Stressed and depressed even when you are the boss? Yes, I get you – says the boss, idly sitting and checking Frontier Internet plans from a nice little office. No doubt that team leading is difficult. With authority comes responsibility too. When you lead, you must keep the work going and check if it is done on time, by every single member of the team.
Even when you are not the boss, it is not easy to work with different kinds of people or to deal with different mindsets. So during every teamwork, such challenges arise. But don’t worry, because we got you covered. Here are the 7 management challenges, and of course, the solutions.
Building Trust
When it comes to teamwork, building trust among team members is the foremost task. Every team works as a unit, and the team leader works as the nucleus for their team. When you are the team leader or even a member, it is good to start the process of building trust in your team members.
Solution: Start by giving them little snippets of information which they already do not know, or share jokes. This makes the boss, who in other scenarios the machine who orders you to work, look more like a human. Your team starts the sharing too and the working environment becomes pleasant.
Keep the Good Communication Going
It is rightly said that good communication is the key to every successful relationship, work or personal. When you start working with a team, it sometimes gets difficult to communicate clearly your point to every single member of the team. Mostly, vague instructions lead to poorly done work.
Solution: Communicate, communicate, and communicate! We cannot stress this more. Communication sometimes looks like a hassle when you are working with a big team, but there are ways to manage it. Make social media groups so that you can reach your team members anytime you want. Email groups, mobile phone workgroups, and desktop group work tools also help.
Deadlines Not Met!
Scary situation! Mostly teams face such situations while working, because most of the time, there is lots and lots of work to be done, and so many people to keep on with while you do it. When you are working in a team, there is no solo working. You have to keep your working speed aligned with the rest of your team. And that sometimes ends up you missing your deadlines, while you were busy making others complete their work on time.
Solution: Arrange big-lettered calendars arranged for your table, or the work area where your team accumulates to work together. Even if the joint meeting happens once in a day, you get to see the marked calendar, and that reminds you of your deadlines coming up. There’s no chance you can miss them now.
Working over/under your potential
There are all types of members in a team. And as most of them are not robots, work ethics and potentials often get ignored by the team leader (and sometimes by the worker himself!). Team workers often face the problems of manipulative bosses, credit baggers, late-arriving sloths, negative feedbacks givers, blame-game players, etc., and it becomes very stressful to work under such circumstances.
Solution: At the very start of your work, it is important to clarify the team vision and ethics. Let your team members know about the measures taken by the company to promote good work ethics. Also, mention time by time the parameters set by your company that ensure equal working responsibility division. All this makes it clear to all the team members that they are checked, and it is important to fulfill their responsibilities.
Assigning Equal Amount of Work
A frequent complaint that you get to hear around a workplace is about a co-worker doing less and still getting credit for it. It is very common to happen when you are working as a team because it is not possible for the boss to assign the same work to every team member (well, that is why he chose different people to do the job, after all!).
Solution: Well, you cannot assign the same work to every member, but you can make sure to assign the same quantity of work to each of your team members. It is necessary to plan and divide the workload equally among all your team workers. It develops a sense of equality and justice, and the quality of the work done automatically improves.
Delayed Decision-Making
Team members often face the difficulty of making prompt and accurate decisions. When you work in a team and you have to make decisions regarding the work you are doing, it involves asking for consent from every team member.
Solution: Here the boss has to lead, and make it clear to the team members that the work decisions need to be timely made. Also, there is no need to include every member in every little decision making process, as it delays work and is unnecessary. If possible, assign relevant decision-making to the concerned person in the team only. For example, if I were working for the Frontier Internet Customer Service, I wouldn’t be expected to make a decision regarding their office interiors. Similarly, decision-making should be limited to concerned team members only.
