The Best Managers Build Winning Teams

How the Best Managers Build Winning Teams
We know from people manager assessment data that the best managers build winning teams by harnessing the talent, enthusiasm, and commitment of their people. They know how to keep everyone rowing in the same right direction in a way that makes sense.

Your Goal as a New Manager
For you to succeed as a new manager, the goal is simple — you need to motivate your team, keep them engaged, and meet team performance targets.

Your First Big Mindset Shift as a New Manager
You need to be prepared to shift from taking responsibility for your own performance as an individual contributor to taking responsibility for the overall performance of your team. Hopefully, somewhere along the line, you have had a really good manager — one that you can try to emulate as you move into managing people.

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
   We know from organizational alignment research that strategic clarity accounts for 31% of difference between high and low performing teams.  The best managers actively involve key stakeholders in the design of a team charter that clearly defines team goals and accountabilities, team roles and responsibilities, team norms, and strategy success metrics.

   Do your managers know how to build and get commitment to a team charter?

2. Show You Genuinely Care About Your Team
   Isn’t it human nature to work harder for someone you know has your best interests at heart than for someone who cares little about you?  Good managers take the time and make the effort to get to know their employees as individuals because they care about them both personally and professionally.

   Do your managers care enough about their team?

3. Play to Their Strengths and Special Interests
   Find out what gets your employees really excited about their work. Where do they excel? What kinds of projects do they tackle with real enthusiasm?  When you can assign tasks that allow them to pursue their passions and engage their creativity and talent, you give them a chance to really shine.

   Are your managers playing to people’s strengths and aspirations?

4. Help Them Grow
   Give your employees a chance to develop new skills and areas of expertise. Show your faith in their intellectual abilities by providing development opportunities and setting new challenges and stretch assignments.  They may falter and make mistakes, but a good manager can guide them toward the valuable learning that occurs when you reflect upon what went wrong and plan to do better next time.

   Are your managers providing enough career development opportunities?

5. Respect Their Personal Lives
   The best managers understand that everyone has a life outside of the workplace. Family, friends and community are important to maintain a positive work-life balance and for the overall well-being of your employees.  Certainly you should expect extra work now and then when deadlines loom or when critical projects are on the line but don’t make a habit of requiring overtime and weekend duty.

   Are your managers creating a healthy workplace?

6. Recognize Their Contributions
   Never take your employees for granted. Good managers notice when an extraordinary effort has been made and acknowledge it. Be thankful, individually and publicly, for exceptional work.  Reward and recognize results and behaviors that matter most.

   Do your managers consistently recognize performance?

7. Maintain High Cultural and Performance Standards
   Your expectations of performance and how your team goes about their work should be clear from the “get-go.” There is nothing more demotivating for a high performer than to watch a low performer stay on the team without making a sincere effort to improve.  Retain your “A” players by hiring and promoting the best and letting go of those who don’t make or care about the grade.

   Are your managers truly monitoring and managing performance?

8. Honor Your Commitments
   This is simply a matter of doing what you say you are going to do. There is no faster way to lose the trust of your team than to promise something and then not deliver.

   Are your managers accountable enough?

The Bottom Line
Someone in your company believed that you could be a great new manager. Now it is up to you to prove them right by doing what the best managers do.

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