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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 17-Coaching and Mentoring)

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 17-Coaching and Mentoring)

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Mentoring is distinct from coaching, though it uses many of the same interpersonal skills. Its primary focus is on enhancing the mentee’s workplace performance and competence through guidance, support, and shared experience. Typically, mentors are positioned two or three levels above the mentee in the organizational hierarchy, providing seniority and objectivity without being in the direct reporting line.

Key aspects include:

Encouragement & Optimism: Helping mentees recognize achievements and stay motivated.

Problem-Solving Support: Offering suggestions or connecting mentees with others who can help.

Work Planning: Assisting with deadlines, milestones, and progress tracking.

Feedback & Advice: Guiding mentees in making the most of feedback from multiple sources.

Relationship Building: A successful mentoring relationship is grounded in mutual trust, respect, and adult–adult communication.

Burke emphasizes that both mentor and mentee benefit—mentors develop their own leadership skills while supporting growth in others.

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TED Talk: Margaret Heffernan – Forget the Pecking Order at Work

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TED Talk: Margaret Heffernan – Forget the Pecking Order at Work

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Challenges traditional hierarchy, emphasizing the value of social capital in teams.

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Margaret Heffernan: Why it's time to forget the pecking order at work

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Team Building Benefits, Importance & Advantages

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Team Building Benefits, Importance & Advantages

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It's time for organizations in every industry to recognize and take advantage of team building benefits. We live in a world where teams no longer need to be in the same room to achieve success. In fact, many teams around the world work together without ever seeing each other in person! This is largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced millions of workers into remote work.

Table of Contents
Why is Team Building Important? What are the Advantages of Team Building? What are the Benefits of Team Building Exercises? How to Plan the Perfect Team Building Exercise
Although technology allows teams to work together from anywhere in the world, that doesn't necessarily mean that they will work well together. It's crucial that team members feel connected to each other by more than a WiFi signal. With the convenience of digital communication (chatbots, AI assistants, WhatsApp, Slack, social media apps, and so on), it can be all too easy to let genuine, face-to-face connection slip through the cracks.

Team Building Exercises

One of the easiest (not to mention the most fun!) ways to build and strengthen genuine connections within teams is with (in-person) team building exercises and virtual team building activities.

Team building exercises are games and activities designed to get groups of people working together toward a common goal. A few examples of team building exercises include escape rooms, team trivia, murder mystery games, and virtual cooking classes.

Benefits and Advantages

One of the best benefits of team building activities is that - if designed well - your team will start to grow stronger without even realizing it. (They'll be having that much fun with each other!)

Advantages of team building include better problem-solving skills, increased innovation, improved job satisfaction, increased collaboration, and team camaraderie. There are many other benefits of team building that we'll dive into later on.

The benefits of team building exercises aren't exclusive to remote teams-or even professional teams. Many different types of teams can reap the benefits of team building including sports teams, music groups, families, and friends.

In this article, we'll discuss why team building is important, what the advantages of team building are, the specific benefits of team building exercises, and how you can implement team building activities into your organization.

Why is Team Building Important?

Gallup defines employee engagement as "The involvement and enthusiasm of employees in both their work and workplace."

Moreover, Gallup states:
"Engaged employees perform better, which differentiates you from your competitors. To drive real change within your teams, and to move the needle on the business metrics that matter, learn more about employee engagement in your organization."
Research shows that increased employee engagement results in better employee collaboration, communication, morale, motivation, and camaraderie.

The TINYpulse Employee Engagement and Organizational Culture Report surveyed more than 200,000 employees and found that respect among peers is the top reason why employees strive for better results. An excellent way to build respect is through developing genuine connections.

Unfortunately, the rise in remote work puts organizations at risk of having a disconnected and disengaged workforce. CEO Review stated, "Despite the comfort that working from home can bring, remote workers are susceptible to feeling disconnected and excluded, owing to the lack of face-to-face interaction and the casual ' water-cooler ' talk that usually breaks up a normal working day and offers brief periods of respite and relaxation to staff."

Team building exercises give groups of people a low-stakes (and oftentimes, fun) environment to connect and learn about each other's working styles, strengths, weaknesses, dislikes, likes, thought processes, and methods of problem-solving, all of which contribute to a team's success.

Let's take a deeper dive into the advantages of team building in this next section.

What are the Advantages of Team Building?

According to Fast Company, empathy, high engagement, and remarkable communication are among the skills that great leaders possess. Team building activities are an opportunity for employees with these qualities to show their leadership potential!

As a result, your organization has a fresh slate of leaders with proven skills and your hardworking employees have an opportunity to advance in the company. This is a great way for your organization to show that it has a genuine interest in its employees and their success.

We have already touched on a few of the advantages of team building, but we're now going to take an even closer look at them! We don't want you to just take our word when we say that team building can benefit your company - we'll use science and data to back it up.

Consider the following five research-backed benefits of team building:
1. Problem-solving skills

People rarely become successful all on their own. Everyone has to reach out for advice or assistance at some point! To test this, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign conducted a study on complex problem-solving.

"We found that groups of size three, four, and five outperformed the best individuals ... [We] attribute this performance to the ability of people to work together to generate and adopt correct responses, reject erroneous responses, and effectively process information."

Additionally, the study found that groups of two performed just as well as the best individual, meaning partnerships were not as effective as trios. Basically, the test found that three heads, in fact, are better than one!

Getting your team together in a team building environment allows everyone to bounce ideas off of each other in a low-stakes environment. Because the problems they're solving don't pertain directly to work, they may be more likely to voice their opinions, ask questions, and offer creative solutions!

