You’re a new manager with a team to lead. How can you develop your team members’ skills?

As a new manager, fostering the growth of your team members' skills is crucial. Start by understanding each individual's strengths and areas for improvement. Encourage open communication and feedback to identify their career aspirations and learning goals. Provide opportunities for skill-building through training programs, workshops, and mentorship. Delegate tasks that align with their development objectives, offering guidance and support as needed. Recognize and celebrate their progress to keep them motivated. By investing in their growth, you'll not only enhance their skills but also build a stronger, more cohesive team.

Regelm??ige Gespr?ch geben beiden Seiten die M?glichkeit Vertrauen aufzubauen und eine offene Kommunikation mit Blick auf die pers?nlichen Ziele und realistischen M?glichkeiten zu etablieren. Eine profunde St?rkenanalyse kann ein guter Anfang sein, daher mit Neugier für sich unterschiedliche Tools nutzen (Gallup etc.), alles immer auf freiwilliger Basis. Damit beginnt der wesentliche und für die Zukunft wichtigste Teil der pers?nlichen Entwicklung: Selbstreflektion. Damit beginnt auch die Unterscheidung in Selbst- und Fremdwahrnehmung, die eine gute Basis für die weitere Entwicklung ist.

When assessing strengths and development gaps with your team, I always recommend realizing that none of us is perfect, either. Encouraging self-reflection, feedback loops, and investing in ongoing one-on-one conversations can be huge catalysts for setting your team members up for success. Ask questions, lead with curiosity, and highlight progress being made, no matter how incremental it might be. We all learned to walk one step at a time, and then were celebrated with every, single, step that was made by those around us who believed in us, encouraged us, and guided us. Be that for your team members: Human Being > Human Doing.

Evaluate the current skills of your team members.Identify their strengths,weaknesses,and create a development plan accordingly.Communicate your expectations and goals for the team,ensure that each member understands their role in achieving them.Offer training programs, workshops,other learning opportunities to help your team members develop their skills. Encourage them to attend conferences,webinars,other industry events to stay up-to-date with the latest trends and best practices.Encourage your team members to work together and learn from each other. This will help them develop their communication, problem-solving,teamwork skills.Provide feedback to your team members on their performance,offer guidance on how they can improve their skills.

The approach of understanding your team's current skills and motivations is crucial since it not only helps in tailoring individual growth plans but also ensures that these plans are aligned with organizational goals. By engaging in regular dialogue and feedback, managers can foster a culture of continuous improvement and personal investment in the team's success. This method strengthens the team's cohesion and productivity by leveraging individual strengths towards common objectives.

As a new manager learning about your team, providing ongoing feedback and coaching can pay huge dividends if committed to doing so consistently. Here’s my take on 3 ways to incorporate this into your own development as a new leader: (1) Psychological Safety – create a safe space for your team members to share their concerns, challenges, and ideas, by encouraging ownership in their role. (2) Individualized Approach – learn about the human being side of your team members. What interests them? What do they believe are their strengths? Where do they want to grow? (3) Be Committed – stay consistent with one-on-ones, and use the time instead of being used by it. Stay flexible, yet consistent so that there is opportunity for good surprises.

At the heart of it, both you and your team share a common goal; to achieve success and deliver exceptional work. By integrating feedback into conversations regularly rather than solely addressing issues as they arise, you foster a culture of continuous improvement without the negative connotations often associated with feedback. As a new leader, it's essential to not only identify areas for improvement but also to recognize and celebrate successes. This approach nurtures a culture of ongoing enhancement without imposing undue pressure. While feedback may carry negative connotations for some, embracing a constructive feedback loop can transform it into a tool for growth and development.

Feedback als Teil der Fremdwahrnehmung muss gewollt sein. Wenn es konstruktiv und gut formuliert ist, kann es helfen die Perspektive auf das eigene Verhalten zu erweitern. Als Führungskraft sollte man nicht ohne fundiertes Wissen "coachen" und selbst ein sehr reflektierter Mensch sein und Menschen m?gen.

