Monthly Archives: January 2017

The Responsibilities of a Team-Oriented Manager/Supervisor

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The responsibilities of a team-oriented manager/supervisor requires balancing two different sets of skills with a goal of building teamwork in the department.

At times, this is like a balancing act. On one side of the scale is job skills and on the other side is people skills.

responsibilities of a manager and supervisor

 

Job Skills

The manager or supervisor needs to plan the direction for the department, set goals and establish standards for quality and productivity. Planning includes allocation of resources and materials for the department. Job responsibilities include control of time, information and costs.

People Skills

On the other side of the scale is people skills. The manager or supervisor needs to understand the responsibilities and develop the skills required to manage and direct people. Teamwork in organizations today is crucial for staying competitive and for continuous improvement. The leader must be able to develop people skills that will foster teamwork.

The Job Skills Balancing Act

Understanding the balancing act required to lead and manage a department is the first step to good management performance. Some people are naturally more skilled at planning and others are better with people.

Before promoting someone to a leadership position it is important to assess their skills and make sure they understand the inherent responsibilities of the job. They must also be motivated to learn all the skills and continuously apply them to improve.

Often and more so in smaller companies, people are promoted to a management or supervisory role with little clarification of the responsibilities and inadequate training. This is a recipe for disaster.

Strengths & Weaknesses

It is important to assess your job and people skills and have a plan for development. Perhaps your need to spend more time planning and analyzing to better communicate with the team. Or do you need to be better at training and coaching people so they are more engaged and productive.

Self-Development Goals

Once you have a better grasp of your development needs you can set goals for personal development as a leader and become better balanced. I suggest working on one skill at a time. By improving one key skill you will experience the benefits and you can then move to another skill.

If you are a leader who has several managers or supervisors reporting to you, take the same approach by assessing the skills of each person. Ask each one to do the same and then compare notes. Set a plan and coach them to success.

 

Here are some related articles you will find interesting.

Promoting Your Best Performing Employee to Manager

Training and development of employees for improved performance

How to hire & select the right person for the job

Develop a Strategic Plan for Employee Development

Writing a Goal Statement to Change a Behaviour & Habit

How to set and achieve any goal using a goal planning worksheet

 

Promoting Your Best Performing Employee to Manager

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I have often come across companies promoting the best performing employee to a manager. The problem is that the best performing employee does not guarantee that they will be a good manager.

What often happens is you lose a good performing employee and gain a poor manager. Promoting someone to a new position especially management, should follow a similar process as hiring a new employee.

When someone knows the job, and does it well we think they can guide and teach others how to perform as good. But managing requires a whole new skill set that many people do not have and do not want to develop.

Before promoting someone to a management role follow these steps.

  1. Write a job description or update a current one. Make sure the role description is well thought out and includes the essential leadership and management skills. A good resource for writing a job description is org.
  2. Post the job so you have more than one candidate. Sometimes this may be difficult because the employee in mind is expecting to be promoted. Depending on the situation and size of the company you can post both internally and externally.
  3. Conduct an interview as if you were if hiring from outside. Let the person know that they must fit the job.
  4. Conduct an psychometric evaluation of the person to check for their fit with the job. Use the right assessment tool for this purpose. You need to use a total person assessment that can measure cognitive skills (thinking style), behavioral traits and occupational interests. An interest in people should be high on the list.
  5. Consider the training and coaching that would be required for the new manager. Do you have the resources and who would provide the training?

Coaching an Olympic Speed Skater

employee promotionI once met the coach of an Olympic speed skating champion at an event. We sat next to each other over dinner. He told me how he became the athlete’s coach and I was amazed. He said he had never been a speed skater and new almost nothing about the sport. But the two had met and he took an interest in her. He offered to be her coach and at first, she was skeptical but finally agreed as the relationship developed.  He told me that although he knew little about speed skating he knew people well and how to coach and guide them. He said he knew he could easily learn the success techniques of speed skating but no one could teach him how to build rapport with people and get them to be at their best. He said he always had that ability.