2. Innovation

According to Frans Johansson, author of The Medici Effect, some of the best innovation occurs when different ideas and people come together.

"Most people think success comes from surrounding yourself with others that are like you," Johansson writes. "But true success and breakthrough innovation involves discomfort. Discomfort pushes you to grow. This is where differences of experience, opinion, and perspective come in. Diversity is a well-documented pathway to unlocking new opportunities, overcoming new challenges, and gaining new insights."

A McKinsey & Co. report can confirm. The report found that teams diverse in age, gender, ethnicity, etc. tend to be more creative and produce better results than teams that are lacking in diversity. Diversity allows teams to gain multiple perspectives and, therefore, come up with an array of different, innovative ideas.

3. Happiness

Team building events inherently promote honest feedback, mutual respect, and openness. Research suggests that happy employees are up to 20% more productive. In addition, well-designed team building exercises break up the workday/week and give employees a chance to have a little bit of fun with each other! We think almost everyone can agree that more fun leads to more happiness!

4. Personal growth

Being a valuable member of a team can help individuals grow professionally and potentially learn new things about themselves!

Dr. Susan McDaniel, a psychologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center says, "We all have blind spots about our behaviors and strengths that we may be unaware of, and feedback from a team member can expose them." Recognizing these behaviors and working to strengthen weaknesses can make you a better team member.

5. Less burnout

A study by Gallup asked 7,500 full-time employees how often they experience feelings of burnout (irritability, lack of motivation, exhaustion, depression, detachment, etc.). 23% of participants reported feeling burnt out "very often" or "always" while at work, and 44% reported that they "sometimes" feel burnt out.

Further research by Gallup found that distributing the workload amongst a team can significantly reduce feelings of burnout.

"Team members can provide emotional support to each other because they often understand the demands and stress of completing work even better than managers," says Ben Wigert, lead researcher for Gallup's workplace management practice.

What are the Benefits of Team Building Exercises?

In the previous section, we touch on five research-backed team participation benefits. Now, let's talk about the benefits of team building exercises and how they can create high-performing teams that drive an organization's success!

1. Employee Collaboration

75% of employers state that collaboration and teamwork are among the things they value most.

One of the great benefits of team building at work is that team members have the chance to focus on collaborating on the same activity and work towards a common goal.

Collaboration is extremely important in the workplace for getting jobs done completely and on time. As we stated previously: three heads are better than one! But those three heads need to not only work together well but effectively.

Just because a group of people gets along, doesn't necessarily mean that they'll do a great job on a project or complete it before the deadline. Each member also has their own schedule and responsibilities. This can make it difficult to get people on the same page when tasks need to get done - especially for teams working from different buildings, cities, or time zones. That's why team building is so important!

Collaborative teams work together as a group of equals and understand how to delegate tasks to play on each other's strengths. They know where they can contribute value, when to take a step back, and how to freely exchange ideas. There are no personal agendas and everyone is focused on the best end result!

2. Employee Communication

Effective communication is essential in every type of relationship whether it's personal or professional. According to a Holmes report, poor communication practices and communication barriers have cost companies upwards of $37 billion dollars, globally. Organizations that invest in building better communication will have employees who trust each other, speak up when necessary, and aren't afraid to give and receive feedback. Overall, better communication leads to increased employee engagement...which we already know leads to a better bottom line!

Excellent communication skills among team members are always important, especially so when communicating virtually. A lot can get "lost in translation" over a messaging app that doesn't allow the recipient to read body language or tone of voice.

A quick phone or video call can help bridge that gap, but that isn't always a possibility for teams that operate in different time zones. Team members can work together for years without ever having the chance to communicate face-to-face! Therefore, it's incredibly important that organizations give every team member the opportunity to connect and practice effective communication with team building.

3. Employee Morale

Employees deserve to be treated as valuable members of an organization. Team building exercises are a perfect way to say, "Thank you for all your hard work. Let's all have some fun together in a low-stakes, high-energy activity!'

According to the American Psychological Association, people who like their jobs are "twice as likely to be thriving in their lives overall - reporting strong relationships, effective money management, good health and engagement in their communities - as those who are disengaged and unhappy at work."

Teams that feel great about sitting down for work with their team are likely to be more creative, engaged, and productive. Organizations can get their employees excited about work by getting excited about their employees! When employers are excited about their teams' success and satisfaction, employees are more likely to do the same.

Although many people love the work-from-home model, it can be easy for employees to get complacent. Working from home has the potential to have a Groundhog Day effect where every day feels like the last. As a result, employees are likely to experience burnout that looks like a lack of motivation, loneliness, and possibly depression.

One of the best team participation benefits is that it gives everyone something new and fun to look forward to! This can help refresh an individual's energy, the team's energy, and the organization's energy as a whole!

4. Employee Motivation

Morale and motivation go hand in hand. Employees who are excited about their job and feel valued by their organization are more likely to be motivated to do their job well. However, many employees don't feel engaged in their positions. There are several reasons why this might be true:

They don't feel connected to their company

They aren't proud to work for their company

They don't feel valued

They don't align with company values

They aren't happy in their position

They aren't given the proper tools for success in their position

If employees feel even one of these, they aren't likely to be motivated to get their jobs done well, on time, or at all. Luckily, the solution can be incredibly simple, and it doesn't have anything to do with seeking a new job or bringing in a consultant to overhaul an organization. You guessed it: team building!

Increased motivation is one of the greatest advantages of team building. When an organization takes the time, money, and effort to plan a team building activity that their employees are going to be genuinely interested in, those employees are more likely to feel that the organization cares about their happiness, success, and general well being. Therefore, they're motivated to perform at their highest potential.

