Management Leadership Skills
Introduction
Management is the ability to exercise good and comprehensive control over the responsibilities that come with being employed. There are two perspectives to management in an organization. These are individual management and team management. In this section, the focus is on team management leadership skills. There are certain organizations that emphasize the need for the employees to work within certain recognized teams. This section focuses on how efficiently employees can provide leadership to the team that they are involved in.
This section looks at the elements of leading a team. Most importantly, it cites various incidences when our team leaders have applied the elements to deal with the problems within our team. They have also used them to better the performance of our team.
The most important element of leadership is the ability to listen to the team members. Most of the people who are good at leading teams have good leadership skills which primarily depend on their desire to listen and understand the needs of others. It is only after listening that they can guide them into the right direction. It involves single-minded communication where the leaders should not be clouded by power and presume that their employees should only hear out what the leaders say and not the other way round.
In the past, there has been communication breakdown within our team. Some of the team members failed to recognize the fact that there may be others within the group who are not good at communicating. As a result, they would fail to listen to them or ignore their opinions.
Our team leaders give incentives to the other team members who behave differently in terms of their listening skills. The leaders nurture god listening habits within the other team players as well. This is an essential leadership skill which enables the team members to understand each other in a better way. Listening skills are the initial step to conflict prevention and resolution among team members, in cases where conflicts may occur.
How Our Team Leaders use Power
The characteristics of a good leader include the ability to remain in control and stay calm. During this time, all the members are often in a dilemma wondering the best decision to take. The team members are often unaware of the nature of their actions. They do not know whether they made a mistake or whether they made the right decisions. When team leaders display confidence in the decisions they make, they instill similar feelings of confidence within the rest of the members.
Our team leaders have often dealt with crises in a good manner. They have displayed character and adequate compete when the team is in a difficult situation. However, there are certain situations that they find difficult to deal with because of their tender age. For instance, it is difficult for them to handle disputes between team members because we are friends within the team. The relationship is not purely professional.
Team leaders possess courageous patience. In most cases, there is uncertainty from the time the decision and the expected results. This is because none of the team members knows whether the efforts they have put will result into the desired outcomes that they intended. Team managers and leaders need to constantly reassure their team members that their input will realize the best results. Some business environments, for instance business, have many risks since there are many variables that can affect the profitability of an organization. As result, team leaders in the organization can frequently use qualitative data to assess the situation and prepare their team members for the expected outcomes.
Consequently, one of the important roles of team leaders is to use their judgment to prepare their team members for all possible contingencies. Team members must understand that there is failure and success for all the activities that they engage in. good team leaders must train their members to work for the best.
Our team leaders often remind us that the team may not be the best team in the institution based the activities the team takes part in. Unhealthy competition may arise as result of team members trying to outdo each other. Such competition may result of conflict within the team. This can only be avoided if the team is well prepared to accept the outcome of its efforts (Giuliani and Kurson 3). Our leaders enable the team to appreciate the different levels of abilities possessed by each individual within the team.
It is important for the leaders to have character and be competent. Character ensures that their personality traits allow them to handle all circumstances within the team with composure. Competence can be instilled by acquiring the technical skill required for the leadership roles. This can be achieved through training.
Core Skills Required to Manage Teams
First of all, team leaders need to establish the priorities that must be accomplished by the team. As such, they will ensure that the team delivers their duties or services in good time without unnecessary delays. Dealing with priorities will boost the level of confidence of the team in general since time will enable them to become comfortable with the tasks that they must accomplish.
Team leaders must also consider the importance of delegating duties within the team. Instead of dealing with talks one at a time as team, the task can be broken down into several bits. Team members can then be allowed to choose tasks that they can handle depending on their ability and area of expertise.
Delegation is important because it allows members of the team to deal with tasks with maximum concentration on quality delivery (Lencioni 4). Excellent delegation begins by matching the ability of team members against the tasks at hand. It ensures that team members encounter minimal problems since they possess the necessary skill to deal with the tasks. After delegation of duties for a certain period of time, it is easy to identify the experience and technical expertise of the team members. Delegation can be done faster in subsequent assignments.
Motivation of team members is an important technique of managing teams. Teams have people with different abilities and outlooks. In addition, these team members are different levels in terms of their careers. As a result, it is important to develop each team member based on the level they have reached in their careers. For every task allocated by the team leader, it is important to note that team members need new challenges to give them better experience and enrich them with further knowledge.
Our team leaders have made efforts to motivate the team. There are rewards for the team members who perform their tasks well. This has impr4oved the overall performance of the team because all the members strive to accomplish their tasks as required.
The best way to develop team members is to have a good communication channel. It will enable sharing of information within the team. As a result, team leaders can receive feedback for every task accomplished by the team members. This will enable the leader to know the exact problem encountered by the team members, the leader can help the team members to deal with the challenges one after the other giving them better experience.
CONCLUSION
Appropriate team leadership has ensured that the optimal performance of our teams is realized. Consequently, individual members within teams have reached the peak of their abilities by actively participating in what team leadership has offered. The team has generally improved its internal communication skills. There is also better conflict management within the team.
Works Cited
Giuliani, Rudolph W, and Ken Kurson. Leadership. New York: Hyperion, 2002. Print.
Lencioni, Patrick. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Print.
