Getting Started
Use this guide to refresh yourself of the basics and follow the key actions to keep yourself on track… and make a few notes as you go – they’ll be useful to refer back to.
Before we dive in, ask yourself a few simple questions:
What do you look for in a manager?
What sort of working environment works best for you?
How would someone get the best out of you?
What makes the biggest difference in your relationship with a boss?
And if you're wondering, most people tend to answer with things like:
'I want my manager to get to know me as a person, to understand what's important to me and to make me feel listened to'
'A good manager gives me space to do my job and is there to support me when I need advice or help'
'A good leader cares for their people and is honest / genuine'
'A good leader helps us get to know each other and work well together as a team - our relationships are as important as the work we do'
'A good manager makes time for decent conversations so we have enough time to talk and discuss what's important to me about the work I do'
Your own answers to these questions are probably a pretty good starting point for how to work as a team manager.
While everyone's different and you'll need to learn to accommodate a variety of personalities and working styles, aiming to be the sort of manager that you'd be happy to work for yourself might be a good place to start and it'll help you focus on a few ways of working and regular actions for the people in your team.
Here are 7 ways to get going as a leader in UHB...
...and that will help you as you develop your management experience:
01.Set A Direction
A clear direction and a shared purpose means the people in a team point in the same direction and understand the part they each individually play in the team's success. That way, everyone can work together to achieve some shared objectives and goals because everyone understands what the target is.
Making sure that your team is on the same page is the foundation that everything else will be built on.
Questions
- What's the purpose of your team and how does it make a difference in UHB / support the Trust's vision?
- How does your team impact patient experience (even if you're not directly interacting with patients and their families)?
- How do you want your team to be working 12 months from now?
- How do you want people to be behaving?
- How do you want them to feel about being in your team?
- What do you want your results to look like?
- How do you want other people to describe your team?
Actions
- Arrange a team meeting and share your goal(s) for the team
- Ask your team to develop / improve / build on the goals you've created
- Chat to your team about how you want them to behave
- Talk together about how you can make the goals happen
- Does anything need to change in the ways you work together?
- Use the headlines of your answers to the questions to establish your team goal(s) for the next few months
02. Management vs. Leadership
The role of a Team Manager can be split into Management and Leadership responsibilities.
A helpful way to think of it is this - Management is doing what you have to do... and Leadership is improving how you're doing it.
Management covers the activities, processes and responsibilities that you have to organise, deliver and make happen each week - a bit like making sure the engine in your car is running smoothly.
Leadership covers the things that build, develop and improve the way you're working as a team and anything that supports your journey - a bit like driving your car efficiently and making sure you get somewhere!
Questions
- How much time are you giving to leading alongside managing when it comes to your team?
- In your 1:1 and team conversations, are you giving enough time to thinking about how to improve the way things are done alongside getting all your tasks ticked off the pad?
- In terms of your team's performance, what does each person need from you in order to reach their potential (hint: it's Leadership!)
Actions
- Take time in your team meetings to discuss how to improve things, even if they're going well
- Make sure your own personal schedule has enough time in it for you to think / plan and come up with ideas to make things work better
- Think like a leader. Don’t just manage activity - try and take your team somewhere in terms of their individual and group performance
03. Know Your People
Getting to know the people in your team is a really important part of being their manager. In a Trust like UHB, the work we do and day-to-day pressures can mean 'the work' can often take over, but if you ask people what keeps them going in the NHS they always say one thing - the people they work with.
For many of us, it's our relationships that keep us going in the work we do and it makes a massive difference when people in a team feel known, understood and appreciated by their manager.
Make sure you know your people, understand what's important to them and work hard to remember the small things that make a big difference to each of them.
Questions
- What do you know about each of the people in your team, their families, their friends, their hobbies and interests and what's important to them?
Actions
- Book time on a 1:1 basis with each of your team and focus on getting to know them
- Note down the things they tell you are important to them. Ask them about them regularly and show you're genuinely interested
- Note down any dates that are important to them e.g. birthdays, anniversaries, special events
- Say thank you whenever someone does good for the team or our patients. Be specific and genuine...and look them in the eye when you say thank-you.
04. Plan Your Time
Most of our schedules are crazy and we've normally got more to do than we can fit in a single day or week. At the same time, we often find a way to make room for 'urgent' things or last-minute requests - we move things around, pause activities or stop one thing so we can work on another.
When there's an emergency, we also tend to find a way to re-arrange our work and make time for something that's urgent, or for important meetings that someone says we have to be at.
Problem is, we tend not to view the important elements of leading a team as 'urgent' - they get put to the bottom of the pile and then tend not to happen... things like:
- Thinking time / planning / reviewing
- Having decent 1:1s and performance conversations with the team
- Making sure everyone's ok
- Saying thank-you
- Personal development and training
- Reading / watching / listening to things that will help us do our job's better
Questions
- How much time each week gets taken up with last minute or urgent request that you have to respond to?
