Here's how you can excel as a team manager.

Creating opportunities for team members to get to know each other personally can also build trust. Encourage regular check-ins, both professional and informal, to strengthen interpersonal relationships within the team. Recognize and celebrate individual and collective achievements to show appreciation for their hard work and dedication. When your team trusts you, they are more engaged and committed. This trust encourages open communication, where team members feel safe to share ideas, feedback, and concerns. It also boosts morale, as employees are more likely to feel supported and understood, leading to higher job satisfaction and productivity!

Trust is built through active listening, putting ourselves in their shoe's and embracing openness with team members. Reverse mentoring and role plays helps build team bonding and puts team members in ease and comfort with each other.

Trust is built over time through consistent actions. Managers who are approachable and dependable often see higher team engagement and productivity. Establishing trust with your team is the foundation of effective management. Be transparent, reliable, and show genuine concern for their well-being and professional growth. Don’t shy away from admitting mistakes. Transparency about your own fallibility can strengthen trust and set a tone of honesty. Sample Script: "I value open communication and transparency. If I make a mistake, I’ll let you know and we’ll work through it together."

Building trust is foundational to team building. If there's not open, honest communication—your growth will stall, and eventually fade. An environment of fear and second-guessing is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. Want to effectively build trust? Be raw, honest, and real with your team. You will never know how they're really feeling if you're not willing to share your feelings with your team. Without effective communication there's no alignment, and without alignment there's no sustained progress. It's hard, it really is; but try it! You'll be amazed at how open your team is if you, as a leader, are first open with them.

Gerenciar equipes é um grande desafio. As equipes podem ser pequenas ou grandes, será preciso entender a individualidade de cada um para poder alcançar um equilíbrio, em que todas saiam ganhando. Para que isso seja possível, o líder deve entender muito bem que relações humanas são complexas e não é possível prever com exatidão como será a reação da equipe a diversos acontecimentos. Sempre que possível é importante buscar o diálogo e liderar pelo exemplo, pois assim, você pode entender melhor o que os liderados esperam de você e ainda pode garantir que eles confiem no que você está fazendo. Ser um líder que age pelo exemplo pode ser mais importante que falar discursos vazios, pois a atitude positiva pode influenciar muito mais.

Involve your team in the goal-setting process to ensure buy-in and commitment. Clear, attainable goals provide direction and motivation for your team. Use the SMART criteria (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) to set both short-term and long-term goals. Sample Script: "Let’s set our quarterly goals together. What targets do you think are both challenging and achievable for our upcoming projects?"

Without clear, measurable goals you'll never truly know where you're going or if you're on the right track. The key to setting and crushing goals really lies in alignment, tracking, and roadmapping. Alignment: Your whole team has to know what the goal is and how you're collectively going to achieve it. This requires expert communication; they need to believe in where you're leading them, and feel like it's their goal also. Tracking: Goals must be measurable, period. Without meaningful measurement you're walking aimlessly in one/more directions. Roadmapping: Rome wasn't built in day, and you won't achieve your Q1 goal in 24 hours either. Set small milestones and ensure your team knows these smaller hurdles are steps to your larger goal.

Over-communicate when necessary. It's better to repeat important information than to assume everyone is on the same page. Ensure that your communication is concise, consistent, and transparent. This includes giving clear instructions, sharing important information, and being available for questions. Effective managers are excellent communicators who can convey complex information in a clear and understandable manner. Sample Script: "I’ll send a follow-up email summarizing our meeting points to ensure everyone is aligned. Feel free to reach out if anything is unclear."

Create an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued and heard. Facilitate team-building activities and cross-functional projects to enhance cooperation. Sample Script: "I’d like us to work with the marketing team on this project to combine our strengths and achieve a more impactful outcome." Specific Example: "I initiated a monthly 'collaboration day' where team members from different departments work together on a shared project. This improved our innovation and team cohesion significantly."

Collaboration stems from a shared ownership of a singular goal. Initially, this can feel as though you're losing control; after all, you're letting someone else's creativity and problem-solving into your world. This often happens with first-time delegators (trust me, I was one!). However, without confidently sharing responsibilities (and actually trusting your team to get the job done), you won't see real growth. After all, leadership is about growing skills, capacity, and confidence—none of which arise from you doing the work for your team.

Employees value actionable feedback that is delivered in a supportive manner. It shows that you are invested in their growth. Focus on specific behaviors and outcomes, and balance positive feedback with constructive criticism. Actionable Strategy: Implement a structured feedback system, such as monthly one-on-one meetings, to ensure feedback is continuous and systematic. Sample Script: "I noticed your proactive approach in the client meeting last week, which was excellent. For future presentations, let’s work on integrating more data to back up your points."

Providing feedback, particularly negative feedback, can be incredibly challenging. However, it's an important part of the learning process. Think back to your early career, is there a particular piece of advice you heard, clung onto, and embodied? I can personally point to many, most of the memorable ones being growth opportunities. Said plainly: receiving negative feedback. All of these incredibly positive and formative pieces of feedback had something in common: They came from a place of genuine care, they were delivered with empathy and understanding, and they were supportive of me in my journey. So, regardless of its nature, if your feedback is actionable, empathetic, and supportive—you're doing it right 👍🏼.

Biggest Lesson- Never sweep conflicts under the rug- Hear them out, figure out a way to get the conversations out in the open and navigate the conflict. Take active feedback and check-up. Don’t just let your team rant to you and then do nothing about it. They’re relying on you to manage their talents, so manage them.

The biggest lesson I've learnt it, to be a good Manager, you need know how to manage talent. If you know someone is good at making presentations, then believe that they actually know what they're doing and give autonomy. Trusting someone with a responsibility can actually do wonders!

Never let things go; always keep the communication channel open and clear! Encourage open dialogue and value diverse ideas and opinions to foster a collaborative and innovative team environment.