The Sales Manager

I once was hired by a sales manager to conduct a workshop at a conference the company was organizing in Las Vegas. They sold security devices and systems to hotels and institutions. I discovered some of the things that the sales manager was doing to support the sales people across North America. He himself had never sold the product but was a true professional manager. He knew his job well and what he needed to do to make sure that everyone was equipped to sell.

A common error is promoting a great salesperson to sales manager. Often what happens is the person continues to sell and spends little time on management issues like strategic planning, training, coaching etc.

The next time you are thinking of promoting an employee to a management position follow the steps listed above and make sure you are putting the right person in the job.

How to Inspire Teamwork in Your Organization

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Every progressive business owner and leader wants to inspire teamwork in their organization or department. But this is easier said than done.

In our training programs Style of Leadership and Team Development and My Team & I, we ask the question “what is the difference between a group and a team?

Undoubtedly, we get the answer that a team has a clear team goal whereas a group does not. While it is true that goals drive teamwork, a group of people working together can also have a common goal. Think of a large group of people working on designing and constructing a building. Everyone has the common goal of making the building, but they do not necessarily work as a team.

The Secret to Teamwork

inspire teamworkThe crucial ingredient required to boost teamwork is team spirit. Many would argue that team spirit is the result of people working together towards a common goal. This is true if they can work together effectively and autonomously. To achieve this level of performance team members must want to help and support each other. They also need to learn specific interpersonal skills such as active listening, diplomatic disagreement, gently confrontation as well as problem solving and giving feedback,

Self-knowledge and mutual understanding are also crucial elements in building team spirit. This creates greater acceptance and tolerance of others and forms the willingness to help and support one another.

The Leaders Role in Building Team Spirit

It’s the leader or managers’ role to assure that team members develop the interpersonal skills and have a worthwhile and challenging team goal or project.

Team training must include knowledge of oneself and others so that proper team spirit can be generated through training and other types of team activities.

Of course, the leader themselves must also partake of these types of learning and develop the attitude of continuous improvement in both people development and operational matters.

Achieving Higher Levels of Teamwork

When team members learn to help and support each other and work through their differences, greater levels of teamwork can be achieved. Teams that function at higher levels can take on greater responsibility and become more autonomous. This can allow the leader to delegate responsibility and spend more time on strategic issues.

Highly evolved teams can assume responsibilities such as hiring and training new team members, practicing problem solving for continuous improvement and participating in managing an operating budget for their team or department. Teams of this type are often called interdependent or fully functioning teams.

Assess Team Effectiveness

How dependent on their leader are team members? How well do team members know and trust each other? Do they have team spirit? Do they have a common goal? Do the accept and support each other? Can they resolve conflicts on their own? Do they solve problems as a team? Do they practice continuous improvement?

Act to Inspire Teamwork

Rate your team for each item below on a scale of 1 to 5. Where would you like to see your team in six months or a year from now? What can you do to improve? What changes or improvements do you need to make as a leader? You can use the grid below or download this as a form. Have your team complete this as well and compare each others’ perception.

Teamwork Effectiveness Evaluation Worksheet

Item Criteria Leaders rating 1 = disagree 5 = agree Team member 1 = disagree 5 = agree Gap in perception
1 Team members act independently to complete tasks and make decisions 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
2 Team members readily help and support each other 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
3 Team members know and trust each other? 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
4 Team spirit prevails 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
5 The team has a common goal or project 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
6 Team members confront each other positively and resolve conflicts independently 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
7 The team practices problem solving on their own 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
8 The team engages in continuous improvement 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5 1 – 2 – 3- 4- 5
Total score out of possible 40

Set a Goal for Improvement

Get going now with you action plan. Use my goal setting process to work on this. Make it a priority if you want real teamwork and team spirit to grow in your organization or department.