The struggle of Team Management

Ever had trouble figuring out how to best manage your team?

Ever wondered why you didn’t get the results you hoped for?

You’re not the only one.

My First Management Experience

I got thrown in the deep for my first management position.

We were still a small startup figuring things out while we bootstrapped our way to growth. There was no formal management training, nor a seasoned team leader to learn from. There was a need to hire more people and get things done — so that was it.

I’ve made all the first-time manager mistakes imaginable, ranging from being too overprotective to being rather insensitive — usually expecting too much, too fast, without giving team members the proper guidance they needed.

Leading a team was much more difficult than I expected.

Even so, I loved it, and I don’t think I’ve ever learned as much about myself as I have while being a manager. Doing it well requires constant self-reflection. Whether or not your team feels supported, guided, heard, challenged, and set up for success — it all reflects back on you and your behaviour. And even though it can be confronting, it’s a great way to grow.

If you’re managing a team and are struggling, you’re not alone. Although often underestimated, team management is a skill — one that takes time and effort to learn to do well.

Looking back at my own experience, it took me a while to figure it out. Turns out, management doesn’t have as much to do with the team itself as you might expect, and has everything to do with your own behaviour.

I recall feeling that I had to come up with all the answers, while my ideal scenario was my team figuring it out on their own. But every time there was a problem to be solved, the team kept looking at me to find a way forward.

Slightly annoyed with the lack of input, it was tempting to look at my team members as the problem — doubting whether they had the right capabilities to come up with solutions. But it didn’t always involve the same team members and it happened across different projects. Although uncomfortable to admit, I was the only common denominator across all scenarios.

It was time to take a hard look in the mirror.

Multipliers vs. Diminishers

I started doing research to find ways to improve. One of the resources I stumbled upon — and which is now my main reading recommendation for managers — was Liz Wiseman’s book ‘Multipliers’, in which she shows how

“it isn’t just how intelligent your team members are; it is how much of that intelligence you [as a manager] can draw out and put to use.”

She distinguishes between two types of leaders. Multipliers — leaders who make the people around them better, and Diminishers — leaders who get in the way of their team’s full potential.

Luckily, most leaders are not one or the other. Many managers have lots of multiplier qualities, but sometimes still display tendencies that have diminishing effects. The key is to figure out which behaviours might be troublesome.

Through Liz Wiseman’s book and lots of self-reflection, I figured out that I had some tendencies that did not help my team speak up. My intention of keeping the organisation moving at a rapid pace, made me provide solutions before people had a fair chance of chiming in. Do that too often, and they will just stop trying — which is exactly what happened.

Experimenting with New Methods

Realising that my behaviour directly resulted in output I didn’t want, I started experimenting with new ways of doing things. The change that made the biggest difference for me, was switching from bringing in ideas to just asking questions. Instead of giving options of what we could do next, I’d ask: “what do you think we should do?”, creating space for other people’s input.

It sounds so simple, but I was so used to quickly sharing solutions, that I had to bite my tongue a million times. And even now, years later, I still occasionally take more space than is helpful — it remains an effort.

I’ve learned that becoming a more effective manager is not an overnight activity and that it requires constant self-reflection and adjustment.

Once I started looking in the mirror critically — really ready to uncover some uncomfortable truths about the effects of my approach — my effectiveness as a manager rapidly improved.