5 Management Challenges and How to Overcome Them

Whether you’re in management, working towards being in management, or are contemplating management, it’s good to know what challenges you may face so you can prepare to overcome them.

Managers can lead their teams to greatness and mentor their team members to help them achieve outstanding personal achievements, but it’s not all plain sailing.

Like any position, managers face challenges. Here are some examples of the challenges they currently face and some tips on how to overcome them.

1. Effective communication with the team

2. Evaluating and confronting performance problems

3. Hiring the right people

4. Managing conflicts within your team

5. Retaining star employees

1. Effective communication with the team

It’s not only managers who struggle with effectively communicating with a group of people. With the rise in remote or hybrid working and an increased reliance on digital methods of communication, we’re all getting worse at it.

Good managers, especially, need to develop advanced listening and speaking skills as they play a huge role in a team’s success and ability to grow. Lack of interdepartmental communication is the second largest cause of work-related stress in the UK (2020), stressing the importance of communication to improve your teams’ processes and protect your team’s mental health.

Tip: Everyone communicates differently. The key to excellent communication with your team is establishing how everyone likes to work. Some methods of communication may work with some team members and not so well with others.

Conduct some personality tests with your team and ask them how they prefer to work so you can work collaboratively most effectively.

2. Evaluating and confronting performance problems

As a manager, you need to confront any performance problems quickly. This is important not only to address the issues but also to help your employees improve on things that they may need assistance with.

Managers must have the right balance to get results and not damage internal relationships.

Tip: If your team doesn’t have clear targets and goals, it can be easy to fall short of expectations.

Ensure your teams know their targets and goals to stay motivated and keep up with what is expected of them. Knowing what your team needs to do makes it easier for you as a manager to monitor their performance and address any issues that may arise.

3. Hiring the right people

As an executive search company, we understand the challenges of finding and hiring the right people. Not only are you looking for the right skills and experience, but great managers should also look for the right cultural fit. Making the wrong hire can quickly disrupt your team’s performance.

Tip: Organise and plan your recruitment and interview process so you are fairly evaluating each candidate for the position. Also, try getting some of your team involved in the hiring process so you can see how well they get along with them.

4. Managing conflicts within your team

Dream teams get along, work collaboratively and are extremely productive; however, not everyone always works brilliantly together. When a conflict arises between two colleagues, it can often affect the whole team. 

When conflicts arise, it's important to deal with them swiftly and effectively. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to help resolve the issues.

Tip: If a conflict arises within your team, ensure you understand what is happening. Get both sides of the story and fully understand the issue before taking action. Try to spin the issue to make it positive—conflict can often spark innovative thinking.

Conduct fair and frank discussions and be the voice of reason. The better you handle conflicting situations, the quicker and more seamlessly they will be resolved.

5. Retaining star employees

Talented people are hard to come by, so people and companies work hard to retain them. If you're not offering employees what they're worth, someone else will.

Today's challenge is that there are thousands of opportunities but not enough great people, so you need to do everything you can as a manager to keep these people with you.

A further challenge when retaining great people is that remote working opens people up to even more opportunities as they are no longer limited by location.

Tip: Ask what your employees want. Do they want flexibility, more competitive salaries, or some unusual perks? You can't give employees what they want if you don't know.