5. Team Camaraderie

Forbes says that work friendships are keys to team camaraderie:
"Whether your work friends are like family or you just have one buddy who has made an otherwise toxic workplace tolerable, for most of us work is where we connect with someone who lifts our spirits and makes the day much more enjoyable. While work friendships boost morale and our overall well-being, they also play a critical role in enhancing team effectiveness."
Building camaraderie can be difficult, but it's necessary for any successful team. Teams with camaraderie have a personal (yet still professional) connection with one another. They trust each other, communicate well, hang out during lunch or break time, and have inside jokes with one another. Team building exercises give everybody the chance to leave their work on their desk, put on some comfy shoes, maybe have a cup of coffee, and create lasting memories together.

Of course, it's important to keep work and personal relationships separate, but that doesn't mean co-workers can't enjoy each other's company. When people genuinely enjoy being around one another, they are more likely to enjoy the work they do together. This can result in increased productivity, morale, and overall happiness.

Now that you have a deeper understanding of the benefits of team building exercises, let's talk about what makes a great team building exercise.

How to Plan the Perfect Team Building Exercise

In order for participants to experience the benefits of team building, the activity should be structured properly. The best team building exercises are planned with the following attributes:

1. Focus on inclusivity

The activity should be easy for everyone to participate in so no one feels excluded or ostracized. This might mean you'll have to stick to remote events, events that don't require much physical activity, or events that are within walking distance to your office (or in-office). Additionally, your team-building exercises should encourage everyone to participate - especially people who tend to be shy or soft-spoken.

2. Set clear expectations

Everyone should be clear on why you're holding the event and how it's going to go down before it takes place. This will eliminate the "why are we doing this?" and "I don't understand what this is all about" chatter. Instead, everyone can get excited about the event and walk in with a clear understanding of what they're going to do.

3. Focus on team issues

You don't have to make things uncomfortable by sending out an email that says, "We're hosting a trust-building event because of X recent issue!" But the team building activity you choose should at least be relevant to your team's goals and have a focus on success in certain areas.

4. Have a singular goal

It's important that everyone is working toward the same thing, even if broken up into teams. A singular goal helps create cohesion amongst the group(s) and will allow you to compare/contrast results at the end.

5. Encourage openness and vulnerability

Encouraging openness and vulnerability typically leads to better understanding, deeper connections, and increased trust between coworkers - three characteristics of a successful team!

6. Establish ground rules

How will teams settle disagreements? How long will the event run? Is there a dress code? Can family members join in? Establishing the ground rules ahead of time will help the event run as smoothly as possible.

7. Foster trust

It's not difficult to incorporate trust-building into a team building activity, but it is absolutely necessary. When team members trust one another to perform well during low-stakes team building activities, that trust will translate to high-stakes work tasks.

8. Vulnerable leaders

If the leaders aren't willing to join the fun, get silly, and be a little vulnerable, why should any other employee want to? Leaders have to be the example that everyone is excited to follow!

9. Facilitate activities that play to team members' strengths

There are so many different team building activities out there, but they aren't all created equally. Finding the best team building activity for your team will give every member a chance to shine! When choosing your activity, be mindful of who you're planning the event for, what they're good (and bad) at, and how the activity will work for them.

10. Create structure

You won't be able to experience the benefits of team building at work without structure. Frankly, a team building event without structure is just a work party! The activity you choose should have clear objectives, defined roles, and a singular goal.

11. Participate as leaders

We mentioned that leaders should be vulnerable, but in order to be vulnerable, they have to participate! A great leader is never "too busy" or "unavailable" when it comes to their team's success. If a team feels like their leader isn't invested in their development, they may feel like their efforts are pointless.

12. Have no personal agenda

Team building events aren't designed to pin employees against one another or give someone an opportunity for "payback." They're also not an opportunity for anyone to show off! Team building exercises are intended to unify and strengthen a team.

13. Host a meaningful post-activity meeting

The best team building activities have an intentional conversation at the end that allows participants to come to their own conclusions about their performance - what they did well and what could be changed next time. These conversations will help translate the lessons learned in the activity to everyday work tasks.

Final Thoughts

Team building activities are a super fun and simple way to create dynamic and effective teams that love their job and appreciate their co-workers. With all of the above benefits to team building (and many more!) it's impossible to deny that your team needs a little team building, no matter how effective it already might be. Just imagine how much more effective you could be after a few team building exercises!

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Team Building Benefits, Importance & Advantages

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Just imagine how much more effective your team could be with team building exercises. We explore the many benefits and advantages of team building!

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 16- Team Building)

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 16- Team Building)

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Team building is more than just bringing people together to complete a task, it is the intentional process of creating cohesion, trust, and shared purpose within a group. According to the PMBOK, team building includes “activities designed to improve interpersonal relationships and increase team cohesiveness,” both of which are essential for project success.

Key points include:

Leadership Role: The project leader must guide the team to see the big picture and align toward common goals.

Accelerated Process: Teams don’t naturally become effective fast enough for most projects; intentional team-building techniques must be used.

Levels of Development:

1. Interpersonal team building (trust and relationships)

2. Team roles (clarifying strengths and responsibilities)

3. Shared vision (commitment to a common goal)

4. Task focus (execution and accountability)

Burke highlights that effective team building provides competitive advantage and is important for quality outcomes.

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 17-Coaching and Mentoring)

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 17-Coaching and Mentoring)

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This chapter highlights the essential role of coaching in leadership. Coaching is described as a facilitative process that helps individuals or teams achieve their full potential, focusing on performance, skills, and personal growth. Unlike mentoring, which draws on the mentor’s experience, coaching empowers individuals to develop solutions from their own strengths and resources.

