Element 3 Self-Directed Learning Activities - Leading and Managing Others PDF

LEADING AND
PART 3 MANAGING OTHERS

Developing The Skills You Need to Lead People and Teams
The Skills You Need Guide to
Leadership
The Skills You Need
Guide to Leadership
LEADING AND
MANAGING OTHERS:
DEVELOPING THE SKILLS
YOU NEED TO LEAD
PEOPLE AND TEAMS
Skills You Need
This is one of a series of eBooks

by Skills You Need available for sale at:
www.skillsyouneed.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,

or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording,
or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission
of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law.
ISBN: 978-1-911084-18-1
Published by Skills You Need Ltd
© 2019 Skills You Need Ltd
This version was published in January 2019
Skills You Need Ltd
“LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING
ARE INDISPENSABLE TO EACH OTHER.”
John F. Kennedy
Developing leadership skills is an ongoing process. While many of the skills that
you need to lead are essential in life more generally, such as good communications
skills, others are more specific to leadership positions.
This eBook follows from the previous eBook in the series, on the personal skills
you need to lead. This eBook, however, focuses on the skills you need to develop
to lead and manage other people or teams. Like the previous eBooks, it focuses on
the skills which are likely to be new or unfamiliar to you when you first take up a
leadership position. It explains each one, and gives you some ideas about how you
can develop and practise these skills.
Like the first two eBooks in this series, this one is designed for those considering,
or just starting, their first leadership post. Established leaders, however, should
also be able to find some interesting ideas.
Leading And Managing Others: Developing The Skills You Need to Lead People and Teams 3
CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 - An Introduction to Leading Others...................................................................5
Avoiding common managerial mistakes............................................................................................7
CHAPTER 2 - Building a Team...........................................................................................................11

Selecting and recruiting a team...........................................................................................................12
Induction, orientation and ‘onboarding’ skills..................................................................................23
CHAPTER 3 - Managing and Overseeing Work........................................................................28

Getting started.........................................................................................................................................29
CHAPTER 4 - Delegating Work........................................................................................................33

From no control to total control..........................................................................................................34
Nine levels of delegation.......................................................................................................................35
Key skills in delegating work................................................................................................................36
CHAPTER 5 - Giving and Receiving Feedback.........................................................................38

What is effective feedback?..................................................................................................................39
Receiving feedback.................................................................................................................................42
CHAPTER 6 - Coaching Skills.............................................................................................................44

Understanding coaching........................................................................................................................45
Essential coaching skills.........................................................................................................................47
Other key coaching skills and attributes...........................................................................................50
CHAPTER 7 - Appraisals and Performance Management..................................................52

Understanding appraisal and performance management............................................................53
Discipline and managing poor performance....................................................................................57
CHAPTER 8 - Influencing, Persuading and Motivating Others........................................62

Motivational techniques.........................................................................................................................63
Set challenging but achievable goals.................................................................................................65
Persuasion skills.......................................................................................................................................67
Developing better persuasion skills....................................................................................................72
Tim Baker’s influencing strategies......................................................................................................74
CHAPTER 9 - Moving Up the Ladder: Motivation from a More Senior Position........79

Show your appreciation.........................................................................................................................80
Help your people to develop ‘mastery’..............................................................................................81
Share the big picture..............................................................................................................................83
Chapter
An Introduction
1 to Leading Others
The previous eBook in this series explains about the personal

skills you need to be able to lead effectively: that is, the
qualities that you need to display as an individual.
This eBook now moves on to consider the next stage of

leadership: the skills you need in order to lead and manage
other people, both individually and in teams.
Some of the skills described relate to formal management

processes: recruitment, selection, induction and appraisal, for
example. Others are less formal, but no less essential, such as
being able to delegate work effectively, provide feedback and
motivate your team. The structure broadly follows the process
of building, and then leading, a team.
Leadership starts with forming a team
To be a leader, it is necessary to have followers. Many people are recruited

to lead established teams, and so do not have to start by building their own.
However, over time, it is likely that you will need to recruit new team members,
and you will therefore need to understand the selection process, and how to
recruit and select effectively.
Building your team, however, does not stop once you have selected a suitable
candidate. You also have to ensure that your chosen candidate is introduced
to the organisation, and able to make a useful contribution from the earliest
possible moment.
Perhaps the most important skill in managing a team

is to be able to manage and delegate work
This requires care to ensure that you delegate effectively, while still retaining
sufficient control. You also need to ensure that you delegate in such a way that
you motivate your team, and that nobody is overburdened.
Motivating your team also has other elements apart from the work that you
delegate, and creating an environment in which people are able to self- motivate
becomes more important as you move into more senior positions. These are key
skills for leaders and we cover them in some detail.
Both managers and leaders also need the skills

to manage others’ performance
Managing performance has both formal and informal elements. Being able to
give and receive feedback is essential. As a leader or manager, however, you
also need to manage the formal processes in your organisation: appraisals and
ongoing performance reviews, and learning how to manage both good and
poor performance.
You also need to be able to persuade and motivate others, as well as yourself,
using a variety of skills and techniques. As you move further up the organisation,
the skills that you use to motivate teams and individuals will change, and the final
chapter therefore covers motivation from a more senior position.
AVOIDING COMMON
MANAGERIAL MISTAKES
When you first take on a management or leadership role, you will probably have to
learn a number of new skills.
What is often overlooked, however, is that you also have to avoid a number of
common management pitfalls.
These pitfalls often catch out new managers, but with a little careful thinking and
organisation, many can be avoided.
This section outlines some of the most common management mistakes and
explains how you can take action to avoid them. This knowledge should help you
to become a more effective manager and develop your skills over time.
1. Failure to Delegate
New managers—and, indeed, many established managers—often fail to delegate

work effectively.
The end result is that they are overworked, and their team members are
underworked and bored. A sure sign of this error is a manager who is staying late
in an otherwise empty office every night, often coupled with high turnover among
the team.
This happens for two reasons:
• A belief that you can do the task better than anyone else; and
• A concern that you will lose control and be held responsible for
mistakes or late delivery.
Unless you are managing a team full of technical specialists, and particularly if you
have come up through the ranks yourself, you may well be justified in thinking that
you can do many tasks better than most of your team.
That, however, is not your job.
Your job is to manage the team to ensure that all the necessary work gets done.
This means providing development opportunities for those who want them,
supporting and encouraging team members by providing stretch assignments,
and balancing workloads. As a general principle, move work down to the lowest
possible level that will provide the quality required. Appropriate delegation will
ensure that you do not lose control.
There is more about this in the chapter on Delegation Skills, including how to
ensure that you remain in control.
2. Failure to Communicate
Some new managers consider knowledge to be power, and hold onto it.
By releasing it only on a ‘need to know’ basis, their thinking goes, they

will ensure that nobody but them has the full picture, and there will be no
challenge to their authority.
The problem with this is that it fails to appreciate that your team also have
skills and ideas that are likely to make a long-term contribution to the
success of the team.
Sharing your knowledge with the team, particularly when times are uncertain
and everyone is a bit stressed, will ensure that they will share theirs with you.
Developing habits of open communication within the team will mean that
problems are aired early, solutions shared, and a climate of collaboration is
fostered. This, in turn, will make the team more likely to succeed over time.
3. Failure to Be Available to the Team
The main part—indeed, some would say the whole—of your job is to
manage the team.
Admittedly, you will have specific tasks that you are expected to achieve but,
by and large, you will do so via your team members.
This means that you need to be there for them.
In other words, you need to know what is going on in their lives, what motivates
them, what sort of work they like doing, and so on.
You also need to be available when they need to speak to you, whether that is
about a work issue or a personal matter, and you have to create a climate where
they feel happy coming to you to discuss issues.
CASE STUDY:
BEING AROUND
Louise managed a busy team with lots of work. Both she and the rest of her
team often worked long hours, despite the best of intentions. She was often
tempted to retreat into her office and shut the door, just to get her work
done, but she also knew that she was, above all, the team leader. She was
accountable for what the team did, and so she wanted to know what was
happening, and to be sure that they would come to her with any problems.
Her office door was always open, and at team meetings she encouraged team
members to come and talk to her. This did not happen very often, however,
and she recognised that this encouragement might not be enough. She
therefore decided to try something new.
At about 10am each day, she picked up her mug and went to make a cup of
tea. On the way, she stopped at her team’s open plan section and chatted
about what was going on, both for her and them.
This seemed a very small thing, but it was not long before she saw the
results. Team members started to explain what they were doing, and often
asked if they could come and talk something through later. She noticed
team members listening to each other as they told her what was going on.
Communication opened up in the team, and they were all much more aware
of each other’s work, and able to help each other out if necessary. As a result,
the whole team performed more effectively.
4. Failure to Set Clear Goals and Expectations
Failing to set clear goals can result in confusion about what is expected, both
individually and as a team.
This, in turn, will lead to the team failing to meet goals, and you, as manager,
having to do some difficult explaining to your manager.
Good managers set expectations and goals clearly, and ensure that everyone
understands how what they are doing fits with the overall organisation and
team goals.
Setting goals is a joint activity: the person concerned needs to understand and
agree what they are expected to do, and by when, but this also needs to fit with the
organisation’s expectations. Your job, as manager, is to navigate this process clearly.
There is more about this in the chapter on Appraisals and Performance

