How to Manage a Large Team

By Alyssa Laffitte on November 8, 2019

Managing a team comes with many responsibilities. Leadership om any type of team requires skill. However, you need to be extra skilled to manage a large team. In this article, we will discuss how to manage a large team.

Image via Isorepublic.com

Communicate often with your group members

Of course, communication is pivotal in successfully managing a large team. How can your team be effective if they can’t communicate with you? For that reason, it’s important to create opportunities and channels for your team members to communicate with you. One opportunity to communicate with your team members is to hold regular team meetings. This meeting gives team members the chance to speak up on major issues or to celebrate successes. It’s also a good way for your team members to learn what their fellow teammates are working on. In order to run a large team, you should communicate often with your group members.

But don’t neglect one-on-one meetings

Although group meetings are important for successfully running a large team, you should not neglect one-on-one meetings with each of your team members in addition to regular group meetings. These are essential for a number of reasons. First, because one of your team members might not feel comfortable explaining an issue in front of the entire time. Second, it will make sure you are taking care of each of your team members. None of your team members want to feel like you are overlooking them due to the large size of the team. In other words, having one-on-one meetings regularly with each of your team members will help you effectively run your large team.

Use online messaging systems

As I established before, effective communication is especially important for managing a large team. As the leader of a large team, online group messaging systems can be very helpful. It’s a quick, easy way to communicate with your team members. It’s perfect if you need to send out a short message. You can use a medium such as WhatsApp or Slack. On Slack, you can even create separate channels to communicate only with a subset of your team members. (For example, you can contact those working on a specific project, rather than the entire team.) Take advantage of technology and use an online group messaging system to keep in contact with your team members!

Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks

A negative thing about managing a large team is that you will be very busy. However, a good thing about having a large team is having many people available to help you. If you cannot do something yourself, delegate it to one of your trusted team members. This way, you can focus your energy and time on doing the work only you can do. Delegating does not mean you are a bad team leader, it simply means you are focusing on the tasks that require most of your time and energy.

Encourage friendly relationships between team members

A big team means many friends! Co-workers don’t necessarily need to be best friends, but it’s nice to be friendly with fellow teammates. For that reason, you should encourage your team members to be social in a way that does not take away from their work time. For example, hosting holiday parties or going on outings (like apple picking) encourages the team to get to know their teammates better, but it does not take away from work time. Encouraging socialization between team members in this way will make them happier because they will start to befriend each other.

Know how to resolve conflict

Unfortunately, because you are managing a large team, you will likely need to deal with conflicts between your team members. Learn to be a good listener, to be neutral, and to have a “win-win” attitude (where both parties can get at least one little thing they want, rather than a “win-lose” attitude, where one person gets what they want, and the other person does not). Knowing how to resolve conflict will prevent much turmoil in your workplace.

Implement a mentoring system

Because you are managing a large team, you will likely not be able to mentor everyone yourself. Instead, implement a mentoring system, where more experienced team members mentor newer team members. You can also have the experienced team member report to you on the newer team member’s progress, so you can still stay informed on their progress despite not directly mentoring them. To implement a mentoring system, you should ask which of your team members would be willing to mentor newer members. If you think this person would be a good mentor, then assign them a mentee! When you implement a mentoring system, you can trust that newer team members are in good hands, even if they are not being mentored personally by you.

When more people are part of your team, it’s important to make sure you know how to lead them effectively.

Follow Uloop

Apply to Write for Uloop News

Join the Uloop News Team

Discuss This Article

Get College Recruiting News Monthly

Back to Top

Log In

Contact Us

Upload An Image

Please select an image to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format
OR
Provide URL where image can be downloaded
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format

By clicking this button,
you agree to the terms of use

By clicking "Create Alert" I agree to the Uloop Terms of Use.

Image not available.

Add a Photo

Please select a photo to upload
Note: must be in .png, .gif or .jpg format