Managers Build Winning Teams: How They Do It

How the Best Managers Build Winning Teams
Research from people manager assessment data show that the most effective managers build winning teams by unlocking the full potential of their people. They harness talent, enthusiasm, and commitment while aligning every individual toward a common purpose. The best managers ensure that everyone is rowing in the same direction — strategically, efficiently, and with shared clarity — turning collective effort into sustained high performance.

Your Goal as a New Manager
For you to succeed as a new manager, the goal is simple — you need to:

• Motivate your team
• Engage and retain your top talent
• Meet team performance targets

Your First Big Mindset Shift as a New Manager
The moment you step into management, your focus must shift — from owning your individual performance to owning the performance of your entire team. Success now depends on your ability to guide, inspire, and align others. Ideally, you’ve experienced a great manager along the way — someone whose approach and behaviors you can study, learn from, and adapt as you develop your own leadership style.

Managers Build Winning Teams: A Checklist of the Most Appreciated Management Traits

With our thirty years working with both new and experienced managers and their teams, we have compiled an ongoing checklist of what the best managers do that are most appreciated by their teams.

1. Create Strategic Clarity
   Organizational alignment research shows that strategic clarity drives 31% of the performance gap between high- and low-performing teams. Top managers don’t leave this to chance — they actively involve key stakeholders in creating a team charter that clearly defines team goals and accountabilities, team roles and responsibilities, team norms, and success metrics.

   The real question: do your managers know how to build a team charter—and more importantly, how to secure genuine commitment from their teams?

2. Show You Genuinely Care About Your Team
   People naturally give their best to leaders who demonstrate genuine concern for their well-being. The most effective managers invest time and energy in understanding their employees as individuals — valuing them not just for what they do, but for who they are. They care about both personal and professional growth, creating an environment where people feel seen, supported, and motivated.

   Ask yourself: do your managers truly care enough about their team to inspire that level of engagement?

3. Play to Their Strengths and Special Interests
   Great managers know what energizes their team members — what excites them, where they excel, and which projects spark their creativity. By aligning tasks with individual strengths and passions, managers create opportunities for employees to perform at their best, produce exceptional results, and stay deeply engaged.

   The critical question: are your managers actively leveraging people’s strengths and aspirations to unlock their full potential?

4. Help Them Grow
   Effective managers create opportunities for employees to expand their skills and expertise. By entrusting team members with new challenges and stretch assignments, managers demonstrate confidence in their abilities and foster meaningful growth. Missteps are inevitable — but when guided thoughtfully, mistakes become powerful learning moments that build resilience, insight, and capability.

   Ask yourself: are your managers providing the career development opportunities your team needs to reach its full potential?

5. Respect Their Personal Lives
   Top managers recognize that employees have full lives beyond the office—family, friends, and community all contribute to well-being and sustainable performance. While occasional extra effort may be necessary during critical deadlines, the best leaders avoid making overtime or weekend work a regular expectation. By honoring work-life balance, managers create a healthier, more engaged, and more loyal team.

   Ask yourself: are your managers fostering a workplace that truly supports employees’ lives outside of work?

6. Recognize Their Contributions
   The best managers never take their employees for granted. They notice when extraordinary effort is made and acknowledge it — both privately and publicly. By consistently rewarding results and behaviors that drive success, they reinforce what matters most and inspire continued high performance.

   The key question: are your managers consistently recognizing and celebrating the contributions that truly make a difference?

7. Maintain High Cultural and Performance Standards
   From day one, your expectations — both for results and how work is done — must be crystal clear. High performers quickly become demotivated when underperformers remain on the team without taking meaningful steps to improve. The best managers protect and retain their “A” players by hiring and promoting top talent, holding everyone accountable, and making tough decisions when standards aren’t met.

   Ask yourself: are your managers actively managing performance and enforcing the standards that drive excellence?

8. Honor Your Commitments
   Trust is earned through action. The fastest way to lose your team’s confidence is to make promises you don’t keep. Exceptional managers follow through consistently, demonstrating reliability and building a foundation of credibility that inspires respect and engagement.

   Ask yourself: are your managers consistently accountable to the commitments they make?

The Bottom Line
Someone in your organization saw the potential for you to be a great manager. Now it’s your responsibility to prove them right — by leading with clarity, care, and the practices that distinguish the very best managers.

If you want to learn more about how managers build winning teams, download The 6 Management Practices that Make the Difference Between Effective and Extraordinary

by Tristam Brown: CEO

Tristam Brown is an executive business consultant and organizational development expert with more than three decades of experience helping organizations accelerate performance, build high-impact teams, and turn strategy into execution. As CEO of LSA Global, he works with leaders to get and stay aligned™ through research-backed strategy, culture, and talent solutions that produce measurable, business-critical results. See full bio.