How do you manage a team?

Managing a team means more than organizing resources: it means creating an environment where every person contributes to a shared success. Strong, inclusive leadership is the key to turning a group into a cohesive team focused on results.

Inclusion encourages discussion, creativity and innovation. Fostering constructive dialogue and valuing what is unique in each person leads to original solutions and a more resilient organization.

The article also looks at engagement and feedback, two crucial elements of good management. Leading a team means bringing out each member’s potential, balancing motivation and well-being to reach goals that last.

Managing a team well is one of the most important tasks for a manager or business owner who wants to keep a clear, consistent view of the goals to reach. Solid leadership combined with balanced management builds a workplace that supports productivity, cohesion and innovation. This article looks at how well-structured management can align staff, collaborators and a company’s key people, for performance that is successful and sustainable. Managing a team is not only about allocating resources and monitoring performance; it also takes the ability to inspire, involve and motivate team members toward shared company goals. A leader has to recognize each member’s potential, value it and channel it toward a shared vision.

Inclusion and motivation: creating an environment of intellectual honesty

Inclusion is without doubt one of the key aspects of managing a team. According to Carolyn O’Hara, creating a workplace where everyone feels included is not only a moral imperative but a crucial factor in company performance. Research by the Catalyst Research Center found that employees who feel included are more productive, more loyal and more willing to work hard for the company’s success. Setting nonprofits aside for a moment, every company that competes in the market every day would do well to reflect on the role of conflict. Legitimizing a fair, honest and constructive exchange of opinions, and questioning some of the dogmas and “psychic prisons” of daily operations, can in some cases strongly boost inclusion among all staff, in senior positions as well as in middle and lower management. Every organization should therefore encourage a balanced, dynamic exchange of ideas, where the energy comes from discussion, so that each person feels part of the group and at the same time recognized for the uniqueness of their thinking.

Promoting inclusion is not only a matter of fairness; it is also strategic for creativity and innovation. A company may (or must) decide, for many reasons, to introduce a new process or product, and in doing so it can be good practice to consult the staff and, in particular, the managers, especially when the change is imposed from outside (by external factors or new regulations). When people feel valued for who they are and trust that their opinion counts, they are more willing to step in constructively, to improve or to criticize new things of any kind.

An inclusive, open culture lets the organization make full use of what every employee thinks, turning a diversity of perspectives into a resource for the whole organization. An inclusive team is also a resilient team, able to face change more objectively and more effectively thanks to a plurality of views. When it is the middle managers themselves who hold change back, we speak of a frozen middle.

Why engagement matters

Before talking about conflict and involvement, everyone in the organization needs to be “rowing in the same direction.” This is where people’s engagement plays an important role. In Herzberg’s terms, if the hygiene factors can be taken for granted here (stable pay, job security, clarity about what the company does, fair treatment in general), the so-called motivators are what add value to a person’s staying on a team. In some professional settings the former may weigh more than the latter, and in others the reverse. Still, as Ryan Fuller and Nina Shikaloff point out, engagement is not the same as productivity. Many companies measure engagement through surveys of employee satisfaction or emotional investment, but these measures can mislead if they are not combined with concrete behavioral data. In a study of two Fortune 100 companies, for example, one showed a strong correlation between hours worked and engagement, while the other showed no apparent link. This suggests that high satisfaction does not necessarily mean higher productivity, and that managers need to look beyond traditional engagement metrics to understand each person’s real contribution and how it affects results. A lack of involvement leads people to stay in the organization in body, not in spirit: work loses its meaning without engagement, and what remains is no personal contribution, just a commercial exchange of work for pay.

Engagement goes beyond job satisfaction: it involves the emotional and cognitive bond between employee and organization. It is the manager’s job to turn the positive energy of that bond into concrete actions and productive behavior that bring value to the company, giving people the tools, support and opportunities to grow that they need to reach their full potential. One key is making sure employees have a clear understanding of their role and of how it fits the company’s strategic vision. When people understand how their contribution matters and how it is part of the organization’s success, they are more motivated to commit. Equally important, as many recent reports on young people’s priorities in choosing a job have shown, is the balance between engagement and workload. As the study of the two Fortune 100 companies showed, too heavy a load can reduce engagement, leading to lower productivity and a higher risk of burnout. Managers therefore need to watch their people’s well-being closely and make sure engagement is both productive and sustainable over time, so that the wish to contribute does not turn into overload. A workplace that supports a healthy balance between work and private life keeps the group motivated and productive.

The human side of team success: treating talent as individuals

An essential step in turning a group of people into a truly cohesive, organized team, alongside the formal structures of the org chart and job descriptions, is building the necessary bond between department heads and the people in operations. Talent can sit at any level of the organization, but even the best professionals, however skilled in their roles, are not enough on their own to make a team successful and consistently motivating. Roger L. Martin, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, developed three basic rules for managing high-level talent productively as part of a team.

The first is to treat people as individuals, not as members of a class. The best talents do not want to feel like “one of many”; they want recognition for their unique contribution and the value they bring. It is up to the organization’s leaders to recognize each person’s needs and ambitions, so that a bond of mutual trust and loyalty forms and, above all, so that talent becomes more visible the more it is put at the service of the group to improve overall performance.