Management.
5. Failure to Manage Your Team
Managing means delegating, managing work, and setting goals and

expectations.
But it also means taking responsibility for your team’s work and, where necessary,
dealing with poor performance. Managers must be ready to provide timely
feedback both on task performance, and on overall role performance, particularly
if something is not going well.
Failure to do so is an abdication of responsibility: it is, effectively, failing to

manage your team.
The chapter on Giving and Receiving Feedback, and the section on Discipline and
Managing Poor Performance in Chapter 7, explain more about these essential skills.
Learning from Mistakes
It would be ideal to avoid making mistakes. However, even the best of us cannot avoid
all mistakes for ever. Instead, therefore, it is important to treat mistakes as opportunities
for learning. Failing to do so might just turn out to be the biggest mistake of all.
Chapter
2 Building a Team
The first step towards leading is to have some followers.

Some will step straight into a leadership position in an
established team, but for others that will mean recruiting
and selecting a team. In many ways, it can be easier to
start by recruiting your own team, because it gives you the
opportunity to design job roles and build a team with the
right skills. It is, however, a daunting task for a new leader.
This chapter aims to demystify the recruitment, selection

and induction processes, and help you develop the skills to
start to build an effective team.
SELECTING AND
RECRUITING A TEAM
Selecting and recruiting the right person to fill a vacancy is not an easy task. It is,
however, very important, because making the wrong decision can have serious
consequences for your team and your organisation.
Recruitment is a time-consuming and expensive business, so it pays to get it right

first time.
There are a number of activities that can really help to improve the success of your
recruitment efforts. This section attempts to demystify the process, and explain
how you can improve what you do to help your organisation to find the right
candidate every time.
STEP 0. BUILD NETWORKS

Recruitment begins long before you have a vacant position,
hence calling this ‘Step 0’.
Some statistics suggest that well over half of all jobs are never advertised.
The reason for that is that they are filled by a suitable candidate already
known to the recruiter, or to someone in their network.
The art of successful recruiting is therefore to build a network which contains

a large number of people who will either be suitable for vacant posts in your
organisation, or who will know someone suitable.
There is no short-cut for this: you have to put time and effort into networking.
Use trade events, careers fairs, meet-ups, and conferences, and make sure that
you are active in cultivating contacts. Make contact after the event by email and
social media—LinkedIn is particularly good for job-related networking—and take
steps to start to build a relationship.
You can also build relationships via social media, using your network as a way of
connecting with people who may be suitable for your organisation. Social media,
especially sites like LinkedIn, can also be a good way to share information about job
vacancies in the hope that someone will be able to recommend a suitable candidate.
STEP 1. DEFINE THE IDEAL CANDIDATE
If networking is Step 0, then Step 1 starts when you have a vacancy.
Your first action should be to define your ideal candidate.
You will need to have a job description and a person specification to provide
to potential candidates, but this process also allows you to discuss and resolve
exactly what you want from the jobholder. For example, you may want to
supplement the skills of the team in a particular way, or realise that the person
who is leaving the team had a certain skill that you valued, but was not part of
the original job specification.
A POSSIBLE PROCESS FOR PREPARING A JOB

DESCRIPTION AND PERSON SPECIFICATION
1. Bring together a group of people who are currently doing either the same or
a very similar job, and who you consider are excellent at the job. Make sure
the recruiting manager is involved, and you might also want to include the
departing postholder if they are still around.
2. Get that group to develop a job description that actually sets out what the role
will involve. It does not need to include every last thing, but it does need to
cover the main responsibilities, and the outputs required.
3. Use the group to define the main behavioural characteristics of the ideal
candidate. What do they feel makes a successful postholder?
TIP! These can be highly individual and tailored to that particular job and team.
For example, if there is a particularly challenging team member, then ‘excellent
social skills and ability to get on with a wide range of people’ may be a perfectly
reasonable requirement to include in the list. The skills and characteristics
should not include anything that is routine at that level, such as the ability to use
standard computer applications.
4. From this list, prioritise the top ten responsibilities and characteristics that you
will use to screen candidates, both initially and at interview. This will give you a
picture of what you are really looking for.
Your job description and person specification do not need to include every last
characteristic. You need to prioritise, so that you can test for the elements that are
particularly important to succeed in the job.
STEP 2. DECIDE ON A PUBLICITY/MARKETING
PROCESS
You next need to consider how you are going to find suitable candidates.
Consider in particular:
• Where you are going to advertise the post
You need to advertise where your ideal candidate will see your post.
For example, the local job centre or employment office is not going to be the
ideal place to advertise a chief executive role, and LinkedIn is probably not going
to work for a handyman or similar technical role. Use recruitment websites and
social media, but make sure that they are suitable by checking that similar jobs are
regularly advertised there.
TOP TIP!
If you are looking for people like your current staff, ask them which social
media sites they use regularly, and consider sharing on those.
• How you are going to use your network, and your team’s contacts
Having spent time building up your network, you now need to consider how you
are going to draw on it.
At the very least, you should share your job description and person specification
with your network, and invite people to pass it on to anyone that they think is
suitable. You can also ask your team to do the same.
You may, however, want to be more proactive and actually invite people to apply.
With the wide range of contacts that you have built over time, you may well know
several people who you think would be perfect. If so, get in touch personally, with
a message saying that you thought they might be interested, and inviting them to
get in touch for an informal chat. You never know, it might just work.
WARNING!
Don’t be tempted to invite too many to apply
Keep your invitations just to the one or at most two you really want, because they will
be rightly aggrieved if they find that you have personally invited 20 people to apply
when you only have one post.
STEP 3. SETTING AN ASSESSMENT STRATEGY

Your next step is to decide how you plan to assess candidates.
As a first stage, you will probably need to do some kind of sift. If you have a lot
of candidates, you might even consider using a computer sift, just to weed out the
most unsuitable candidates. It is, however, a good idea to at least glance at all the
CVs yourself, just to check that you are not discarding someone perfect by mistake.
As a second stage, you will need something more comprehensive. Interviews are
generally seen as the ‘gold standard’ of recruitment, but research shows that, by
themselves, they are actually very little more reliable than simply tossing a coin.
You should therefore consider using other methods of testing too, such as asking
candidates to do a written test or a presentation, or even inviting them to spend a
day or half-day with the team to see how they get on with everybody.
Inviting shortlisted candidates to spend time with the team could be

particularly helpful if you have identified good social skills, and being able
to fit into the team, as important—and it also gives you more views on the
candidates, which will help to reduce bias in the selection process.
STEP 4. SIFTING, INTERVIEWING AND TESTING
Good preparation for an interview is absolutely key. Exactly what you need
to do will vary depending on your role in the interview.
You may be:
• The recruiting manager, the person who is going to be managing

the person recruited on a day-to-day basis, and therefore
probably has the best understanding of the job requirements;
• There to give a second opinion of the candidate. Such

interviewers usually, but not always, have some knowledge of the
job requirements.
• An independent assessor or HR representative, there to manage

the process and ensure that it is fair for all candidates. They are
unlikely to have detailed knowledge of the job.
Perhaps the most important aspect of successful interviewing is knowing what