Key skills include:

Identifying Goals: Setting SMART objectives tailored to the learner’s needs.

Focusing on the Learner: Encouraging reflection, options, and self-driven strategies.

Supporting Options: Helping learners explore consequences and commit to actions.

Revisiting Objectives: Reviewing progress and setting next steps.

Burke emphasizes that coaching is not therapy but a structured approach to enhancing performance and morale: “Coaching can be considered ‘a way of being’ aimed at developing a person’s performance and wellbeing.”

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 19- Motivation)

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 19- Motivation)

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This chapter highlights motivation as the inner force that drives people to achieve their goals, stressing that while ability contributes to performance, commitment is equally essential. It introduces major theories that shape our understanding of motivation in project teams:

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs – people are motivated by a progression of needs, from survival to self-actualization.

Herzberg’s Motivation–Hygiene Theory – motivators (achievement, recognition, responsibility, growth) build satisfaction, while hygiene factors (salary, policy, supervision) prevent dissatisfaction.

McClelland’s Needs Theory – achievement, affiliation, and power drive behavior in different ways.

The text emphasizes that motivation is internal, but leaders influence the environment by setting clear goals, recognizing contributions, and aligning tasks with individual strengths.

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A practical framework project leaders can use:

1. Set intermediate goals – break big projects into smaller wins.

2. Finish what you start – model persistence to build team discipline.

3. Socialize with others of similar interest – foster supportive peer networks.

4. Learn how to learn – encourage self-education and adaptability.

5. Match talent with interest – align roles with natural strengths.

6. Grow knowledge – invest in training and curiosity.

7. Take risks – treat failures as learning opportunities.

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 18- Negotiation)

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 18- Negotiation)

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This chapter provides a structured approach to negotiation, defining it as “a search for agreement, seeking acceptance, consensus, and alignment of views.” It distinguishes between three strategies: win–lose (competitive), win–win (collaborative), and lose–lose (spiteful or destructive). The text emphasizes that successful negotiation relies on preparation, understanding the other party’s needs, and building trust. Win–win strategies are especially valuable for long-term collaboration, while tactics like bargaining, concessions, and solving smaller issues first can help progress difficult discussions. The chapter also highlights dispute resolution methods (mediation, conciliation, arbitration) and the importance of networking in building relationships that support more effective negotiations.

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 20- Delegation)

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Project Management Leadership: Building Creative Teams (Chapter 20- Delegation)

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This chapter offers a comprehensive explanation of what delegation is, why it matters, and how to do it effectively. It highlights that delegation isn’t just giving tasks away—it’s entrusting authority, accountability, and ownership. The text emphasizes two main reasons for delegation: (1) creating space for leaders to focus on high-priority issues, and (2) developing staff skills and capacity for future leadership. The chapter also covers problems that arise from poor delegation, like micromanaging or abdication, and outlines a step-by-step process for success, including defining tasks, clarifying expectations, providing resources, and offering supportive feedback.

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How to Delegate Effectively as a Leader (Delegate the RIGHT WAY!)

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How to Delegate Effectively as a Leader (Delegate the RIGHT WAY!)

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5 Steps to Delegating Effectively:

Choose the Right Person
Select a team member whose skills and capacity align with the task at hand.

Communicate the "Why"
Clearly explain the purpose and importance of the task to ensure understanding and buy-in.

Make Your Delegation Request
Clearly articulate what needs to be done, providing all necessary details.

Be Clear on the Outcome
Define the expected results and any standards or benchmarks to be met.

Monitor and Follow Up
Regularly check in on progress, offering support and feedback as needed.

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How to Delegate Effectively as a Leader (Delegate the RIGHT WAY!)

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How to Delegate Effectively: 9 Tips for Managers

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How to Delegate Effectively: 9 Tips for Managers

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Offers nine practical strategies to help managers delegate tasks with confidence and clarity. It emphasizes the importance of clear communication, setting expectations, and providing the necessary resources and support. The piece also highlights the value of trust and feedback in the delegation process, aiming to empower team members and enhance overall productivity.

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Delegation is a vital management skill. But for some, it's the hardest to put into practice.

There are several reasons why managers may shy away from delegating work. They might:

Think it would take longer to explain the task than actually completing it themselves

Want to feel indispensable to their team by being the keeper of specific knowledge

Enjoy completing certain projects so prefer not to reassign them

Feel guilty about adding more work onto another employee's to-do list

Lack confidence or trust in who they need to transfer the project to

Believe that they're the only ones who can do the job right

Whatever the reason, it's important to continue honing the skill, as refusing to delegate can have negative consequences. Not only will you overload your schedule and prioritize the wrong tasks, but your employees will miss out on valuable learning and growth opportunities.

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What Is Delegation and Why Is It Important?

Delegation refers to the transfer of responsibility for specific tasks from one person to another.

From a management perspective, delegation occurs when a manager assigns specific tasks to their employees. By delegating those tasks to team members, managers free up time to focus on higher-value activities while also keeping employees engaged with greater autonomy.

According to a Gallup study, CEOs who excel in delegating generate 33 percent higher revenue. These executives know they can't accomplish everything alone and position their team to tackle tasks they're confident they'll achieve-in turn empowering employees, boosting morale, and increasing productivity. In the process, CEOs free up their time to focus on activities that will yield the highest returns and grow the company.

Here are nine ways you can start delegating more effectively to cultivate high-performing teams.

9 Delegation Tips for Managers

1. Know What to Delegate

Not every task can be delegated. For example, performance reviews or any personnel matters should be handled by you. After all, hiring the right talent and knowing each employee's strengths and weaknesses will ultimately make you better at assigning deliverables and transferring responsibility to the appropriate team members.