- What do you do to make time for those things in your schedule?
- What would it be like if you pretended the things in the list above were as urgent as your operational tasks so you made sure you gave time to them?
Actions
- Get active with your diary and take responsibility for what's in it. Make sure you plan in time for the elements above
- Plan time in your diary each week as 'blank space' where you have no meetings, no activities and no requests. It might just be half an hour and you might have to move it around from week to week, but having a few regular minutes planned for thinking and reflection will help get you back on track when you need it...and it'll make a long-term difference to the way you lead your team
- Keep a journal of your work diary for a couple of weeks and colour code the various activities:
- Normal duties
- Time with my team
- Meetings
- Admin
- Training & Development
- Urgent requests
- Blank space
- Take a look at the different colours. Notice what they tell you about the way you're working and chat it through with your own line manager - do you need to make any adjustments
05. 1:1s & Check-Ins
It makes a difference to nearly everyone in a team when they have regular and good quality conversations with their line manager and get a chance to talk about what's important to them and how things are going in the job they do.
For some reason, many managers see 1:1s and check-in conversations as optional and something to do 'when things are less busy.'
They're not (and of course, things are never any less busy!)
1:1s are important conversations and should be a priority for any manager leading a team of people.
Questions
- What does it feel like when you don't have enough 1:1s and check-ins with your own manager?
- What's it like when a manager cancels or keeps moving a 1:1 conversation?
- When’s the last time you chatted on a 1:1 basis with each person in your team?
Actions
- Plan time to have at least a check-in conversation with everyone in your team at least once a month
- Set a goal to never cancel a 1:1 with any of your team, or only move an arranged conversation once (we all know what that feels like when it happens to us). Tell your team about the goal and discuss how to make it happen alongside the regular pressures of the work you're all doing.
- For each person in your team, think about balancing personal and professional boundaries. In your conversations, make sure you're approachable and friendly and gain your team's trust and respect by being reliable, consistent and by doing what you say you'll do...but watch out not to become too closely involved or overly-personal with the team. Keep a professional distance while not being stand-offish (sometimes it's best to leave the works drinks early!)
06. Meeting As a Team
Just like 1:1s, check-ins and thinking time, it's easy to push team meetings and group conversations down the list in favour of more urgent operational activity each week...but again, team meetings are important - they can act as reset moments and a place where you can communicate important messages to everyone at the same time and also have decent conversations together on the issues, challenges and opportunities of the day.
Make sure team meetings are a regular feature of your working rhythm each month and make them a conversation not a broadcast. Give time and space for people to chat together, rather than using them only to communicate on a one-way basis.
Questions
- Think about team meetings that you've enjoyed or felt engaged in. How did they work, how were they run and what was the vibe and tone? Try and follow that approach in your own meetings - it'll probably work for the people in your team too!
Actions
-
- Plan regular time for team conversations and make sure you leave enough space for a conversation
- Prepare beforehand - think about what you need to talk about and how long to leave for each subject area
- Create the right atmosphere - be upbeat and hi-energy and act as though you want to be there - your team will really notice!
- Start some meetings with a few minutes checking in to find out how people are and what's going on for them - don’t be too quick to dive into business
- Ask people what they want / need to chat through alongside your planned subjects / agenda - make it a 'team' meeting rather than just your meeting
- Get other people involved in leading some of the discussions or conversation - it'll help everyone feel more involved
- Make team meetings a regular part of the way things run each week/month in your team. This will help people get used to them and feel increasingly relaxed when you meet regularly as a larger group
07. Review... and Go Again
This one's pretty simple. Once you've worked through each of the previous six areas, take some time out to review how things are going and then reset and go again in terms of adjusting the direction for you and your team.
This seventh point is easy to forget, but regularly reviewing your progress is like pausing on a long journey and taking some time to refuel, reset, rest and focus on the next section of the trip - you'll feel refreshed, energised and have clarity on the things you next need to focus on.
Questions
- How have things been going?
- What's working well?
- What's not working?
- Where could you or do you need to make improvements?
- Have you achieved the goals / targets you set at the beginning?
- If yes, set some new goals that build on all you've achieved so far
- If no, re-plan and focus on the things you haven't delivered yet
Actions
- Note down your headline answers from the questions shown here
- Share them with your team and invite them to give their perspectives
- Chat through any improvements you can make to the way you're working as a team e.g.
- Things to start doing:
- Things to stop doing:
- Things to continue / improve:
- Chat as a team to agree your priorities and discuss how you're going to work together to make them happen
Further Resources
Use this guide to refresh yourself on each of the 7 ways and dip in and out of it when you need to get back on track
Take time each week to reflect on your own leadership and think about ways to keep developing to be a better manager. If you haven’t already, check out some of the latest content from Building Healthier Teams to support you in leading your team.
Ask others for their advice and talk to leaders that you trust to hear how they do things. And finally… never stop learning. Good Luck!
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