Whether you’ve recently been promoted or you’ve been a manager for years, overseeing a team of employees isn’t always easy. Regardless of your profession and your industry, it can be difficult to know how to balance meeting company goals, keeping your team motivated, giving individual attention to each team member, and completing your own work effectively.

While there’s no one right way to manage a team, there are four components that can help guide you to become an effective leader. If you’re not sure how to be a good manager, start by considering how you approach these elements:

Organizing your team

When it comes to effectively organizing your team, start by clearly defining each employee’s responsibilities, mapping out processes for completing work, and ensuring that a hierarchy is in place. Simply stated, each team member should know what their role consists of, how to complete their work, and who to go to with questions.

In addition to the basics, employees should be aware of each team member’s workload and responsibilities. When becoming a manager, utilizing a task management solution like Monday or Asana can help streamline these processes, keep everyone in the loop, and ensure you stay updated on everyone’s progress.

Communicating among team members

Open communication is the foundation of a good team, and as a manager, it is your responsibility to ensure that your team can communicate well—not just with each other, but with other departments.

To start, ensure that you have established processes for reporting and feedback. As a manager, you should be providing feedback on your team’s performance on a consistent basis. Additionally, holding regular meetings—both for the team and one-on-one—will give everyone the opportunity to stay in the loop and voice their opinions.

Keeping an open door policy with your employees is another good step to take when becoming a manager. This will ensure that any issues that arise are brought to your attention. Plus, building this type of trust on an individual level can lead to increased employee retention and job satisfaction.

Motivating employees

Motivating your team is an ongoing responsibility that requires a unique strategy for each individual employee. First, ensure that you are taking the time to listen to each employee and making the effort to build trust with them. The more you learn about their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their career goals, the more you can adapt your communication toward that employee.

In addition to more personal communication, ensure that you are transparent about company operations, team goals, and the path forward. This information will help the team see their impact on the organization, which might motivate them to work harder.

Finally, offer opportunities to those team members who show their potential—rewarding good work. When your team hits an important goal, meets a tight deadline, or simply exceeds expectations, they should know how much their work is appreciated. Read also: 5 Employee Appreciation Ideas To Boost Engagement

Skill development for staff

Developing the skills of your employees is not only critical to retention, but to the long-term success of your team. While you may wonder, “What if I train my employees on new skills and they leave?” Consider this: what if you don’t train them and they stay? It is a valuable investment in your team to build new skills that will enhance your operations and create more opportunities for success.

To offer valuable training, you must not only understand the interests of each employee, but how they can fit into larger departmental or company goals. Where those intersect are the perfect opportunities to train top employees. Not only does this motivate team members to build their own skills, but it can help your department have a greater impact on the company’s larger goals. Read also: 3 Ways To Develop Future Company Leaders