Several other day-to-day activities don't require your oversight, though. Is there a task you regularly tackle despite knowing your co-worker is better equipped to complete it? Would assigning the project to other employees help bolster their careers? If there's someone who could do the work better, or you think this could be a teachable moment, delegate. It will show you trust and value your team, while also giving you time to focus on more strategic projects.

2. Play to Your Employees' Strengths and Goals

Every employee should have goals they're working toward, and within those goals are opportunities to delegate. For example, maybe you have a direct report who wants to gain management experience. Is there an intern they could start supervising, or a well-defined project they can own the execution of? The type of work you delegate could factor into their professional development plan.

For other tasks, there's likely someone on your team with the specific skill set needed to achieve the desired result. Leverage that and play to your employees' strengths. When someone has a higher chance of excelling, they're more motivated and engaged, which then benefits the entire business.

How to Become a Better Manager

3. Define the Desired Outcome

Simply dumping work onto someone else's plate isn't delegating. The projects you hand off should come with proper context and a clear tie into the organization's goals.

"You've got to have real clarity of objective," says Harvard Business School Professor Kevin Sharer in the online Management Essentials course. That includes having alignment on "what does good look like" and by what timeline, and "the technique of measuring accomplishment."

Before anyone starts working on a project, they should know what they need to complete and by when, including the metrics you'll use to measure the success of their work.

4. Provide the Right Resources and Level of Authority

If the person you're delegating work to needs specific training, resources, or authority to complete the assigned project, it's your role as a manager to provide all three. Setting someone up for an impossible task will frustrate both sides; your colleague won't be able to achieve the desired outcome, and then you'll likely need to put that work back on your to-do list.

This is also where you need to fight the urge to micromanage. Telling your co-worker, step-by-step, how you would accomplish the task and then controlling each part of the process won't enable them to learn or gain new skills. Focus instead on what the desired end goal is, why the task is important, and help address any gaps between the outcome and their current skill set.

5. Establish a Clear Communication Channel

While you want to avoid micromanaging, you do want to establish a communication channel so that the person you're delegating to feels comfortable asking questions and providing progress updates.

"You've got to have some way to communicate so that the person you delegated to can come back to you and report," says Sharer in the Management Essentials course. "You've got to have some way along the way to see how things are going. It isn't fire and forget. That is, 'I just give you the task and I don't worry about it anymore. We've got to have some way to monitor the progress along the way without me getting in your way.'"

Setting up regular check-ins and providing feedback throughout the project can help with this.

6. Allow for Failure

This step is particularly important for the perfectionists who avoid delegating because they think their way is the only way to get the work done. You need to allow for failure-not because your employees might fail, but because it will enable experimentation and empower the people you're assigning tasks to, to take a new approach.

If you're open to new ideas and approaches to the work, you'll have an easier time delegating when able.

7. Be Patient

As a manager, you likely have more years of experience in your field. Because of this, a task you can complete in 30 minutes might take an employee a full hour the first time they complete it.

You might be tempted to refrain from delegating certain tasks knowing that you can get them done faster, but be patient with your employees. Think back to the first time you completed a specific task early on in your career. You probably weren't as efficient as you are now; your time management skills have improved.

As you continue to delegate and your employees become more familiar with the tasks that need to be completed, you'll notice that the work will get done faster over time.

7 Strategies for Improving Your Management Skills

8. Deliver (and Ask For) Feedback

In addition to monitoring progress, you should also deliver feedback to your employees after the tasks you've delegated are complete.

If a task wasn't completed as assigned, don't be afraid to offer constructive criticism. Your employees can take this feedback and make changes the next time a similar task is assigned. On the other hand, remember to provide positive feedback and show your appreciation when a task was done well.

To ensure you're delegating effectively, you'll also want to ask your team for any feedback that they can give you. Ask your employees if you provided clear instructions and determine if there's anything you can do to better delegate in the future.

9. Give Credit Where It's Due

After you've delegated tasks and they've been seen through to completion, credit those who achieved the work.

"Recognizing that success is because of your team is not only right, but it has the added benefit of making those around you more engaged-making you even more successful," writes HBS Online Executive Director Patrick Mullane for Richtopia. "It's counter-intuitive, but not claiming success for yourself will lead to more future wins."

The more you thank and credit those you've delegated work to, the more likely it is they will want to help you on other projects in the future.

Honing Your Delegation Skills

Delegating isn't easy; it's a skill that must be practiced and honed over time. But the better you become at aligning the right people with the right tasks and responsibilities, the more effective you'll become at your job as a manager.
Are you interested in further improving your managerial skills? Download our free leadership and management e-book to find out how. Also, explore our eight-week online Management Essentials course, which will provide you with real-world tools and strategies to excel in decision-making, implementation, organizational learning, and change management. This post was updated on June 2, 2021. It was originally published on January 14, 2020.

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How to Delegate Effectively: 9 Tips for Managers | HBS Online

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Delegation is a vital management skill. But for some, it's the hardest to put into practice. There are several reasons why managers may shy away from delegating work.

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Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model

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Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model

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Explores workplace motivators beyond money.

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Employee Motivation: A Powerful New Model

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Getting people to do their best work, even in trying circumstances, is one of managers’ most enduring and slippery challenges. Indeed, deciphering what motivates us as human beings is a centuries-old puzzle. Some of history’s most influential thinkers about human behavior—among them Aristotle, Adam Smith, Sigmund Freud, and Abraham Maslow—have struggled to understand its nuances […]

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A popular TED talk summarizing research on intrinsic motivation.

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Career analyst Dan Pink examines the puzzle of motivation, starting with a fact that social scientists know but most managers don’t: Traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Listen for illuminating stories -- and maybe, a way forward.

