Management Skills
Understanding Team Dynamics and Encouraging Good Relationships
Good management means understanding how teams operate. It's worth remembering that
teams usually follow a certain pattern of development: forming, norming, storming, and
performing. It's important to encourage and support people through this process, so that you
can help your team become fully effective as quickly as possible.
When forming teams, managers must create a balance so that there's a diverse set of skills,
personalities, and perspectives. You may think it's easier to manage a group of people who are
likely to get along, but truly effective teams invite many viewpoints and use their differences to
be creative and innovative.
Here, your task is to develop the skills needed to steer those differences in a positive direction.
This is why introducing a team charter and knowing how to resolve team conflict are so useful
for managing your team effectively.
Key Points
You need to develop and improve your managerial skills on an ongoing basis as your career
develops and as you meet new managerial challenges.
Whether you manage a department or a project team, it's important to know how to get the
work done right. When you're asked to achieve something with the help of others, it's complex
– and you spend much of your time managing relationships instead of doing the actual work.
So, you must develop not only your technical skills, but your management skills as well.
Delegating, motivating, communicating, and understanding team dynamics are some of the key
skills needed. With those skills, along with patience and a strong sense of balance, you can
become a very effective manager
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