Transversal Competences and Soft Skills

Team management and leadership skills

Team management refers to the ability to coordinate a group of individuals to work towards a common goal and perform their best. It involves teamwork, communication, target setting, performance appraisals, problem identification and solving, conflict resolution, etc. within the team. There are various methods and leadership styles a team manager can apply to increase personnel productivity and build an effective team. There are a number of principles a team manager should keep in mind:

All voices matter!

• Good ideas come from any individual member, regardless of their field of expertise and/or role and responsibilities within the team. Different perspectives can be complementary to address any type of challenge, ranging from technical specifications and functionalities, preferred technology(ies), etc. to targeted market sectors and customer segments, potential collaborators, suitable business model(s) and pricing policy(ies).
• Open dialogue and debate should be encouraged as key element for the alignment of objectives within the team. Strategic goals, targets and expectations should be clearly articulated, and specific work, processes and responsibilities of each team member should be openly discussed and commonly agreed on.

Build a culture of trust, honesty, transparency.

• Open channels of communication as they are essential c
• omponents of any successful team. It is important that all members of your team feel comfortable approaching you when they have questions or concerns, or when they need clarification on what is expected of them.
• Cultivate empathy to promote respect and strengthen the links among team members, eventually enhancing productivity and collaboration. Understanding of each individual perspective, role and expected contribution in the workplace leads to the achievement of common goals.
• Delegate responsibilities to promote self-confidence, creative thinking, professional development and personal recognition.
• Motivate all team members by offering incentives to enhance their commitment and productivity (e.g. target-related bonuses, shares allocation, etc.).
• Lead by example to inspire your employees to follow suit.

Build a culture of collaboration: (re-)think, evaluate, adjust and adapt.

• Organise frequent internal meetings to assess progress, discuss problems, plan next actions, etc.
• Brainstorm to promote creative thinking. Invite everyone to actively contribute by presenting ideas and sharing concerns.
• Experiment with new tools and concepts to collect feedback from your team. For example, organising topic-specific roundtables, build a “wall of ideas” (i.e. in their simplest form put post-it’s on a wall), use online collaboration tools (e.g. MIRO, Mentimeter, MURAL, etc.)

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