How To Manage And Motivate Your Team

In a business and at work, your team is your most important asset and biggest resource. Without them the business could not function, so it is essential that your employees feel well managed, encouraged, motivated and inspired on a daily basis.

As a manager, how can you manage and motivate your team? Here are some strategies to try:

Make your team feel valued. Thank your team, give praise, recognise their contribution to the business, explain how their work makes a difference and make sure your team are paid appropriately for the roles they are employed to do. The power of positive praise is often overlooked but recognising and applauding achievement inspires and motivates team members.

Communicate regularly in an open and honest way. Make sure that there is a constant flow of communication between you and your team, so that you keep them up-to-date with what needs to be done and listen to their ideas, opinions and feedback. Use regular team meetings in groups and on a one-to-one basis and team updates on how the business is performing and management decisions that have been made. Check in regularly with your team and encourage them to talk to you. Ensure you listen to your employees and acknowledge their opinions.

Share the vision and set clear goals and plans. Make sure your team are aware of the company vision and goals, as well as the team and individual goals and objectives. Ensure individual objectives are realistic and align with the overall business objectives. This will encourage everyone to work together to achieve better results. Have team and individual action plans and track progress towards the goals so you can all see success in a tangible way.

Review progress and performance on a regular basis. Performance management is often overlooked my managers but is key to good staff management. Review progress and performance on a regular basis through team meetings, staff appraisals and individual one to ones. Providing constructive feedback is a big part of performance management and is used as a supportive communication tool to address specific issues or concerns. State the purpose of your feedback, describe what you have observed and your reaction give the individual an opportunity to respond, ask and offer specific suggestions or solutions and summarise everything discussed to avoid any misunderstandings. Ensure your approach is consistent and fair between team members.

Develop trust and teamwork. The best teams are those where everyone works together cohesively. Develop trust and teamwork among your employees and encourage them to ask for help when problems arise. This will be helped by leadership from you as the manager, clear and open communication, clearly defined roles and responsibilities, clear goals, objectives and plans, encouraging positivity and resolving conflicts and tensions quickly.

Focus on learning and development. Your team will feel more valuable when they are learning and enhancing their skills and their training and development will benefit the company as a whole too. Tailor learning and development to suit the individual team members. This may be through on the job training, shadowing, delegating and learning new tasks, coaching and mentoring or more formal training.

Empower your team through coaching and mentoring. Coaching and mentoring your team can help them feel empowered and to reach their full potential. Mentoring a team member through one-on-one job training, support, modelling behaviour and tasks and the advice of an experienced team member or you as their manager enables them to feel a greater sense of understanding of what is required of them in their jobs and feel empowered to fully perform their job duties. Coaching your team members through goal setting, asking questions, structured delegation, enabling them to work out their own solutions and the right support will enable them to develop and take on more responsibility and work efficiently and independently without your constant input. Coaching and mentoring team members means promoting self-reliance by providing the right tools, training, and autonomy rather than constantly solving problems for them and answering basic requests.

So, which areas do you need to work on to better manage and motivate your team?

Author: Liz Makin
Published: January 2022

Makin It Happen has a range of personal development online courses to purchase, created by Liz Makin, including anxiety management, communication, resilience, soft skills, stress management, time management and coaching. Liz Makin also provides personalised business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services to business owners, directors, managers and professionals.

Please email Liz@makinithappen.co.uk to arrange a FREE consultation session to discuss our business coaching, business mentoring and stress management services for business owners, directors, managers and professionals.