you are looking for in a candidate.
Make sure that you have a detailed job description and person specification that
sets out what you really want from the person. Try to avoid jargon. If you haven’t
written the particulars yourself, speak to the person who did and make sure you
understand exactly what they meant.
Read the applications for all the candidates that you will be interviewing.
Ideally, you should score each candidate against the criteria in the person
specification. Scores out of five are usual, where five is excellent and one is ‘does
not show this at all’.
If you are holding a panel interview, the panel needs to meet beforehand
and discuss interview tactics.
Ideally, the interviewers (or panel) should carry out the short-listing for the
interview, comparing the individual members’ scores for each candidate and
agreeing on a panel score.
The panel then need to agree what questions should be asked and who is going to
ask which questions, or cover which areas. It is also helpful to discuss which areas
are most important in case some areas have to be left unexamined.
Finally, the panel needs to agree what a ‘good’ answer to any particular question
will look like, and how far they are prepared to probe to try to obtain one.
On the Day of the Interview
A key skill for interviewers is to be able to build rapport swiftly and help candidates
feel relaxed. When you meet the candidates make eye contact, offer a handshake
and smile at them. Understand that they are probably feeling quite nervous.
Everyone is nervous in an interview, so candidates will be better able to show you

what they can do if you can help them to relax.
Your role, as the interviewer, is not to trip up the candidates. You are there to
find out if they can do the job or not.
Invite the candidate to sit down and indicate a chair. It stops them worrying about
what they should do.
One interviewer will generally lead the interview. They should:
• Introduce the members of the interview panel and outline the

process of the interview.
• Explain broadly what the interview is going to cover and who

is going to ask questions. It is also useful to explain what other
members of the panel will be doing: making notes, observing, or
perhaps adding supplementary questions.
• Start off the process with a simple question such as ‘Tell us what
you do in your current job’.
Presentations
If you have asked the candidates to prepare a presentation, start with that.
You can then ask them for more details about aspects of their presentation that
you found either interesting or concerning. Set aside at least 10 minutes for
questioning after the presentation.
Candidates can also be asked to do a written test. It is helpful to have the results
of the tests in front of you during the interview so that you can ask them about
anything that emerges.
Asking Questions
Interview questions generally take three forms: experience- or competence-

based questions, hypothetical questions, and personal awareness questions.
Experience-Based Questions
These questions are designed to explore what the candidate has done, and the
skills that they have previously demonstrated. They take the form:
“Tell me about a time when you….”
“Can you tell me how you have gone about solving a particular problem that you
have faced at work?”
These questions have one big drawback: they do not explore potential. What a
candidate has previously done may not translate to your organisation or your job.
If you are interviewing candidates who do not have much work experience, it is
hard for them to demonstrate that they have these skills. It is therefore also helpful
to use a few hypothetical, or problem-solving questions.
Hypothetical Questions
These questions are designed to explore how candidates will deal with the problems
that are likely to face them in this post. You may provide them with a written
statement of the problem, perhaps as half a page of bullet points, or just outline it to
them, and ask them to consider what they would do to address the problem.
Many interview processes use a candidate presentation to explore this area, for
example asking candidates to present on what they see as the first five issues to
be addressed in the job and how they would go about doing so.
Personal Awareness
These questions are designed to explore the fit between the candidate’s needs
and what the job or organisation can offer. For example, you might ask the
candidate to tell you what motivates them, or what strengths they bring to the
job. Good questions of this type ask the candidate to rank their requirements or
strengths. This enables you to assess how personally aware they are, and also
whether you can provide the necessary motivation and/or use their strengths.
Such questions might include:
“Please tell us, in descending order, the top five factors that keep you motivated
on the job”
“Tell us the most effective ways of managing you”
“What have recent appraisals and feedback suggested is an area for further work
for you, and how are you addressing it?”
WARNING!
There is no space in a serious interview for ‘quirky’ questions such as ‘If you were a
car/animal/country, what would you be?’. Anyone worth their salt will have prepared
a stock answer, and you will find out nothing. Don’t waste everybody’s time.
When you’ve asked all your questions, make sure that you offer the candidate
the opportunity to ask any questions they may have.
Their questions may be illuminating: for example, do they seem to be interested

largely in the job, or in the perks that accompany it?
Making Notes and Scoring
As a general principle, the person asking the questions should focus on the
candidate while they are answering. They should watch the candidate’s body
language and listen carefully to what they are saying.
Don’t try to make notes while the candidate is answering the question; you can do
that once they’ve finished. In a panel interview, the other members of the panel
should make notes as the question is being answered, but make sure that they too
are listening and aware of the candidate’s body language.
Each panel member or interviewer should score the candidate on each criterion
as the interview progresses.
You can always amend an earlier assessment, but after 45 minutes you won’t
remember the earlier answers clearly enough to do all the scoring at the end.
For the same reason, the panel should also discuss each candidate immediately
after they have left the room and agree their scores against the criteria.
STEP 5. MAKING A DECISION

The final stage in recruitment is to make your decision.
It is important to bring together all your information: the application form or CV

and covering letter, the interviews, the results of any additional elements of the
process, including views from the team if the candidates met them, references,
plus any other information such as the results of internet searches and social
media profiles.
You want the fullest picture possible of all the candidates.
Compare the picture that you have of each with the job description and person
specification that you prepared at the start of the process.
The successful candidate is likely to be the person who most closely fits the ten
or so elements that you identified as most important.
Your final decision should be based on the scores you have given each candidate.
If, when you get to the end of the process, one or more of the interviewers/
recruiters feels that the ‘wrong’ candidate has emerged as successful then it is
helpful to examine why this is so. Have you missed a key job skill? Or was there
something that they said which should have resulted in a lower score?
It is fine to revisit the process and come up with a different answer, as long as
you can justify it in the event of an appeal by the candidate. At this stage, the
role of the independent assessor, if there is one, is to ensure that the process is
fair to all candidates.
WARNING!
‘Gut instinct’ is a very poor selection tool.
‘Liking’ someone in an interview usually means either that they were very good at
building rapport, or that they remind you of someone you like.
Likewise, not really taking to someone usually just means that they were nervous, or
said or did something that reminded you of someone you dislike or don’t get on with.
This is NOT an indication of how well they could do the job, although it may tell you
something about their fit with the team. However, unless you have clearly indicated in
advertising that this is a factor, it’s not a good idea to take it into account.
Besides, every oyster needs grit to make pearls and every team needs someone who
will disagree with the consensus from time to time.
STEP 6. TAKE UP REFERENCES
You may be excited about having found what sounds like the perfect member of
your team. You may also think that you know all about them, having read their
application and interviewed them.
Do not get carried away.
You still need to take up their references.
Always take up references, and not just in writing. Phone the referee as well and
have a personal chat. People may say things in person that they wouldn’t put in
writing and you may save yourself an expensive error.
Of course, candidates select referees who they think will give them a good
reference. However, you should always be at least slightly suspicious if people are
not prepared to ask their current line manager for a reference. If you know the line
manager, or you know someone who knows them, it may be worth giving them a
call for an informal chat. Bear in mind, however, that they may simply not get on
with their line manager, or their line manager may have indicated that they do not
feel able to give a reference (either good or bad) for whatever reason.
A Word of Warning
At the end of the interview process, you will hopefully have selected a suitable
candidate. That may turn out to have been a good decision, or not.
Going through a process like this does not guarantee success in recruitment, but
this kind of care and attention is likely to give you the best possible chance of that.
INDUCTION, ORIENTATION
AND ‘ONBOARDING’ SKILLS
Induction and ‘onboarding’ are the processes that should happen when someone
first starts a new job.
These processes are largely the responsibility of the line manager of the new
recruit and ensure that new starters are able to settle in quickly and become
productive in their job.
These processes are vital in ensuring that you get value for money from your
recruitment process. Poor induction and onboarding processes lead to high
employee turnover within the first year after recruitment.
This section explains more about what is involved and provides some suggestions
for making the process both better and easier for all involved.
Induction/Orientation vs. Onboarding
Induction, orientation, and onboarding are terms that are often used
interchangeably. However, some commentators suggest that there are some
distinctions between them that should not be ignored.
For example:
• Induction or orientation is a process which introduces the new recruit to the

team, the office and the organisation. It might include, for example, meetings
with the line manager, any direct reports, being shown around the building, and
being given information about any health and safety issues that are relevant.
• Onboarding is the process that introduces the new recruit to the business
and gets them ready to perform in the job. It should, for example, provide
information about:
»» The business environment, including challenges facing the organisation;
»» The people, such as culture and values of the team and organisation, and
information about stakeholders, including their level of current engagement;
»» The recruit’s own plans for learning more about the job, and information
about possible resources that might be useful.
Some might argue that these are minor distinctions. Importantly, you need a
process that ensures that your new recruit understands the business and the job,
feels valued, and is able to perform well and meet their potential.
A Successful Induction and Onboarding Programme
Successful induction and onboarding is probably best thought of in several stages:

before the new recruit starts, on the first day, in the first week, and in the first
month and beyond.
Before they arrive
A successful induction programme will first ensure that the new recruit knows
where they should be: they have a desk, and/or suitable equipment, and are ready
to start work physically, at least.
This will take significant work before they arrive, to make sure that computer
accounts are set up, identity cards sorted, and all the necessary forms completed.
This ‘housekeeping’ may be dull, but it is vital to ensure that the new recruit feels
wanted on Day 1.
It is therefore best to start thinking about induction the moment your new recruit
has accepted the job.
You should also start to set up meetings with other team members, senior
managers and any important external and internal stakeholders that you feel they
should meet.
CORPORATE INDUCTION SESSIONS

