Effective Leadership and

Team Management
The role of team management in the workplace is rapidly
evolving as technology brings about dramatic changes to the
way teams communicate, collaborate, and get work done.
What hasn’t changed is its importance. Leaders who can get the
most out of their employees by fostering a positive work
environment and putting them in the best position to succeed
are rewarded with higher productivity and greater innovation.
Those who can’t suffer sub-optimal employee performance and
have trouble retaining staff.
Legendary football player and coach Vince Lombardi were right
when he said, “Leaders are made, they are not born. They are
made by hard effort, which is the price which all of us must pay
to achieve any goal that is worthwhile.”
That sentiment went against the common prevailing wisdom at
the time, which held that team management leaders are mostly
born to fill that role; no one else need apply.
A study of identical and fraternal twins conducted in 2006 shed
some interesting new light on the subject and definitely proves
otherwise.
While genes (nature) do play a role in determining leadership
ability, environment (nurture, experience) plays more than twice
as large a role.
The findings show that becoming a future leader is possible
through proper training and grooming.
7 Traits of Highly Effective Team
Management
Early studies of trait leadership conducted in the 1940s and
‘50s list dominance as being a critical attribute of the best
leaders. At the time, workers were considered to be inherently
shifty and lazy and needed to be pressured into doing their best
work.
Times have changed since then, with the whip being put away in
favor of the dangling carrot.
It’s now understood that employees are more productive not
when they are being hounded by a ruthless taskmaster who
counts the seconds of their bathroom breaks, but when they are
put in low-stress environments and given as much autonomy as
possible.
That’s why recent studies have found that traits like
agreeableness, charisma, and openness are all extremely
important for leaders to have.
The seven traits that have the most positive correlation with
leadership performance according to a 2002 meta-analysis of
multiple studies are:
 Charisma

 Intelligence

 Extraversion

 Conscientiousness

 Creativity

 Openness

 Honesty/Integrity
When examining the primary functions that leaders need to
perform, it’s easy to see why these seven traits are so important
for them to have.
What Does Team management Actually
Entail?
Defining what leadership is can be challenging given the nearly
limitless range of different scenarios in which it’s applied.
The scope of leadership can vary greatly between roles based
on everything from the number of employees being managed, to
the nature of the work being performed, to the amount of
collaboration required between team members.
While by no means an exhaustive list, several studies pinpoint a
number of key aspects of workplace leadership:
 Establishing and working towards the achievement of

group goals and values

 Making the most of employees’ abilities

 Resolving work-related problems and employee-related

conflicts
 Integrating the unique styles and personalities of

individual employees into a cohesive unit

The list underscores the importance of leaders being great
communicators, which is reinforced by the list of seven most
important leadership traits, four of which are communication-
based.
According to Focus Brands COO Kat Cole, “Your job as a leader
is to stay as close in touch as possible with those closest to the
action.”
Given their most common workplace objectives, leaders also
need to be a strong judge of character with the ability to
recognize the strengths and weaknesses of their employees,
allowing them to best utilize their colleagues both on an
individual level and within the context of the team’s overall
effectiveness.
Understanding how to manage and treat employees also
requires knowing what motivates and inspires them at work, as
well as what factors are most likely to make their job
performance suffer and their retention rates plummet. 
What Employees Want from their Jobs
Landmark research undertaken by Gallup that included
interviewing thousands of employees from around the world
reveals the 12 aspects of workplace culture that most
accurately predict top work performance from individuals and
groups.
Among the study’s most important revelations about what
employees want from their jobs is:
 To know what is expected of them

 To have the resources necessary to perform their duties

 To work on tasks they feel well-suited for

 To receive recognition for their work

 To have opportunities to learn and grow

 To have someone who encourages their development

and discusses their progress

 To feel like their opinions matter

Since that initial study, more than 87,000 corporate

divisions/units have been analyzed to determine how well they
meet those 12 important criteria, which are dubbed the Q 12.
Those who are the most successful at doing so experience
lower employee turnover, better productivity and sales, and
more loyalty from their customers.
Employee Engagement and Culture
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the large body of results is
the absolutely massive impact that good management and
work culture have on employee engagement and productivity.
Whereas it was previously assumed that the desirability of the
job itself plays the largest role in determining employee
engagement, the data shows that isn’t the case at all. Instead,
engagement correlates far more with individual work units than
with specific job types.
Electronics retailer Best Buy is one of the many companies that
have greatly improved its results by seeking to improve its
Q12 scores. Interestingly, the company found that its best-
performing units benefited the most from efforts to raise its
lowest Q12 scores, with sales and other performance metrics
nearly doubling at the best units.
While Best Buy’s least successful units were also able to make
some performance improvements, they lagged the gains seen
in the better-performing groups, further widening the gulf
between them.
This suggests that there are no quick fixes or easy solutions for
units with ineffective leadership and cultures, whereas stronger
units can see huge benefits by addressing their few
weaknesses.
How to Overcome Leadership Challenges
Companies with more employees tend to have lower
engagement scores, which drains productivity, negatively
affects safety outcomes, and saps profitability.
Their rising discontent usually stems from several issues that
tend to arise as a company grows in size.
One of the most prominent is that workers usually have less
direct access to feedback from upper management. This can be
alleviated by instituting an effective feedback system that
carries information both uphill and downhill.
Employees should be encouraged to share feedback and
concerns periodically, with the understanding that their
opinions matter. Instituting regular performance
review sessions can also be helpful.
Employees of large companies are more likely to feel that their
work is less important to the company’s overall performance,
giving them less satisfaction from their work.
This sense can be relieved by ensuring they understand how
their work positively contributes to the company’s revenue and
profits or how their doing good work helps other employees get
their own work down more efficiently and enjoyably.
Employees at larger firms also tend to have less flexibility in
their roles and may become dissatisfied by the monotony of
their work.
Managers are often tempted to pigeonhole employees into
tightly-defined roles that make it easier for them to oversee and
coordinate everything. Employees should be given more free
rein to regularly grow their skills and be challenged with
different aspects of the work process.
How To Build A Positive Workplace
Culture
Modern workplaces are becoming increasingly laid back in
response to a growing body of evidence that shows that high-
pressure work environments are extremely stressful for
employees long term.
That chronic stress leads to debilitating health issues that cost
the healthcare system billions annually, cause massive
employee turnover, and contribute to the majority of workplace
accidents.
A less stressful, more tolerant, and more diverse workforce can
be cultivated in the following ways:
 Having a zero tolerance policy towards prejudice, sexual

harassment and bullying of any kind

 Instituting transparent and fair processes for dealing

with promotions and other important company

decisions
 Engaging in regular team-building exercises; these can

be simple 10-minute games once a week

 Allowing employees to take short technology breaks at

regular intervals; forcing them to abstain from their

devices for long stretches causes unnecessary stress
 Axing poor performing and negative employees as soon

as possible; they will drag down the entire team and may
cause better employees to leave
 Being a positive influence that shows empathy towards

employees for missteps rather than seeking to cast

blame
  Rewarding employees for their work via positive
reinforcement and other small perks
Being an effective leader is the difference between having a
group of happy, productive employees, and a group of stressed-
out and unproductive ones. In other words, it’s everything.
And with the right mindset and approach, just about anyone can
become one.