Your team has diverse work styles and struggles to collaborate. How can you foster effective teamwork?
When your team has a mix of work styles, leadership is key to ensuring effective collaboration. Here's how you can foster teamwork:
How do you foster teamwork with diverse work styles? Share your thoughts.
Your team has diverse work styles and struggles to collaborate. How can you foster effective teamwork?
When your team has a mix of work styles, leadership is key to ensuring effective collaboration. Here's how you can foster teamwork:
How do you foster teamwork with diverse work styles? Share your thoughts.
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Haroon Khan
My book "Leaders Are Not Prophets" is available on Amazon.com & worldwide, link is below
Diversity is a key aspect of each organization. With remote working and flexible working hours, fixed work hours concept is fading. For leaders, it is important to engage their team and they need to understand the culture, work styles and unspoken norms within their organization. More important, if you operate internationally. Understand and respect cultural differences. Create functional teams where team members should interact outside of their departments. Keep open door policy and encourage discussions. Also organize team building activities, without work related topics, to bring people together.
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Different work styles can be a strength if managed well. Bring your team together to discuss their expectations, strengths, and challenges, making sure everyone feels heard. You must also create a culture of respect, where people embrace and appreciate different approaches rather than seeing them as challenges. When people feel valued and understood, collaboration becomes natural, and the team moves forward together.
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One of the things that truly helped me improve collaboration with my team was completing a Change Management training. It boosted my confidence when working with people from diverse backgrounds and different ways of working especially when their support is essential to move a project forward.
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When working with a team that brings different styles to the table, I’ve found that the best results come from creating space where everyone feels heard and respected. It starts with honest conversations—asking how people prefer to work, what helps them thrive, and being open to adjusting processes to support that. Small things like flexible workflows, regular check-ins, or even team coffee chats can go a long way. When people feel seen, they naturally show up better—for the work and for each other.
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I initiate team-building activities that highlight the strengths of each work style, helping team members appreciate different approaches. I also hold workshops where we define and agree on common methods for collaboration, such as deciding on shared tools for communication and project management that suit various preferences. Regular feedback sessions allow the team to discuss what’s working and what isn’t, promoting continuous improvement in our teamwork strategies.
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