Some big employers and organisations run periodic ‘corporate induction
days’, where they introduce a batch of new employees to various systems
and rules, all in one go.
If this is the situation in your organisation, you will need to book your new
recruit onto the first available session.
These sessions tend to run periodically, however. This is fine if your new
recruit starts at the right time, but, if not, you may find that you need to
do a bit more to explain the computer system, or provide health and safety
information. You will need to build this in to your thinking and planning
about induction.
It is no good saying ‘You need to know about this, but that’s included in
corporate induction’ if the corporate induction is not for another month or
six weeks.
On the first day
It is important to welcome your new recruit on the first day and introduce them
to the building and the team.
They will need to know where they are going to be working, who is around them—
though it is probably best not to try to introduce everyone all in one go—and the
location of some important things like the tea and coffee, canteen, and toilets.
It is also helpful to introduce them to the computer system, if necessary, as well as

any other office systems like the photocopier, printers and stationery ordering.
As their new line manager, you should build in an hour or so early on in the
morning to discuss the job. They need to know what you will expect from them,
and a bit more about the job. You will need to know more about how they like
to work, and what they want to get out of the job, as well as their own plans to
develop their skills further.
This is the time to start conversations about stakeholders, the business challenges,
and the environment, although this will be an ongoing discussion.
You can also tell them about the meetings you have scheduled with other
people, and any meetings that they should attend with you or others, perhaps
as an observer.
TOP TIP!
It can be helpful to ask someone else to act as ‘buddy’. Their main functions are
to show the new recruit around, answer any questions that they may have on an
ongoing basis, and perhaps to take them out at lunchtime on the first day.
The ‘buddy’ does not have to be someone in the team. It can also work well to
ask someone with a similar role but from another team, as this will help your
new recruit to build their network within the organisation.
It should, however, be someone who is going to be enthusiastic about taking

on the role and prepared to do it properly.
The first week
The first week is very much an extension of the first day: you should be around
as much as possible to answer questions, and keep an eye out to make sure that
your new recruit is settling in and not left out of office or team activities. It may be
helpful for them to spend much of the first week shadowing you in meetings.
During this week, they will start their meetings with stakeholders and team
members. They will also start to do some work although the level of this will
depend on their experience and position—more experienced recruits will start for
themselves, but those newer to the workplace may take longer, and need more
support and guidance, to realise what they are supposed to do.
You should, therefore, start to assign meaningful work this week, and keep
checking in to make sure that they are managing it.
Beyond the first week
Induction and onboarding do not stop after a week, but they do, perhaps,
become more a part of standard management arrangements.
Just as you would with any other direct report, you need to schedule regular one-
to-ones. These may need to be slightly more often with your new recruit, especially
for the first few months. These discussions will need to explore how they are
getting on in the job, providing feedback as necessary. They should also continue
to explore more about the culture of the organisation and of stakeholders.
While you will need to provide the benefit of your experience, their fresh eyes
may also add a new perspective to your thinking, so this is very much a two-
way exchange.
TOP TIP!
It may also be helpful to build in some more informal chats (perhaps by
timing your visits to the coffee point strategically), to make sure that they are
settling in, and you get to know a bit more about them.
During the first month or so, you also need to make sure that they have had any
necessary training and are able to access all the systems that they need. Think of
yourself as a facilitator during this period.
Perhaps most importantly…
Induction and onboarding processes work best when you remember the person
involved, and tailor them accordingly.
Nobody wants to have to spend all day by themselves reading, or meeting endless
strings of people without any understanding of who they are or how they fit
in. Even though some reading and meetings are necessary, make sure that you
explain what is going on, and mix activities to provide some variety.
Chapter
Managing and
3 Overseeing Work
One of the under-sung roles of managers is to oversee and

manage the work of their team. This task, which looks easy
on the surface is, essentially, a combination of delegation,
coaching, communication and juggling.
It requires an understanding of your team members, a

knowledge of their strengths and weaknesses, an awareness
of their working preferences and development needs, and an
ability to calculate rapidly how long work will take depending
on who is doing it. It also means being able to give good,
confident and constructive feedback when necessary.
It is, perhaps, not surprising that many new managers find this
task difficult.
Just getting to know your team can be the work of many

months. Adding in the need to understand the work, the tasks
required, and the time they take makes this a real challenge for
anyone. It is, however, a very useful skill. Fortunately, it is also
one that can be developed over time with a bit of patience.
GETTING STARTED
ACCEPT YOUR LIMITATIONS

Perhaps the first step towards developing the skill of managing the work of
your team is to accept that nobody gets it right all the time.
You will make mistakes. There will be times when you fail to delegate tasks,
when someone lets you down, or simply when something gets forgotten.
LEARN FROM YOUR EXPERIENCE

Use what happens as a way to explore what kind of control you like to
maintain over tasks, ways that you can do so, and to learn about your team.
That way, the whole experience will be more comfortable for everyone,
including you.
When you first become a manager, whether of one person or several, there are
two main possible scenarios:
1. You are establishing a new team, and you are all new to the job.
No tasks have been divided up yet and you will have to work out a
sensible split of responsibilities.
2. You are joining an existing team. Job roles are broadly agreed. One of
your first tasks is to work out who does what, and whether that is the
best way of dividing up the work.
In many ways the first is easier, because you simply start dividing up the work
as it comes in, making clear that this is a temporary fix until you see what works.
However, both can be managed the same way. You encourage team members to
come to you if they are over- or under-worked, and you juggle the work around
until everyone has broadly the same amount.
With luck, a flexible approach, and a reasonably proactive team, your team will
take their cue from you, and start to juggle their own work, offering to help each
other out when one person is busy.
In the meantime, you can spend time getting to know each person.
You need to understand a bit more about what motivates them, what sort of work
they like and dislike, and their strengths and weaknesses. You also want to know
whether they are looking for promotion, and therefore want to develop their skills
much more, or whether they want to stay where they are for the time being.
This will determine how you allocate future work, ensuring a suitable mixture of
stretch assignments for those who want them. You do, after all, need to make sure
that the work gets done to the required standard.
The Main Skills Needed to Oversee Work Effectively
It is possible to argue that almost any skill is vital to help you oversee work
effectively. Communication skills, for example, are important in any interpersonal
interaction, and managers inevitably need to have good communication skills,
both speaking and listening.
However, there are some skills which are particularly helpful in this particular
management situation.
Managing work effectively across the whole team means being able to delegate
work, and also develop and bring on team members. There are therefore three
essential areas of skill: delegation, feedback and coaching skills.
Delegation Skills
Learning to delegate effectively is something of an art. It requires an

understanding of yourself, and the amount of control that you want over the task.
It also requires you to be able to communicate this fully to the person to whom
you are delegating.
The next chapter, Chapter 4, on delegation skills explains the nine possible levels
of delegation, ranging from ‘Look into this problem. Give me all the facts. I will
decide what to do’ right through to ‘Take action. No further communication with
me is necessary’.
An understanding of your level of comfort with each level—and also the comfort
of members of your team—is vital for positive delegation experience.
Feedback Skills
Giving feedback is easy. Shouting at the top of your voice “That was absolutely
rubbish!” is giving feedback.
Giving effective feedback—that is, feedback that is heard and acted upon—is much
harder. There are some useful rules about good feedback, including that it should
be about behaviour, as specific as possible, and about the effect of the behaviour
on you. It should also be provided soon after the event, and at a suitable moment.
Chapter 5, on Giving and Receiving Feedback, covers this in more detail.
Coaching Skills
A good coach—or a manager using a coaching approach—starts from the position

