultures. As a result, the potential for conflict is higher, but the team is able to develop innovative solutions and new approaches. Diversified teams are generally considered to be more successful in the 21st century. If, for example, a new product is to be launched on the market, marketing professionals and customer advisors are needed alongside engineers. Even in the context of mergers, it is important today that employees with different backgrounds can work well together.
Naturally, conflicts and friction are to be expected at the start of collaboration in heterogeneous teams, which initially have a negative impact on efficiency. Employees in heterogeneous teams generally need more time to get used to each other. Tolerance and a willingness to adapt to others and the differences must be expected from each individual. One's own routine must be reconsidered and working methods are put to the test. The first and most important task of a diversified team is to create a common basis for cooperation. Team management often has to play an active role in shaping this. Different roles emerge, with certain team members insisting on their previous habits and others being intimidated by them. This can quickly lead to the great advantage of a diversity of perspectives being lost. This makes functioning team management in the background all the more important.
Advantages of heterogeneous / diversified teams at a glance:
Probably the biggest disadvantage is the high potential for conflict, which leads to disharmony and a lack of team spirit. However, this is heavily dependent on the individual team members. The more energy that has to be spent on conflict resolution, the less efficiently the team can work. Whether and to what extent conflicts arise in a diverse team depends on many other factors such as the group and task characteristics and also the personal maturity of the individual team members.
You should also think about the optimal team size. In smaller teams, the competencies can be more clearly defined, whereas in larger teams there may be an overlap of competencies. The optimal composition of the team always depends on the respective project and should therefore be decided on an individual basis.
Nobody is born the perfect team manager. Successful team management requires special skills that you can either develop further or acquire in a targeted manner. In order to put a team together correctly and lead it well later on, you need special tools in your hand. Effective team management ultimately starts with the competence of the manager.
This list of the most important skills in team management does not claim to be exhaustive. However, it does give you an insight into the most important skills you should have in order to lead your team to success.
Appointing the right people to a team is one thing. However, in order for these individuals to develop into a well-functioning team, special methods are needed to shape and strengthen the team in the long term and thus make it more successful. In the following, we present a few team development models that have proven their worth in practice.
The aim of this model is to improve teamwork and ensure that everyone pulls together and is committed to the same common cause. The abbreviation GRPI stands for:
The focus of this model is therefore on common goals. In a well-functioning team, not everyone works individually on their own goals, but sees themselves as part of the whole. Team management has the task of distributing tasks and defining rules for cooperation. It must be clearly regulated who has which competencies and who takes responsibility for which tasks.
Each person brings their own skills and personality traits to the team - and their role within the team depends on this. Researcher Meredith Belbin has defined a total of nine different roles within three categories that need to be filled within a team.
The success and effectiveness of a team can be noticeably increased by being aware of and filling the right roles. Teams are often so successful precisely because they are different and each team member brings their own skills, ideas and ways of thinking to the table. Different personality types are hugely important for overall team performance. Awareness of this helps to better understand individual team members and their roles within the team.
What was long regarded as a trend in team management that should not be taken entirely seriously has now become an established model for team development. The approach behind it: Feedback from all employees is taken seriously in order to increase the working atmosphere and thus also satisfaction in the long term. feel-good management covers topics such as good self-management and time management. Avoiding stress improves mental and physical health. In this way, employees are retained by the company in the long term, staff turnover decreases and commitment increases.
Coaching is an efficient, successful and strategic way of developing teams. The goal of coaching is defined individually for each team. Coaching objectives in team management can be, for example, the resolution of conflicts or the support of individual team members. Coaches can also be called in when major changes are imminent or specific goals are to be achieved. The objective view from the outside helps to drive team development forward effectively. In addition, an external coach is a person of trust who the individual team members can open up to more easily. Coaching is always a development process for which there are no fixed plans. The coach always adapts individually to the team manager and the participants.
What are the team manager's specific tasks? As always, this depends very much on the individual team members and the goals of the project and the organization. However, some basic tasks are fundamentally the same in team management.
In order for the team to get into a workflow, it is essential to define clear goals in advance. The project goals should be clear for everyone as well as the personal goals of the individual members. You should take into account the fact that each individual team member has very personal concerns and life goals in addition to professional ones, which must be reconciled with the business context. This in turn requires real management qualities. In the following, we provide you with important aspects that make up good team management. Achieving team goals quickly promotes cooperation and a sense of achievement. Collective success has a positive effect on each individual team member. Setting these goals is a real challenge for team management. The SMART formula has proven its worth, according to which goals:
should be.
Team management is always also conflict management. Whether homogeneous or heterogeneous teams, friction arises wherever individuals meet and work together. Effective conflict management is needed to prevent these conflicts from escalating and to turn them into positive insights for further collaboration. After an initial analysis of the subject matter and the course of the conflict, the task of team management is to prevent the situation from escalating by intervening in a timely and targeted manner. To do this, team managers should use the various tools, such as
for conflict resolution. In addition, an external coach can also help to resolve conflicts and thus create the basis for good cooperation in the long term.
The way in which feedback is given today has changed fundamentally in recent years. Feedback is no longer the same as a reprimand or a warning. Regular feedback is intended to strengthen and encourage individual team members. The task of team management is to give constructive feedback, to name positive developments and also to uncover potential for improvement. In doing so, observe the golden rules that apply to an appreciative feedback culture.
Team management is a challenge for every manager. It presents you with numerous tasks and requires you to be able to adapt very flexibly to people and situations. The good news is: even if it sometimes gets lonely at the top, you can get support from our coaches and sparring partners. The topics of the coaching sessions are individually tailored to you and your current issues. You can obtain authentic feedback on your leadership style and your team management methods in a protected environment. Contact us for an initial consultation by e-mail at contact@stageacademy.de or via this link