Proper team management is the crux of a well-oiled workflow and a productive team. This blog post by Alicia Schneider highlights not only what good team management is but also how to achieve that and improve your own management skills. Team management covers not only the coordination of oneself and fellow members of the group, but also facilitating and supporting the members through communication and ensuring a healthy and positive work environment that uplifts and motivates all. Clear roles and tasks through delegation are vital in ensuring that everyone knows their job at the overarching goal, as well as giving credit and praise to those who deserve it for a job well done. There are multiple types of management styles, which include:
Autocratic: Managers make decisions without input from team members
Democratic: Team members share ideas and thoughts in decisions that will affect the team before coming to a consensus
Laissez-faire: The Manager allows the team to self-manage with only minor input
Transformational: Managers’ main goal is to inspire and motivate the team to innovate
Transactional: Reward and penalize team members based on their completion of tasks and following outlined instructions
Collaborative: Managers help the team to work together, while the team focuses on working together and making decisions as a group
Coach: Give guidance, support, and advice to team members to improve and develop skills
Servant: Predominantly focused on fostering the growth of the team members
I chose this topic because it aligns with the current lecture material, such as Scrum and Agile workflows. Team management is key for these. No matter one’s role, there is always self-management and teams working in such close collaboration that everyone is managing each other. While the role of leadership may be delegated to a predefined position in these structures, management still relies on communication between people, such as between developers in the Scrum workflow. After reading the blog post, my overall notion of team management has expanded in terms of how to develop my management ideas. I had originally just seen it as delegating tasks and facilitating discussion, but it is actually much deeper after reading. While I myself may not agree with all of the management styles, I find that there are things that can be pulled from them to become a more effective leader and supportive team member, such as fostering the growth of team members from the “Servant” style, which is a great idea to also implement with the “Coach” style of giving guidance and support. By blending the management styles like this, I believe that it will help to produce not only a more productive team but also a more positive environment with great morale. I look forward to implementing these ideas in my future teams I work in and may lead.
Work Cited:
Schneider, A. (2024, August 21). How to manage a team: 6 powerful tips for team management. Monday. October 22, 2025, https://monday.com/blog/teamwork/team-management/
From the blog CS@Worcester – Dan's Blog by Daniel Fung-A-Fat and used with permission of the author. All other rights reserved by the author.