that the person they are coaching, or their team member, knows the answer to
their problem, and just needs a bit of support to learn.
This is, oddly enough, easier as a new manager, because you may well not be an
expert in the subject matter. You may, therefore, really not know the answers, and
be dependent on your team to work them out.
Chapter 6, on Coaching Skills, explains more about this, including how to avoid
problems when coaching someone whom you manage, and the importance of
both what you say, and how you say it.
Try it and see…
An important part of a coaching approach, both with yourself and with your team,
is the idea of ‘trying it to see’.
In other words, give yourself the opportunity to try new things and potentially fail,
without considering that a disaster.
In delegating work, you can, for example, say,
“I’m going to give this work to you, but if in a couple of weeks you think you’re a bit
overloaded let me know and we’ll look again.”
“I’m worried that I’ve given you too much/too little to do, so please let me know
how it works out. We can always shift things around if necessary.”
It will help you and your team to understand that work allocations are fluid, and
that working flexibly is important to manage peaks and troughs in demand.
Chapter
4 Delegating Work
Being able to delegate effectively is a key skill for leaders, and

it is one that often seems to cause a headache. To resolve this,
one of the most important questions to answer if you want to
delegate a task, whether at home or in the workplace, is:
‘How much control do I want over the task?’
The answer to this question will drive how you delegate the
task, how often you meet with the person doing the work, and
what level of detail you want to know about. It will also alter
the leadership style that you adopt. What’s more, saying that
you want one level of control when actually you want another
is likely to confuse your team and make them anxious and less
effective. Therefore, it’s really important that you know what
you want and can communicate it clearly.
FROM NO CONTROL
TO TOTAL CONTROL
Think of control over the task as being shared in some way between the ‘leader’,
that is, the person delegating the work, and their followers. The level of control
can vary from the leader being in total control to the followers being in total
control, with a whole spectrum of shared control in between. If the leader is
in total control, the leadership style being used is likely to be Commanding or
Pacesetting (see the first eBook in this series, Learning to Lead: Understanding
Leadership and Developing Your Leadership Style). Shared control could be
Authoritative/Visionary (the leader relies on the quality of their vision to bring
their team along), Democratic, Coaching or Affiliative, all of which are very much
linked to dialogue.
Total control lying with the followers is not often seen because of the level of
risk to the leader. It is more commonly described as Laissez-Faire leadership,
which should give you some idea of the level of esteem in which it is not held by
leadership gurus.
There is plenty of evidence from psychology that one of the most stressful
conditions in work or life is lack of control.
Most of us can cope with most other problems, but lack of control leaves
us unmotivated and even depressed. This explains why Commanding and
Pacesetting leadership can’t be used for very long without profound effects
on those around you. It also explains why Laissez-Faire leadership is not seen
very often: it is very stressful for the leader!
NINE LEVELS OF DELEGATION
With the level of control in mind, we can then move on to think about how you
delegate work or tasks. Tim Brighouse, the former Schools Commissioner for
London, defined nine levels of delegation.
They are:
1. Look into this problem. Give me all the facts. I will decide what to do.
2. Let me know the options available with the pros and cons of each.
I will decide what to select.
3. Let me know the criteria for your recommendation, which alternatives

you have identified, and which one appears best to you with any risk
identified. I will make the decision.
4. Recommend a course of action for my approval.
5. Let me know what you intend to do. Delay action until I approve.
6. Let me know what you intend to do. Do it unless I say not to.
7. Take action. Let me know what you did. Let me know how it turns out.
8. Take action. Communicate with me only if the action is unsuccessful.
9. Take action. No further communication with me is necessary.
It will immediately be apparent that there is huge potential for problems if

you want to know exactly what is going on, but your subordinate has received
the message that you don’t want any further information. Delegating work is
obviously a lot more complicated than it looks at first sight.
KEY SKILLS
IN DELEGATING WORK
Delegating may be complicated, but there are actually only two principle skill
areas needed for successful delegating:
• Be aware what level of control you want and need, which needs high
levels of self- awareness. Good leaders are intrinsically self-aware and
understand how they like to work. Working on your emotional control,
as set out in the previous eBook in this series, will help you to improve
your self-awareness.
The best leaders are also aware of how their subordinates like to work,
and strive to find a balance between the two so that their subordinates
can grow and develop in their work. You can find out how much control
people like by asking them, and negotiating the level of delegation that
you use with them so that both of you get some of what you want (and
a win–win situation).
The key here is to know your ideal position, which is where you start
your negotiation, but also be aware of what is called the bottom line
position, which is the position below which you are not prepared
to go. For example, if your ideal level of control is Level 4, you may
be prepared to go as far as Level 7. Your subordinate, however, may
be pushing for Level 8, and you will need to be very clear about the
maximum level you are prepared to permit.
• Make sure that you are absolutely clear with your sub-ordinate what
level of delegation you have used. This requires strong communication
skills, and in particular checking back to make sure that your
subordinate understands what is required.
DELEGATION IS NOT JUST A WORK SKILL
The nine levels of delegation work with children too. For example, you might
want your children to tidy their rooms.
In level one delegation, you say ‘Please go and have a look at your room.
Come back and tell me how long you think it might take you to tidy it up, then
I can decide whether you have time to do it before school.’ It doesn’t leave
the child much room for manoeuvre, but nor does it give them much chance
to develop their own skills or take control of their lives.
In level six delegation, you might say ‘Please go and have a look at your room,
and come back and tell me when you think you might be able to tidy it. Once
you’ve told me when you’re going to do it, I expect you to just get on and do
it.’ You might need to remind them later, but you are reminding them about
a commitment which they have made to you, rather than an order you gave
them. They are partners in the task and its timing: the control is shared.
In level nine delegation, you might say ‘Your room really needs tidying and I
don’t mind when you do it, but it has to be tidy by the time you go away at
the weekend. Is that OK?’ You are putting a high degree of trust in your child
to do as you ask. This level of delegation doesn’t really give you any option to
say ‘Have you done it yet?’, because the answer is, not unreasonably, likely to
be ‘You said you didn’t mind when I did it. Why are you nagging me?’
Like so many skills, delegation can be broken down into a relatively

straightforward set of skills: in this case, communication and self-awareness.
However, also like many others, it takes a fair bit of practice before you’re
really comfortable.
To get better, it’s a good idea to practise consciously using different levels of
delegation, so that you become familiar with the type of language needed for
each, and are able to use them comfortably. You will then be able to flex your
style to fit the task and the person to whom you are delegating.
We now turn to one of the key communication skills for leaders, and particular
for effective delegation: giving and receiving feedback.
Chapter
Giving and
5 Receiving Feedback
In life as much as in work, it’s important to know how to

provide effective and constructive feedback to others without
causing offence. There are many opportunities in life for
providing others with feedback, from commenting on the way
that your colleague has carried out a task, to discussing your
children’s behaviour with them.
‘Feedback’ is the process of communicating with someone