Then there need to be chances for continuous growth. High-level talents keep looking for new tests of their abilities. A good manager has to be willing to offer them, even when that involves risk. That is why the manager has to assess people’s skills and readiness carefully, giving them tasks that are challenging but realistic. New, demanding tasks not only motivate talented people; they also help them grow professionally and strengthen the organization. In parallel, investing in benefits linked to ongoing training has a double benefit: it enriches the worker or manager with skills and knowledge, which they in turn bring back to the company, in a win-win exchange.

Managing talent individually is not only about offering the right opportunities but also about recognizing success. The importance of positive feedback should not be underestimated: even the best talents need to feel appreciated and recognized for their effort, especially after facing particularly hard challenges. As Martin stresses, recognition should be genuine and personal, avoiding generic formulas that may sound insincere. Effective feedback is specific, focused on the results achieved and on the behaviors that led to them, so that the person can keep improving and contributing to the company’s success.

Finally, leadership has to create an environment where every talent feels free to share ideas and take the initiative. As discussed above, a continuous exchange of views and an open, honest dialogue can make staff aware that they matter to the team and, as a direct result, willing to take on responsibility on the basis of the trust that has formed. A manager who treats talents as unique individuals, offering chances to grow and recognizing their successes, will build a motivated, loyal, high-performing team.

Feedback that is positive, and also constructive

Evaluating is a complex task that an organization’s top management, like a company’s board of shareholders, has to carry out often. Evaluating people’s work matters a great deal, both in aggregate (an office, a division, the whole company) and individually. It is just as important to be objective, especially given the delicate balance between a focus on people and a focus on results. In an article, Steven DeMaio shows how too much positivity (or, better, too strong a focus on people) can backfire, creating a climate of superficiality and lack of objectivity that prevents people from really growing. The key is first to balance the two orientations, toward results and toward people, in the short and the medium-to-long term, and, closely linked to that, to recalibrate evaluations and feedback. The optimum lies in a balance between positive and critical feedback, giving genuine recognition along with concrete suggestions for improvement.

A good manager also knows that feedback must be specific and in context, not generic. Telling someone their work is “fantastic” or “a disaster” without details makes the feedback ineffective. Pointing out exactly what worked well or badly, and how that behavior could or could not be repeated, is far more useful for the person’s growth. It is just as important to identify areas for improvement clearly and give practical suggestions on how to meet the challenges, an essential practice for the progress of the individual and of the whole team.

Finally, it is up to managers’ sensitivity and maturity, and to people’s receptiveness, to create an environment where feedback is seen as an opportunity for ongoing growth rather than as a passing, sterile criticism. To do this, managers have to build a climate of trust and openness, where people feel free to raise concerns and ask for support. Effective feedback is a two-way dialogue, in which both manager and employee can learn and improve. Continuous feedback, rather than feedback limited to formal moments, makes it possible to deal with problems promptly and reinforce good practices, helping individuals grow and consolidating the team’s expertise.

Fast, two-way feedback needs trust and openness

In the daily exchange between a company and its people (managers, executives, factory workers and skilled staff), feedback has to be a two-way process, in which both manager and employee can talk openly, enriching the company and benefiting each other. A climate of trust, as discussed above, makes for an honest discussion in which even constructive criticism is received as an opportunity to grow rather than as a personal attack.

Being two-way should never rule out another crucial aspect of feedback: timeliness. There is no point in waiting for the formal annual review to give feedback; it is more effective to step in when a behavior happens, positive or negative. This immediate approach helps the person understand the context and apply corrections or repeat the positive behavior quickly. Immediate feedback is more easily understood and absorbed than a late comment that may seem out of context.

Aligning the team: a shared vision and transparent communication

To align a team, all its members need to share a clear view of the company’s goals and understand how their own work contributes to the organization’s overall success. Open, transparent communication is one of the most powerful tools for this alignment. It is up to the company’s leadership to translate strategic directions into understandable language, breaking them down into clearly identifiable tasks and operations and, above all, explaining the reasons for the choices made. Every person should also have access to the information needed for their daily work, so they can understand how their work fits into the larger mechanism of the organization.

A shared vision is therefore not just a theoretical idea: it has to be translated into clear goals, with tangible, measurable metrics. Every team member should know exactly what is expected of them and how their work fits into the business strategy. Clear, steady communication helps keep the focus on results, avoiding distractions and misunderstandings that could hurt the team’s performance.

Sharing the strategy requires management to speak (to convey strategy and goals) and to listen (to take in what the other side says) in a balanced way. Managers who listen actively and stay informed about daily operations, asking for input and valuing each person’s contribution, build trust and commitment among employees and create an environment where ideas flow freely and solutions come from shared work. Including the different perspectives of team members makes the company more responsive and flexible in the face of change, increasing its adaptability and resilience.

People for the organization (and vice versa)

No company or organization can be separated from the cultural, social, relational and regulatory context it operates in. Still, the ideas we have looked at above apply across contexts, and they are a powerful tool in the hands of anyone who leads and manages a group of people. They are a “toolbox” of ideas and concepts, widely used and proven, that change the way people see themselves in the company and, above all, if applied with persistence and method, change the company itself from within.

Competent management cannot look only at the numbers, which are the result of past operations; it has to think broadly about the people and the actions they need to take, which are the cause and the reason for future numbers. People are the company’s structural frame, a delicate mechanism that whoever sees the company from above can keep improving and making more efficient and effective.

In an increasingly complex, competitive economy, managers need to create a workplace that not only motivates employees but makes them aware that they are a structural, necessary part of the growth of the company, organization or institution. Only then will it be possible to build a cohesive, high-performing team, able to withstand the changes to come.

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