What are the challenges of people management?

Liz Makin Author

Jan 13, 2026 |

If you are in any level of management, people management will be one of your main responsibilities and one of the most complex and challenging.

What is people management?

People management is the process of guiding, motivating, managing and leading others to achieve the organisation strategy, goals and objectives. This involves leading and motivating people, performance management and good communication and relationship skills.

People management is the concept and process of getting the most out of your team of people. It includes communicating with, motivating, managing and leading your people as a manager for maximum results.

To ensure that everyone reaches their maximum potential, managers need to motivate each member of the team to achieve their goals, improve productivity, boost staff morale and offer support in times of change and uncertainty.

Why is people management important?

Organisations are made up of a whole range of different people who are motivated by different things and who will work best in different ways.

People are one of the biggest resources in an organisation and are critical to its success, so the way in which you manage people will have a direct impact on the bottom line results of the organisation.

This will be the same whether you work for a corporation or a voluntary organisation.

What are the challenges of people management?

People management is one of the most complex elements of being a manager or leader and one of the most time consuming. 

Successful people management requires a whole range of soft skills including communication and relationship skills, managing individuals and performance, managing and motivating your team, managing remote workers, running effective meetings, delegating and outsourcing, conflict resolution, managing difficult people, managing up and across and self management. 

Even if you are highly skilled in these areas, people management can still be challenging as you are dealing with all the nuances of human behaviour at an individual and team level.

People management is one of the hardest areas to learn and succeed at in a manager’s role. In many organisations, you come into a management role with job specific skills but without people management skills. Some people have these naturally but for most people these are skills that need to be learned and developed. You also need to adapt these skills to the individual people you are managing.

The challenge is not only to ensure the work is completed but to encourage, empower, motivate and support your team of people to perform at their best.

A successful team of people is able to pull together in a way that allows them to produce something that is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

Do you want to explore more about people management skills and how to apply these skills in your life and at work?

If you want practical tips and strategies to develop your people management skills to be a better manager in your life and at work, our people management skills online course is for you.

In the course you gain an insight into people management skills and how you can apply these skills in life and at work, be given a range of people management skills tools, tips and strategies to use to become a better manager in life and at work and develop a personalised people management skills action plan to develop your people management skills going forward.

Take a look at our people management skills online course by clicking on the link below:

People management skills for life & work

You can take a look at our range of online personal development courses and bundles, including current special offers, at https://onlinecourses.makinithappen.co.uk

Categories: : Business, Life, Online courses, People management, Personal development, Work