about something that they have done or said, with a view to
changing or encouraging that behaviour. When you do it, you
want your feedback to be effective.
WHAT IS EFFECTIVE FEEDBACK?
For our purposes, we will define effective feedback as that which is clearly heard,
understood and accepted. Those are the areas that are within your power. You
have no control over whether the recipient chooses to act upon your feedback, so
that should be put that to one side.
So how can you make sure that your feedback is effective?
Develop your feedback skills by using these few rules, and you’ll soon find that
you’re much more effective.
1. Feedback should be about behaviour not personality
The first, and probably the most important rule of feedback is to remember that
you are making no comment on what type of person they are, or what they believe
or value. You are only commenting on how they behaved. Do not be tempted to
discuss aspects of personality, intelligence or anything else. Only behaviour.
2. Feedback should describe the effect of the person’s behaviour on you
After all, you do not know how the behaviour affects anyone or anything else.
You only know how it made you feel or what you thought. Presenting feedback
as your opinion makes it much easier for the recipient to hear and accept it, even
if you are giving negative feedback. After all, they have no control over how you
felt, any more than you have any control over their intention. This approach is a
blame- free one, which is therefore much more acceptable.
CHOOSE YOUR FEEDBACK LANGUAGE
CAREFULLY
Useful phrases for giving feedback include: “When you did [x], I felt [y].”
“I noticed that when you said [x], it made me feel [y].”
“I really liked the way that you did [x] and particularly [y] about it.”
“It made me feel really [x] to hear you say [y] in that way.”
3. Feedback should be as specific as possible
Especially when things are not going well, we all know that it’s tempting to start
from the point of view of ‘everything you do is rubbish’, but don’t. Think about
specific occasions, and specific behaviour, and point to exactly what the person
did, and exactly how it made you feel. The more specific the better, as it is much
easier to hear about a specific occasion than about ‘all the time’!
4. Feedback should be timely
It’s no good telling someone about something that offended or pleased you six
months later. Feedback needs to be timely, which means while everyone can still
remember what happened. If you have feedback to give, then just get on and give
it. That doesn’t mean without thought. You still need to think about what you’re
going to say and how.
5. Feedback should be given at the right moment
There are times when people are feeling open to feedback and times when they
aren’t. Working on your emotional awareness will help you to be aware of the
emotions and feelings of others. This will help you to pick a suitable moment.
For example, an angry person won’t want to accept feedback, even given
skilfully. Wait until they’ve calmed down a bit.
FEEDBACK DOESN’T JUST HAPPEN
IN FORMAL FEEDBACK MEETINGS
Every interaction is an opportunity for feedback, in both directions. Some of
the most important feedback may happen casually in a quick interchange,
for example, this one, overheard while two colleagues were making coffee:
Mary (laughing): “You remind me of my mum.”
Jane (her manager): “Really, why?”
Mary: “She gets really snappy with me when she’s stressed too.”
Jane: “Oh, I’m so sorry, have I been snapping at you? I am a bit stressed,
but I’ll try not to do it in future. Thank you for telling me, and I’m sorry you
needed to.”
Mary had, quite casually, raised a serious behavioural issue with Jane. Jane
realised that she was fortunate that Mary had recognised the behavioural
pattern from a familial situation and drawn her own conclusions.
However, Jane also recognised that not everyone she would ever work with
would do the same. Having been made aware of her behaviour, she chose to
change it. Mary had also, casually or not, given feedback in line with all the
rules: it was about Jane’s recent behaviour, and so was specific and timely,
and showed how Mary perceived it. It was also at a good moment, when Jane
was relaxed and open to discussion. Finally, a bonus point for Mary: it was
done with humour.
RECEIVING FEEDBACK
It’s also important to think about what skills you need to receive feedback,
especially when it is something you don’t want to hear, and not least because not
everyone is skilled at giving feedback.
Be open to the feedback
In order to hear feedback, you need to listen to it. Don’t think about what you’re
going to say in reply, just listen. Notice the non-verbal communication as well,
and listen to what your colleague is not saying, as well as what they are.
Check that you have fully understood all the nuances of what the other person
is saying and avoid misunderstandings by using different types of questions to
clarify the situation, and reflect back your understanding, including emotions.
For example, you might say:
“So when you said …, would it be fair to say that you meant … and felt …?”
“Have I understood correctly that when I did …, you felt …?”
Make sure that your reflection and questions focus on behaviour, and not
personality. Even if the feedback has been given at another level, you can
always return the conversation to the behavioural, and help the person
giving feedback to focus on that level.
Emotional intelligence is essential. You need to be aware of your emotions

(self-awareness) and also be able to manage them (self-control) so that,
even if the feedback causes an emotional response, you can control it.
Be grateful for feedback
Always thank the person who has given you the feedback. They have already seen
that you have listened and understood, now accept it. Acceptance in this way does
not mean that you need to act on it. However, you do then need to consider the
feedback, and decide how, if at all, you wish to act upon it. That is entirely up to
you, but remember that the person giving the feedback felt strongly enough to
bother mentioning it to you. Do them the courtesy of at least giving the matter
some consideration. If nothing else, with negative feedback, you want to know
how not to generate that response again.
Chapter
6 Coaching Skills
Put simply, coaching is a process that aims to improve

performance and focuses on the ‘here and now’ rather than
on the distant past or future.
While there are many different models of coaching, here we

are not considering the ‘coach as expert’ but, instead, the
coach as a facilitator of learning.
There is a huge difference between teaching someone and

helping them to learn. In coaching, fundamentally, the coach
is helping the individual to improve their own performance:
in other words, helping them to learn.
UNDERSTANDING COACHING
Good coaches believe that the individual always has the answer to their own
problems but understands that they may need help to find the answer.
COACHING IS UNLOCKING A PERSON’S POTENTIAL TO

MAXIMISE THEIR OWN PERFORMANCE. IT IS HELPING THEM
TO LEARN RATHER THAN TEACHING THEM.
John Whitmore, in Coaching for Performance.
The ‘Inner Game’
No discussion of coaching would be complete without mention of Timothy

Gallwey and his insights into the ‘inner game’.
Gallwey’s book, The Inner Game of Tennis, revolutionised thinking about coaching.
He suggested that the biggest obstacles to success and achieving potential
were internal, not external. His insight was that coaches could help individuals
to improve their game by distracting them from their inner dialogue and, in
particular, the critical voice that said “Not like that! Concentrate on your hands!
Angle it differently!”.
By distracting that inner voice, the body could take over. It turns out that often the
body has a very clear idea of what to do when internal dialogues are suppressed.
Gallwey used the example of asking people to focus on the height at which they
hit the tennis ball. This activity has no relevance in itself, but the simple act of
focusing on it distracted the inner voice and enabled the capable body to take
over. The individual relaxed and their tennis improved immediately.
Gallwey’s real insight was that this didn’t just apply to tennis, but that
individuals generally did have the answers to their own problems within
themselves.
The essential part of coaching, then, is to help people to learn to silence that inner
voice and allow their instincts, or their subconscious, to take over. Sometimes that
means distracting it, and sometimes it is about exploring the ‘worst case scenario’
and removing the fear.
Coaching and Learning
Coaches may find it helpful to understand and use one or more models of
learning, such as the Competence Cycle Model. This is described in more detail
in the previous eBook in this series, Personal Leadership Skills, but basically
describes learning as a progression through both awareness and ability, until the
learner becomes able to use the new skill without conscious thought.
The competence cycle is helpful because it enables coaches to use the right sort
of language to help people move forwards. After all, it’s difficult to try to improve
a skill if you are not aware that you lack it.
The key skill of coaching is asking the right questions to help the individual work
through their own issues.
The term ‘coaching’ means many different things to different people, but is
generally about helping individuals to solve their own problems and improve their
own performance.
It does not matter whether coaching is used in sport, life or business, the good
coach believes that individuals always have the answer to their own problems.
They just need help to unlock them.
ESSENTIAL COACHING SKILLS
Leaders and managers often need to use a coaching approach to help team
members develop. There are a number of key skills that will help you to become a
great coach or coaching leader.
The most important attribute of any coach is that they want to help the person
or people they are coaching to learn. A good coach does not see themselves as
an expert able to fix all problems and having all the answers. Instead, they see
themselves as supporting the process of learning.
Internal vs External Coaching
There are two main types of coaching relationship. The first is with an external
coach who is not part of the organisation or line management structure in any
way. The second is an internal coaching relationship, where a manager or leader
acts as a coach for their team. The two require different ways of working as coach,
although they share some similarities.
• In an external relationship, the coach has no subject expertise and no

vested interest in the outcome of any decisions, except insofar as the
person being coached is pleased with the outcome of the coaching. They
also have no preconceived ideas about the person being coached: they
probably don’t know them in a work context and have no idea of the
quality of their work performance.
• In an internal relationship, however, the coach may well have a strong

vested interest in the quality of the decision-making, as well as knowing a
lot about the subject. They may well know the person being coached very
well: they may have been managing them for some time and have some
preconceived ideas of the likely outcomes of coaching, which may not
necessarily be positive.
The internal coach—and this includes any leader using a coaching
approach with a member of their team—therefore has to work on several
issues that the external coach does not encounter:
• Putting aside any preconceived ideas about the person and their
effectiveness. Try to focus on the coaching process, and what you learn
about the individual through that.
• Parking your own subject expertise, and helping the individual to
develop their own solutions. One good way is to make an effort never to
offer a comment, but only ever to ask open questions (so not ‘Have you
thought about doing x?’).
• Not leaping to solutions but, instead, allowing the person being coached
time to explore the problem in their own way. Again, continuing to ask
questions about the nature of the problem, or what might be a possible
solution, is a good way to do this.
• Being aware of assumptions made, whether about the person,