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Practical negotiation strategies during interviews.

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Negotiation skills for life: how to succeed when it matters most

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Negotiation skills for life: how to succeed when it matters most

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This TED talk explores the art of negotiation in high-stakes, emotional situations. It offers practical advice and real-world strategies to help you communicate more effectively, influence outcomes, and reach mutually beneficial agreements, even under pressure. The content is ideal for anyone looking to enhance their negotiation toolkit, whether in professional or personal contexts.

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Negotiation skills for life: how to succeed when it matters most | Matthias Schranner | TEDxZurich

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Shows how to resolve conflicts and build win-win outcomes.

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William Ury, author of “Getting to Yes,” offers an elegant, simple (but not easy) way to create agreement in even the most difficult situations -- from family conflict to, perhaps, the Middle East.

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Government guide with case studies and strategies.

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A mentor, when chosen well, can be the ultimate secret weapon.

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Explores how coaching helps leaders empower employees and build skills.

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ICF Core Competencies: The Foundation of Transformative Coaching

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ICF Core Competencies: The Foundation of Transformative Coaching

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Standards and principles for effective coaching practice.

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ICF Core Competencies | Coaching Standards and Best Practices

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Master the ICF Core Competencies and enhance your coaching skills. Explore fundamentals that set the global standard for professional coaching excellence.

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Delegation Done Correctly: A School Superintendent’s Perspective

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Delegation Done Correctly: A School Superintendent’s Perspective

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Talks about the hardships in educational leaderships. It emphasizes that delegation is not merely about assigning tasks but is a strategic approach to building trust, fostering collaboration, and enhancing school operations.

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5 Tools to Delegate Effectively and Unlock Your Team’s Potential

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5 Tools to Delegate Effectively and Unlock Your Team’s Potential

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It emphasizes that effective delegation is not just about offloading work, but about building trust, fostering growth, and aligning tasks with team members' strengths and development goals. By implementing these tools, leaders can transform delegation from a chore into a powerful leadership strategy.

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5 Tools to Delegate Effectively and Unlock Your Team’s Potential - Wide Lens Leadership

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Learning to delegate effectively is not just about offloading tasks; it’s about strategic empowerment and trust-building.

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Personalized motivational tool

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It's amazing how an uplifting quote or inspirational story can completely change your day, and sometimes your life. One quote that touches your heart or reminds you of your dreams can inspire steps that would otherwise remain untaken and stir new perspectives on life and possibilities.

Insight of the Day was created to spread inspiration through something small, on a large scale. Though there are a ton of different 'quote websites', on this page you'll always find a wealth of inspiring, motivating and insightful quotes - thoughtfully chosen with you and your dreams in mind.

You can also subscribe for Insight of the Day to receive an uplifting quote every day of the week and an inspirational story on Friday right in your inbox.

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It's amazing how an uplifting quote or inspirational story can completely change your day, and sometimes your life. One quote that touches your heart or reminds you of your dreams can inspire steps that would otherwise remain untaken and stir new perspectives on life and possibilities.

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Free and accessible negotiation tool templates

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Negotiation Tool Templates - Frontline Negotiations

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The negotiation tools featured in our Field Manual have been adapted and made accessible for humanitarians on the frontlines.

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National Education Association's Peer Mentorship program to support school districts around the country

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Education Support Professionals: Supporting Our Own Through Peer Mentoring

NEA recognizes the vital role ESPs play in ensuring a great public school for every student. That's why we work with affiliates to provide enhanced professional support through peer mentoring for ESPs at all stages of their career.

ESPs make up more than one third of today's public education workforce, but often have inadequate professional development and workplace preparation and support. Formal programs where ESPs mentor ESPs can provide the high-quality, targeted, and specialized support that is vital for professional and student success.

Mentoring for ESPs, like the long-established mentoring relationships between new and experienced teachers, can ensure ESPs deal successfully with the growing complexity and increasing demands of education.

ESP peer mentoring is essential to:

Support the development of personal and professional skills and knowledge.

Ensure the ESP community has a greater voice in the workplace and more opportunities to build their own professional pathways.

Recruit and retain high-quality support professionals in the education workforce.

Contribute to the overall mission of student success.

Are you interested in establishing an ESP peer mentoring program?
This guide will get you started!

Enroll in our ESP Peer Mentoring Learning Path Course
ESPs: Supporting Our Own through Peer Mentoring is an online opportunity that guides affiliates and members through building a strong mentoring program for ESPs. This free learning path comprises four online courses that participants may take as an individual or with a team through NEA's Professional Excellence Portal.

Do you have an active ESP mentoring program in your school district, university/college, local association, or state ?

The NEA is happy to announce the launch of the ESP Mentoring NETWORK, a platform aimed at supporting and strengthening the growing community of ESP peer mentoring programs. By exchanging resources and information, we will accelerate collaboration, leading to continuous improvement and more successful and impactful mentoring programs over time. Our goal is also to increase the Association's growing understanding of the features of successful ESP mentoring programs, leading to better models and strategies to be shared with emerging mentoring programs nationwide. The core component of the NETWORK is the ESP Peer Mentoring Program REGISTRY, a detailed data collection of ESP peer mentoring programs around the country.

All active ESP mentoring programs, including programs in their first pilot program year, are invited to SUBMIT their ESP mentoring program information to be included in the REGISTRY. All data submitted for the REGISTRY will be shared with other NETWORK members.
Submit here
Programs that SUBMIT by OCTOBER 13, 2025 (5:00 p.m. ET), will be entered into the ESP National Conference lottery.