Eine klar kommunizierte Erwartungshaltung zu den Zielen ist erforderlich und übungssache. Soweit m?glich & hilfreich ebenso definierte Arbeitspakete. Bis sich das zwischen Führungskraft und Team und innerhalb des Teams eingespielt hat, kann es dauern ;-)! Ein entspannter Umgang mit Mi?verst?ndnissen und die Zusammenfassung des "Geh?rten" helfen. Nicht vor der vereinbarten Abgabezeit eingreifen, evtl. zum Stand nachfragen und vor allem immer anbieten bei Fragestellungen ein "offenes Ohr" zu haben. Ergebnisse gemeinsam besprechen und als Führungskraft aushalten, dass viele Wege nach Rom führen.

One of the best ways to learn and develop new skills is to do them. When you delegate tasks to your team you not only are giving them the opportunity to grow, but you are also empowering them to make take responsibility and make decisions that affect the rest of the team. Delegation and empowerment builds their confidence as they gain experience. Be sure to create a safe place for them to learn from their mistakes. Ask for their input as to what they think went wrong and how they might improve upon it. This will help them improve their skills and their decision making ability.

As a new manager, you can help your team grow and develop by delegating opportunities and empowering them to succeed with your support. Understand where they are on how they feel at their best in ways that their leader “shows up” for them. Beginning by letting go of your own expectations, and understanding theirs, will do wonders for the engagement of your team members. Here’s my take on 3 ways to do that: (1) Share resources and guidance – offer what you know, what you don’t, and learn together on what you discover. (2) Celebrate effort and ownership – when others take the opportunity to succeed (or fail forward), honor that sense of ownership by celebrating it. (3) Clear lens – define expectations, desired outcomes, and your support.

Offering training and mentoring to your team is like giving your video game characters epic power-ups. Your team members are already awesome players (skilled employees), but training and mentoring can take them to the next level! Training equips them with new abilities (increased knowledge), while mentoring gives them valuable experience points (practical advice from a pro). Bonus "Ado" Tip: Don't force-feed your team power-ups (training) they don't need! Just like in a game, identify your team members' weaknesses (areas for improvement). By tailoring training and mentoring to their specific needs, you'll help them develop well-rounded skillsets and become high-performing employees.

Offering training and mentoring to (and among) team members is such a win-win proposition. We can all benefit from knowledge sharing opportunities, and it adds greater job enrichment to the roles we are currently in. (1) Identify what’s needed - what is everyone desiring more experience in? (2) Identify what’s wanted - what does each team member want more experience in? (3) Identify what we have - what unique skillsets do each of us have? (4) Identify matches of those among the team members (5) Mentor one another in and among those previous 4 responses.

As a leader responsible for new team members, the best way to help develop their skills is to have a conversation centered around what they believe they excel at, coupled with what skills they have identified as opportunities to learn more about. An impactful reflection exercise is to have them identify specific examples from each of those buckets, and create a simple development plan incorporating those skills. When you have completed this exercise with each team member, pair them up with another team member where each will benefit in knowledge sharing. This not only builds trust and psychological safety within your time, but also begins to cultivate a culture of lifelong learning and connection.

Developing team skills can begin with meeting others where they are at versus where you want them to be. Once needed/desired skills have been identified, coupling those learning needs with development desires will do wonders for engagement and job enrichment. Now here's the part with the biggest opportunity: celebrate the successes! Recognition for their investment in development can come in so many forms, the least of which is how they want to be recognized. Everyone has preferences, so check with your team. Public/written praise is not desired by everyone and can be recognized privately, but for those who do, highlighting these development accomplishments during team meetings or through company recognition avenues would be a great start!

I would suggest to do a Lego Serious Play "Real Time Strategy for the Team" Workshop. It is designed to go into depth of each personality and makes the strength of each team member, visible, builds a socal bond by doing a hands on workshop together and targets to build a common understanding of the teams tasks and targets as well as defining the responsibilities. It is a perfect kick off for every executive / leader to get to know the people in the team as well as the team to understand get to know each other and themselves better.