the process or the subject.
Intention and Meaning
We mentioned the danger of making assumptions, but one particularly key area
of communication, especially for coaching, is the way that you say something.
This often determines whether the immediate response is hostile or receptive.
However, the meaning, or intention, behind your words is also important.
Consider some examples:
What was said What was meant
You won’t mind if I leave early, will you? I’m going to leave early even if it’s inconvenient to you
Would you mind if I left a bit early? I’d really like to leave early, but I won’t if it’s inconvenient
Shall I drive? I’d like to drive
Do you want to drive or shall I? I am entirely open to suggestion on who is going to drive
Will you drive? I don’t really want to drive
It is also important to consider not just your intended meaning, but also what
someone hears as your intended meaning.
For example, if you say “I’d like to leave a bit early today, is that OK with you?”, you
may be genuinely concerned that it might not be convenient for your colleague.
However, your colleague may hear “I’m going to leave whether that’s OK with you
or not, and you’ll just have to stay here until late if necessary”.
It might, therefore, have been better to have said “I’d really like to leave early
today, but I won’t if you need to leave too. If you’re OK with me going early, can I
repay the favour another day and you can have an early evening then?”
Why is this difference important in coaching?
Coaching is all about a supportive, permissive relationship. The coach does not
tell, but seeks permission to make suggestions and ask questions, respecting the
person being coached.
There is a world of difference between saying:
“I’ve found that a coaching session often works best if we’re off-site, so would you
be OK with going to a café?”
and
“We’re going to meet off-site, because that always works better.”
The first gives the person being coached an option to say no.
The second says “I know what’s best, so just do it”. It does not show respect to
the opinion of the person being coached and is unlikely to lead to a productive
coaching relationship.
OTHER KEY COACHING SKILLS
AND ATTRIBUTES
Great coaches and coaching leaders tend to have a number of key skills
and attributes.
For example, they generally have high emotional intelligence: they’re good at
understanding and relating to people, and they’re interested in people. You have
to genuinely want to help others develop to become a really good coach. It’s no
good just paying lip service to the idea.
Good coaches also have strong communication skills. They are good at gathering
information and then clarifying it for the person being coached. They generally
have strong listening skills, including active listening.
They don’t jump in straight away with the answer but rather make sure that they
have fully understood the issue by reflecting and clarifying.
Similarly, coaches have usually taken time to develop strong questioning skills.
It’s been said that coaches should never offer opinions, but instead only ask
questions to guide the person being coached through the issue.
Coaches and coaching leaders give space and time for people to try things out.
They don’t get over-excited or angry about mistakes, instead they concentrate
on how to recover the situation calmly and with the involvement of the person
who made the mistake. They are skilled at providing feedback and using tact
and diplomacy.
A Cautionary Note
Great coaches and coaching leaders are pleased, if not delighted, when the person
they are coaching achieves something.
This sounds obvious but in practice, and especially if you’re a leader rather than an
external coach, you may well feel a niggle of doubt: “Maybe they’re actually better
than me? Perhaps I’d better put them down a bit and keep them in their place?”.
Strive to overcome this.
Remember that a great leader uses their team’s skills to balance their own.
A really good coaching leader can develop a highly skilled team, and this is a
sign of real strength. After all, a team should be greater than the sum of its parts.
The team’s glory will reflect on you as leader and support your own self-belief:
“Look at me, I’ve built a great team and together this is what we’ve achieved!”
Finally...
If you’re ever tempted to put someone down because you think they may be
reaching a level of expertise beyond yours, remember the adage that:
You should always be nice to those you meet on the way up, because you may
well meet them again when you’re on the way down!
Chapter
Appraisals and
7 Performance Management
Appraisals, also known as performance reviews, performance

appraisals and employee appraisals, are a way of measuring
and assessing employee performance.
Once an annual event, often with a huge bureaucracy

attached, the performance appraisal process has recently
become more informal and flexible in many organisations.
Whether your organisation favours an annual process or a

more informal arrangement, performance reviews are a vital
tool for managers and their teams to discuss performance
on an individual and team basis. They also serve as a way to
identify and address development needs.
Learning to carry out performance reviews effectively is an

important skill for managers and leaders, as is managing
performance more generally.
UNDERSTANDING APPRAISAL
AND PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
An appraisal or performance review is simply a way of evaluating and
documenting employee performance. The process generally involves:
• Setting individual or team goals and targets for a period;
• Assessing and documenting progress against these goals and

targets at intervals; and
• Identifying linked development needs for individuals or teams.
Many organisations operate an annual appraisal system. However, increasingly,

employees and managers are finding that it is helpful to have more frequent
performance discussions, perhaps quarterly, with regular one-to-ones that touch
on performance and provide task feedback in between.
This page distinguishes between two types of discussion: formal performance

reviews, and more informal performance discussions.
FORMAL PERFORMANCE REVIEWS
Many, if not most, organisations require formal performance reviews at intervals.
The intervals may be flexible—for example, to fit with project deadlines, rather
than time-bound periods—but the process itself remains fairly similar:
1. Goal-setting
The first step in any appraisal process is to set clear goals for the individual.
To be meaningful, these should be closely linked to the organisation’s goals
and strategy, and also to those of the team.
The goals should also be ‘owned’ by the individual, not the manager. Managing
the balance between this and the link to the organisation’s goals can be challenging
for managers, but it is important to ensure that individuals are genuinely interested
in their goals.
Goals should be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timed).

The goals should also set out clearly how progress against them will be measured,
so that the employee knows what is expected.
2. Assessment of performance against the goals
Formal performance reviews need to make an assessment of performance

against the individual or team goals.
However, it is important to remember that there should be no surprises in these

discussions. These conversations are also not the place for detailed discussions
about recent or individual events. Issues of poor or outstanding performance
should have been raised when they occurred, with detailed feedback provided.
Instead, these formal discussions should focus on the whole period under
review, and the overall level of performance against the goals. Discussion might
include how the goals changed over time, whether they were achieved, and what
challenges were met in the process.
The focus should be on learning, and not on punishment, success or failure.
3. Identifying development needs
A key part of formal appraisal is to identify development needs and consider

how these might be addressed.
It is no use agreeing that someone needs to work on their stakeholder

management skills, for example, without working out how this will be achieved.
A clear action plan is an important outcome of appraisal discussions and should
be documented.
Like goals, it is important that a personal development plan is owned by the

individual and not the manager (although it is, of course, also important that
the manager supports the plan, and is prepared to provide the time and other
resources required to achieve it).
4. Documenting the appraisal
The final part of the process is to document it.
This means the goal-setting, progress and performance during the period, and the
discussion itself. In other words, you should record the formal parts of the process,
but you should both (manager and employee) also keep track of good and bad
performance during the period, with evidence. For example, it is helpful to keep a
record of:
• Any praise or complaints from customers, and internal managers or staff;
• The outcomes and outputs from projects and tasks, including meeting
deadlines; and
• Any problems that were encountered that affected the project.
It is helpful for both manager and employee to keep these records, as they can be
useful tools during formal and informal performance discussions.
The goals, appraisal outcomes and personal development plan should be written
up and formally agreed by both manager and member of staff, to ensure that they
have a shared understanding of these.
WHY DOCUMENT DISCUSSIONS?
You may feel that documenting performance discussions is a waste of time
that could be better spent on actual work.
However, it is worth bearing in mind that employment tribunals often rely

on performance appraisal discussions as evidence of either good or poor
performance.
No document = no evidence = potentially unfair dismissal.
If you get into the habit of routinely recording all performance discussions,
and agreeing the record with the other person, this will never be a problem.
Informal Performance Discussions
Important though formal performance reviews are, they are no substitute for
regular feedback on performance.
As a manager, you should aim to discuss performance with your team members
regularly, providing feedback routinely on how they are doing their job—and also
seeking feedback from them on your performance as a manager.
Effective feedback is timely: you should provide it at the time you notice the
event, or as soon as possible after that. It should also be specific, and focus on
behaviour. If it is positive, a quick word in passing can be very effective:
“By the way, I was impressed with the way you handled that question from the
client. It could have been difficult, but your response got straight to the heart of the
matter, and I could see he was happy with that.”
Praising people in front of others can be good, but negative feedback is

probably best handled in private, on a one-to-one basis. For a single event, it
is best not to make a big deal of it, but just ask quietly how it might have been
better approached.
A focus on moving forward
Appraisals and performance reviews should always be approached with a focus

on moving forwards.
They are not, and should not be, about punishment. Instead, they should be
about praising and encouraging effective behaviour, and developing weaker areas
to improve those for the future. Keep this in mind, and your appraisals will be
more effective, and more welcome to your team.
DISCIPLINE AND MANAGING

