Level 2 Management Skills: Team Building

Level of Skills 2 Consists of the Team Building Skills Managers Need

Management Skills Pyramid Level 2 (c) F. John Reh
Management Skills Pyramid Level 2 (c) F. John Reh. F. John Reh

Level 2 Management Skills consists of the team management and team building skills any developing manager must master. They are the next level of skills found on the Management Skills Pyramid. which shows the skills a manager must master for a successful career. The Management Skills Pyramid shows how these management skills build on each other to create success.

Team Management Skills

Team Management and Team Building Skills

Three categories of team management skills exist that managers must master to experience any success in a management job. The team management skills are motivation, training and coaching, and employee involvement. They are discussed separately in detail below.

Management Skills for Motivation

The most fundamental team management skill managers need to master is the motivation of your team and of the individual members of the team. You can't accomplish your goals as a manager unless your team is motivated to perform, to produce, to deliver the results you need.

Motivating each of the individuals on your team requires recognition on your part that each team member's motivation needs are different and that the primary source of their motivation comes from within the individual. And motivating the team requires a different approach from motivating the team members.

Motivating Individuals

The level of skills managers need in motivating and inspiring employees cannot be overemphasized. Without a work environment, that fosters employee and team motivation, you will never experience the success you need for a productive, happy, work environment.

Motivation Skills Needed for Effective Employee and Team Motivation

These are the skills managers need to bring forth employee motivation.

Management Skills for Training and Coaching

It is unlikely that you will ever manage a team where everyone is adequately trained. It is even more unlikely that you will have a team that never needs coaching. You need to have the level of training skills necessary to identify the training needs of your team members. You also need to provide the training they need for them to succeed.

Coaching Is Needed by All Employees

And, you need to coach all the members of your team, even the well-trained employees, to help them achieve their best levels of performance and continuously improve.

Training Skills Needed for Effective Employee Development

These are the skills managers need to provide important training and development for employees.

Coaching Skills Needed for Effective Employee Development

These are the skills managers need to provide coaching and mentoring for their employees' training and development.

  • The ability to enable people to make mistakes so they learn but know when to step in and when to hang back and let them try on their own.
  • The ability to coach employees so that they can improve their performance, grow their skills, and increase their ability to contribute at work.
  • Knowing to set up one-on-one meetings to provide coaching that is specific to each employees' needs.
  • Assist the employees to find appropriate mentors and sponsors in the workplace for additional coaching.
  • The ability to actively listen so employees feel heard out and listened to.
  • Understand and respond to nonverbal communication.
  • Understand and use basic communication skills when coaching and interacting with employees.

Management Skills for Employee Involvement

All of a manager's efforts to train and develop employees, create an environment in which employees choose motivation, and provide positive feedback and morale building activities are aimed at one goal: increasing employee involvement.

Failure to Promote Employee Involvement

If your employees are not involved and they just come to work to warm a seat, you won't get their best performance. If you don't get their best performance, everything they do will cost you more than it should have cost. Your costs will show up as a high error or rework rate. Or, they might appear as low production and failure to meet goals. Most significantly, your costs might be in the loss of an innovative new idea that they didn't share with you. Whatever the issue with the employees' work, it will cost you.

Management Skills Needed for Effective Employee Involvement

These are the skills managers need to promote employee satisfaction and involvement for a happy, engaging, productive workplace.

  • Provide inspiration to employees and pay as much attention to their satisfaction and happiness as you do to their work assignments and production.
  • Create a work environment that provides employees the sense that they are important parts of a bigger picture.
  • Create a work environment that fulfills the employees' need to be a part of a great team.
  • Give your employees the freedom to think for themselves and don't be an autocratic boss or a micro-manager.
  • Know how to give the employees the room they need to become more innovative and more committed to your goals.
  • Do the same things that reduce turnover and increase employee retention to increase employee involvement.
  • Provide clear goals and honest, constructive feedback.
  • Provide positive feedback because it is critical to keeping employees engaged. It has to be deserved and honest, but don't omit it.
  • When you actively delegate a task to an employee they have an opportunity to grow and tackle new challenges.
  • Make certain that you actually delegate growth work properly and don't just dump more work on the employees.
  • Knowing how to be a participative manager is key in employee involvement.

The Bottom Line

The skills required for effective management are endless and endlessly fascinating. You can become a great manager if you take the time to learn these skills and many more to successfully lead and interact with employees. You will be happier and more fulfilled at work when you can demonstrate the high level of management skills needed to motivate, retain, involve, coach, do team building with, and develop employees.