Through the ESP National Conference lottery, registered programs are eligible to win two fully funded trips to the 2026 NEA ESP National Conference (Anaheim, CA, March 27-29, 2026).

Only ESP members with active roles in your ESP mentoring program are eligible to attend the ESP Conference

The state and local associations must approve both fully funded ESP members.

The primary program contact will be contacted about the lottery results at the end of October 2025.

Who is eligible to be a member of the NETWORK?

All program contacts listed in the REGISTRY

2025 NEA Blended Learning Cohort participants and 2026 NYSUT Blended Learning Cohort participants

ESP State Staff Coordinators and other Association staff

ESPs: Supporting Our Own through Peer Mentoring Learning Path Course learners who have completed all four courses.

Invitations will be emailed to those eligible to be NETWORK members in November 2025.

For additional information, please contact [email protected]

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Mentoring supports Education Support Professionals (ESPs) in their professional practice as they work to provide safe, healthy, and supported learning environments for all students.

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Why school leaders should foster a culture a mentorship and how to do it

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Why school leaders should foster a culture a mentorship and how to do it

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The University of Maryland College of Education emphasizes the importance of creating a school-wide culture of mentorship to support teacher success and retention. Dean Kimberly Griffin advocates for moving beyond traditional one-on-one mentoring relationships by establishing mentoring networks where all members of the school community are encouraged to offer guidance and support. This approach fosters a shared commitment to personal and professional development, leading to increased achievement, learning, and job satisfaction.

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Why school leaders should foster a culture a mentorship and how to do it | UMD College of Education

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Provides a bunch of different tools that leaders can use to enhance their coaching skills.

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OVERVIEW
One of the most common issues that comes up in my practice is how my clients-CEOs and other senior leaders-can provide more effective coaching and feedback to their execs and employees.

Early in a leader's career they typically offer advice based on their own experience or skills: "Here's how I'd handle this situation..." But senior leaders manage people who sit much closer to the problems being solved and who may have more expertise in their functional area than the leader. Directive guidance from a senior leader can be counterproductive by preventing execs and employees from making full use of their own knowledge or from taking responsibility for a problem they would rather leave to the leader. Such an approach also keeps senior leaders involved with tactical details and distracts them from larger strategic issues, which is a particular concern in rapidly growing or changing organizations.

An alternative approach for the senior leader is to employ coaching skills to help direct reports come up with their own solutions to the problems they face. To be clear, an internal manager is not a substitute for an external coach-the relationship between leader and employee is fundamentally different than that between coach and client. The leader who aspires to coach their employees must take great care to acknowledge and account for the power differential that exists in these relationships. Subjecting execs and employees to a "coaching conversation" that takes the form of a series of leading questions will rightfully be seen as a theatrical performance and appropriately resented.

This isn't to say that senior leaders who seek to employ coaching skills are precluded from sharing their opinions with execs and employees. But it's important for leaders to develop effective feedback skills and to build relationships with their reports that are conducive to meaningful feedback conversations.

The resources below are derived from my work coaching leaders in my private practice since 2006, teaching The Art of Self-Coaching at Stanford for seven years, and training MBA students in both coaching and feedback skills (in the Leadership Fellows program and Interpersonal Dynamics) for a decade. I've also appended a list of books that have had an impact on my approach to coaching and feedback and whose concepts are readily applicable to organizational life.
1. Coaching
Connect, Reflect, Direct...Then Ask (On Coaching)

Thoughts on coaching as a tool for leaders, broken down into a four-step process.

How Great Coaches Ask, Listen and Empathize (Originally published at Harvard Business Review)

By using coaching methods and techniques in the right situations, leaders can still be effective without knowing all the answers and without telling employees what to do.
HBR Guide to Coaching Employees

I wrote the Introduction, Why Coach?, as well as Giving Feedback that Sticks and Help People Help Themselves, on self-coaching.

Coaching Your Employees (Harvard Business Review Webinar)
A Challenge to Leaders: Help Others Self-Coach

Helping people self-coach is a natural fit with knowledge work's emphasis on self-management and flat hierarchies.

This is an earlier version of Help People Help Themselves, which appears in the HBR guide above.

Deference Kills Coaching

Skilled managers can coach their employees, but to do so effectively they must be careful to identify and discourage signs of deference
Hammering Screws (Bad Coaching)

Bad coaching feels like hammering screws-a solo effort on the part of the coach that can make a lot of noise but accomplishes very little.
Investment vs. Attachment

We invest in people, but we're attached to outcomes.
The Six Layers of Knowledge and Better Conversations

When we're leading and coaching, how can we help others surface more useful information? How can we make those conversations more effective?
Scott Ginsberg on Asking (Better) Questions

Yes/no questions are simple and direct, but they surface a minimum of new information and constrain the boundaries of the conversation.

Tips for Coaching Someone Remotely (Originally published at Harvard Business Review)

Advice on logistics, focus, equipment and timing.
Coaching and the Cult of Done

I find The Cult of Done professionally relevant, personally inspiring, and an apt metaphor for the coaching process itself.
Emotional Mountaineering (The Three Tasks of Coaching)

There's an arc to this journey that involves pushing ourselves to reach new heights, navigating those peaks under difficult conditions, and safely returning to lower altitudes. Looked at from this perspective, coaching can be seen as emotional mountaineering.
Gestalt Coaching

A number of key concepts from Gestalt therapy can be seen at work in contemporary approaches to executive coaching.
20 Tools for Coaching and Teaching

While I make use of these resources in my work at Stanford and my practice, almost all of them can be applied by a leader or manager within their organization.
Getting Coaching for Your Team

While I believe that leaders should be able to coach as part of their repertoire, there are limits on the efficacy of coaching as a managerial tool. This is where a professional coach can play a particularly helpful role.
Fishbowl Coaching (A Group Exercise)

If you're a leader who wants to integrate coaching into your toolkit, you may feel daunted. What does this look like? How will you improve? Here's an exercise to sharpen your skills that can be conducted by a small group in under an hour.
2. Feedback
Feedback Is Not a Gift How to Deliver Critical Feedback

If we want our critical feedback to be truly useful to the recipient and not merely an exercise in self-indulgence, we owe it to our colleagues to be more thoughtful and intentional in how we deliver it.

