Employee engagement is largely determined by a good manager. In my career, I’ve had my share of good and bad managers, and I can attest to bad managers resulting in lower engagement and poor productivity by myself and the entire team.
When I felt that my manager didn’t truly understand me and what motivated me, I found work less enjoying and wasn’t as productive.
However, when I have had the opportunity to have a good manager, a manager who took the time to listen to me and understand what motivated me, I was more productive, enjoyed work but also naturally motivated the rest of the team to their best as well. The team worked better together and we achieved more overall.
So, how do you become a great manager? A great manager can be defined as one who
- Listens to the individual members of the team
- Understands the uniqueness of the team including what motivates and causes an employee to disengage
- Recognises the potential of individual team members
- Encourages team members to develop their true potential
In other words, by understanding your own strengths and the strengths of individual team members, you can go from being a good manager to a great manager!
If you think about a soccer team, all the players must work together for the team to be a consistently winning team, yet each player has different strengths or skills. From the defenders to the mid-fielders who possess all around skills for both offense and defense while having the stamina to cover the entire field to forwards who need to accurately pass and shoot.
If the entire team only consisted of defenders, who are great at anticipating the opponent’s next move and stealing the ball from them, but not as good as accurately passing and shooting the ball into the goal, then the team might still win, but the players would probably not feel like they played their best and the winning would most likely not be consistent.
Just like a soccer coach will put players into a specific position to maximise a player’s skill and form a winning team, a great manager will utilise the strengths of his or her team members to maximize the team’s potential.
By knowing the strengths of the individual team members, a manager can foster better working relationships leading to a more engaged and productive team.
A great example of this is giving highly analytical work to Jill whose areas of strengths lie in relationship building and motivating others; while asking Jodi whose passion is analytical work to do the relationship building. Neither employee is going to be fully engaged in their work or motivated to do their best, but if the roles were reversed, imagine the potential!
“Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships.” –Michael Jordan
To turn your team into champions and highly engaged employees, contact me today to schedule your Team Strengths Coaching Workshop!
How does the Team Strengths Coaching Workshop work?
Prior to the workshop, I will meet separately with the Manager so I can be more effective in supporting the Manager and helping him/ her achieve his/ her goals. It will help me to learn more about the Manager, his/ her strengths, motivations and goals.
I will also help the Manager to
- Learn to appreciate his/ her strengths
- Learn how to apply strengths based development to develop his/ her team members
- Learn strategies to develop the strengths of the team
- Set goals for the workshop
During the workshop, the Manager and the Team will
- Learn to appreciate and utilise their own strengths
- Learn their team members’ strengths
- Learn potentially negative perceptions of team members’ strengths
- Learn how the different strengths work best together to become a more productive team
The workshop will be conducted thru a series of team building exercises, moderated facilitation, but most importantly, it is set up to have lots of fun in a casual environment!
I know I’ve had to go to my share of team building workshops, but I promise this will be different because everyone will walk away understanding themselves on a whole new level. As this workshop is more about the team members not just the company.
To learn more about developing your team into a strengths-based team and to schedule your Team Strengths Coaching Workshop, contact me today!