Team Management for Account Managers

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One skill candidates often don't put a focus on when applying for an account manager job in London is the skill of team management. In many cases, managers-to-be are keen to demonstrate their aptitude for sales skills, for client relations, and for handling the minutiae and ins-and-outs of the account. However, one skill many candidates don't seem to put so much emphasis on is that of team management, or even some of the basic principles of leadership and motivation. While account managers can oversee every detail of their accounts themselves, often a manager will need an effective team around them to create the best value for clients, and ultimately keep the relationships beneficial for both sides.

Motivation

One of the key tasks of an account manager job in London, especially where many team members may always have an eye on alternative career prospects, is to make team members want to actively participate in working to further the account. One good strategy to achieve this goal is to identify a source of motivation team members might not find in their regular work. Among these options, two choices that can often be easy to emphasise in management are challenge and meaning.

Work for clients can provide additional challenges to overcome, or challenges can be set to find new opportunities within day-to-day work. Meaning is often overlooked when dealing with clients - it's easy to lose sight of the significance of the work a team undertakes. Effective managers work at helping their team find both challenge and meaning in their work - therefore enabling their best performance.

Attributes

In order to be successful when applying for an account manager job in London, a few key principles of team management should be kept in mind to ensure optimum performance. Effective account managers work hard to provide opportunities and recognition for members of their team, including creating new contacts to allow their team to function effectively, and in some cases autonomously, in order to allow the manager time to oversee different aspects of a client's accounts and have time to assess a client's needs.

Another principle is that of maximsing the contact with the account managers team. Demonstrating a personal interest in team members face-to-face can help motivate enthusiastic commitment to the account. It can be a challenge for an account manager to suppress their own ego and competitive streak enough to put the spotlight and recognition on their team members, but with good leadership, it can translate into a well-motivated, effective, and productive team.

Barbara Kolosinska (MREC CertRP) is a Sales Director for C&M, a leading travel recruitment agency who specialise in finding their clients the perfect account manager London across all sectors of the travel industry. C&M have access to the largest choices of account manager London from the UK's top travel employers.