Giving Feedback That Sticks [PDF]
Make Feedback Normal. Not a Performance Review. Why Some Feedback Hurts (and What To Do About It)

The key with any painful feedback is ensuring that you don't miss the signal while filtering out the noise.
Your 360 Report Is Ready

You've just learned that your 360 report is ready, and you're about to review it for the first time. What can you expect?

Four Responses to Feedback (Adapted from the piece above)

It's important to be open to feedback, but being open to feedback doesn't necessarily mean that you should simply accept it.
The Problem with Anonymous Feedback
Make Getting Feedback Less Stressful (Originally published at Harvard Business Review)

We need to recognize that receiving feedback is inherently a stressful experience.
Making Feedback Less Stressful (Harvard Business Review Webinar)
Building a Feedback-Rich Culture (Originally published at Harvard Business Review)
Building a Feedback-Rich Culture from the Middle

As leaders, how do we build a feedback-rich culture? What does it take to cultivate an ongoing commitment to interpersonal feedback? Here are four essential elements...
Coaching, Advice and Feedback Feedback and Coaching with the Stanford Entrepreneurship Commitment Group

For employees working from within an organization.
3. Leadership
What Do Great Leaders Do?

This is my slide deck from a workshop I conducted on these topics with the ECG, a select group of venture founders who meet regularly at Stanford to support their own growth and development as leaders.
How Leaders Create Safety (and Danger)

Caution and skepticism are essential when exploring the question I pose above: What do great leaders do? And yet there's a tremendous desire to find answers-I see it in my coaching practice every day,
Leading in Four Dimensions

Change is hard, and safety is important, but how do leaders actually create the safety that's necessary to support change in their organizations?
How to Scale: Do Less, Lead More

I find this a compelling model for the range of roles that must be played by every leader in any group.
Group Dynamics: The Leader's Toolkit

A leader who continues to lead by doing more often becomes less effective and may even undermine the organization as it grows larger and more complex.
Group Dynamics: Norms and Emotion

A set of options for the leader whose team of direct reports are experiencing difficulties working together.
Leading Is an Act of Love

A group's emotional intelligence is a function of the norms that A) create awareness of emotion and B) support emotion regulation during group activities.
4. For Further Reading

At its core leading is an act of love. It's the ability to love those around us in a way that allows us to understand them, to see their full potential, and to enable that potential to be realized.

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High, Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan and Al Switzler

Difficult Conversations: How To Discuss What Matters Most, Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton and Sheila Heen

Written by three Harvard Law professors associated with the school's Negotiation Project, this book includes one of the most important readings we use at Stanford in Interpersonal Dynamics, "Have Your Feelings (Or They Will Have You)."

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Time, Susan Scott

I've never met Susan Scott, but she's a personal hero of mine, and this book has had a substantial impact not only on my approach to coaching but also on my decision to launch my coaching practice in 2006.

Helping: How to Offer, Give and Receive Help, Edgar Schein

This concise volume by Schein, a longtime professor of management at MIT, is relevant to all potential helping relationships-personal and professional, formal and informal-and it's the book I recommend most often to my clients and students.

Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, Robert Cialdini

Cialdini is one of the world's leading experts on this topic; this classic text was in the curriculum when I was an MBA student at Stanford many years ago, and we still use it today.

Thanks for the Feedback: The Science and Art of Receiving Feedback Well, Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen
Updated September 2021.

A subsequent volume by two of the co-authors of Difficult Conversations.

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1. Coaching 3. Leadership 2. Feedback 4. For Further Reading OVERVIEW One of the most common issues that comes up in my practice is how my clients--CEOs and other senior leaders--can provide more effective coaching and feedback to their execs and employees. Early in a leader's career they typically offer advice based on their own...

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Coaching That Works: How Professional Development Can Transform School Leadership

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Coaching That Works: How Professional Development Can Transform School Leadership

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Explains how leadership coaching can really help school administrators do their jobs better. It shows that with the right support and guidance, leaders can improve decision-making, boost self-awareness, and create a positive school culture. Basically, professional development is not just training, it is a way for leaders to grow, handle challenges more confidently, and help their students succeed.

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Coaching That Works: Transform School Leadership

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Learn how evidence-based leadership coaching boosts principals’ decision-making, culture, and student outcomes. Proven PD strategies.

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Team Building Toolkit by Kathy Mendonca and Suzy Thorman 

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Team Building Toolkit by Kathy Mendonca and Suzy Thorman 

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A comprehensive guide to help leaders build and sustain effective teams. Drawing from Bruce Tuckman's model, it outlines the five stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning. For each stage, the toolkit provides tailored exercises, tools, and facilitation tips to address the unique challenges teams face as they evolve. Whether you're leading a new group or aiming to enhance an established team, this resource equips you with practical strategies to foster collaboration, trust, and high performance.

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30 Team-Building Games, Activities, and Ideas

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30 Team-Building Games, Activities, and Ideas

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A collection of 30 engaging exercises designed to enhance teamwork, communication, and problem-solving skills. These activities are suitable for various group sizes and settings, making them ideal for student organizations, leadership programs, or team-building events.