POOR PERFORMANCE
It is therefore clear that it is important to assess and review performance on a
regular basis. But what happens when a member of your team is performing badly?
This section explains how to manage poor performance.
This section covers some broad principles, but many organisations

have set out their own individual arrangements and processes for
performance management.
If in doubt, you should follow your organisation’s arrangements

and consult your HR team.
Poor Performance: A Definition
Poor performance here is defined as persistent and ongoing failure to perform to

the standards required for the job.
In other words, it is not finding the job hard for the first few weeks, but a failure to
improve despite repeated help and support being provided. It is also not a one-
off, but an ongoing situation.
It will, therefore, take time to resolve the situation, and may also take a
considerable amount of energy.
The Basis for Poor Performance
Poor performance may be a matter of lack of ability (or capability), motivation,

or misconduct.
• Lack of capability is about being unable to change in the required

way, and do the job;
• Lack of motivation is a lack of desire to do the job properly; and
• Misconduct is a refusal to change.
It can be difficult to determine which is which in practice, but the way that you
tackle it may be different. For example, if the issue is lack of capability, then
training or coaching may be helpful. However, motivation may be best addressed
by helping the person to find a new job. It may only be possible to deal with
misconduct by threatening the person with dismissal.
It is, therefore, helpful to try to determine the root cause if possible, preferably
by discussing it with the person concerned.
PRINCIPLES OF MANAGING POOR PERFORMANCE
There are a number of principles that you should follow in managing poor
performance.
1. Provide feedback on inadequate performance as soon as possible
Disciplinary or performance proceedings are (or should be) the end of a process,
not the beginning.
If someone you manage does some work that is not at the required standard,
you should speak to them about it straight away and provide feedback on their
performance. This does not mean that you should reprimand them. Instead, it
means you should help them to understand how they can improve for next time.
It is possible that this will be a one-off but, even if it is not, everyone needs to be
given a chance to improve, and some coaching or training to help them to do so.
As their manager, it is your responsibility to provide this support, and ensure that
they are given time to improve.
2. Try some alternatives
Rather than launching straight into disciplinary proceedings, it may be better to

try some other options first if the person struggles to improve despite training.
It is good to consider that there may be a complete mismatch between person and
job for some reason, and that it may be easier to change the job than the person.
Options include:
• Refitting the job to them: take some elements away and give
them other work instead. This takes work, but it may be quicker
and easier than trying to ‘fit a square peg into a round hole’.
• Moving the person somewhere else: find them another job that is
better suited to their skills.
Both these options are obviously easier in larger organisations, but are worth
considering because they can help with both capability and motivation issues.
3. Document everything
If you enter disciplinary proceedings, you are likely to be supported by HR

colleagues who will remind you of the importance of documenting everything.
However, it should already be clear that disciplinary proceedings are the end of
the line. The previous section explains that all performance discussions should be
documented, if only to provide evidence for formal appraisal processes. This is
particularly true of poor performance, and can be as simple as sending the person
you manage an email saying,
“We met today and discussed the fact that your performance in task [x] had not
been quite up to standard. We agreed that next time, you would consider doing …
[list of agreed outcomes]”
If you get into the habit of doing this, then in the event of having to deal with
ongoing poor performance, you will have a long train of evidence going back
weeks, if not months or years, of how you have tried to help that person improve.
4. Use the proper procedures
If you think you may have a genuine performance issue on your hands—rather
than just someone having an off-day, or needing some training to help them
with a particular aspect of the job—then you need to manage it using your
organisation’s procedures for doing so.
Failure to do so will result in problems further down the line, and possibly
employment tribunals or claims for unfair dismissal.
It is, therefore, worth consulting the HR team (if there is one) as soon as
possible, and ensuring that they are aware of the situation, and providing
advice where necessary.
5. Tailor your approach to the person
Although procedures are important, it is also important to consider the

person concerned.
If the poor performance is linked to motivation, performance management

procedures may not be the answer. Sometimes people perform badly because
they are unhappy, or because there is something going on outside work that is
affecting them. A family bereavement, for example, can affect someone’s ability
to work, or their motivation.
If you think that something like that is going on, it is best to talk to them about
how you can help before you launch into disciplinary proceedings.
You may, for example, be able to move work around the team to lighten that
person’s load for a few weeks or months, or help them to find a less demanding
job that would suit them better for the time being. Helping someone into another
job can be a much better outcome for you, them, and the organisation than
months of disciplinary proceedings.
6. Keep going if necessary
Performance procedures tend to involve warnings, and periods of probation.

For example, someone might be given an informal warning, and have a month
to improve, then a written warning, with a similar period.
What is often seen is that performance improves for that month, and then lapses
again immediately or shortly afterwards, so the process has to begin again.
This is very wearing for everyone involved.
It is also why it is important to involve HR early on. They can, for example, agree
that the warning period can be extended if necessary (perhaps because you
and they feel that past experience suggests that this employee will find it hard
to sustain improved performance), or that you can start at a later stage in the
proceedings. This is particularly important where you think that the issue may be
misconduct (i.e. refusal to change), because that person may well have been doing
this a long time and know exactly how to play the system.
Under those circumstances, moving someone on is a long game, and you need
to be patient.
Chapter
Influencing, Persuading
8 and Motivating Others
How do you keep your team going through good times and
bad? Are you one of those people who seems to be able to
keep the members of their team positive, enthusiastic and
hard-working even at the toughest times, or to keep their
family going even when everything is going wrong? Or do you
really wish you were?
The word motivation comes from the Latin movere, meaning to

move, via ‘motive’, meaning causing motion, concerned with
the initiation of action. Motivation is therefore, in its purest
sense, the incentive towards action.
Motivation, then, is what drives us to achieve our goals.

But what can you do to increase the motivation of those
you lead? There are a few surprisingly simple areas which
will make a huge difference.
MOTIVATIONAL TECHNIQUES
There are two main types of motivation: intrinsic and extrinsic. These can broadly
be described as:
Intrinsic = love. In other words, “I do this because I want to”
Extrinsic = money. In other words, “I do this because I have to”.
In both work and life, you will come across people who are motivated by both
factors, and most often by a mixture of the two. People’s motivations will also
change at different times, and for different tasks. In order to lead effectively,
you need to be aware of the balance between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations
for each of those you lead and, particularly, what are the things that they love,
that they would almost be prepared to do without being paid. You can then
use different rewards for different people, perhaps providing some with more
challenging work as a reward for achieving goals, and others with additional
time off.
Some helpful motivational techniques are listed below.
Provide Interesting and Stimulating Work
Once you know what your staff really like to do, then you can start to provide
work that will be interesting and stimulating to them. Work design has a really
strong impact on performance.
Researchers have identified three basic characteristics of tasks that lead to

boredom at work, which in turn leads to lack of motivation. These are:
• Quantitative underload, which basically means not having enough to do;
• Qualitative underload, when tasks are simple and unchallenging; and
• Qualitative overload, when individuals are asked to do tasks which are

too complex, and ‘switch off’ because they feel unable to achieve what
they have been asked to do.
Fisher, C.D. (1993) ‘Boredom at work: a neglected concept’, Human Relations, 46(3), 395–417
As a leader, it is your job to ensure that work is designed in a way that avoids all
three of these pitfalls as much and as often as possible.
There are several things that you can do, as a manager or leader, to help alleviate
boredom at work.
Suppose you are the manager of a canteen or self-service restaurant where staff are
likely to suffer from qualitative underload. You could:
• Ensure that tasks are rotated, so that nobody has time to feel bored in any
particular task.
• Ensure that there is variety in every task. For example, those clearing away in
the canteen should all be encouraged to stack and remove trays, wipe tables
and clear the tray trolleys away to the washing up station, rather than one
stacking, one removing, one wiping tables, and one removing the trolleys.
• Show solidarity (‘walk the walk’) by helping out at busy times to demonstrate
the value that you place on the work that your staff do.
SET CHALLENGING BUT
ACHIEVABLE GOALS
Setting goals for and with others is an art. Too challenging, and they will not
believe they can achieve it. Not challenging enough, and it certainly won’t be
motivating. You won’t get this right first time but, don’t worry, nobody does.
The important point is to be flexible. If you got the goal wrong, adjust it to
circumstances, agree the new goal and move on. Consider it an iterative process,
and not a one-off.
Provide the Right Rewards
There are hundreds of books devoted to setting up reward systems, and it is not
something that we can cover on this page. But whether dealing with children or
colleagues, the important things to remember are that:
• Your reward system needs to recognise and reward the behaviour

that you want to see.
• Rewards should be personally tailored.
• Rewards should not be complex.
Quite often, praise is enough, although it does have to be sincere and also genuinely
merited. Insincerity is easy to detect. As an example of a more complex reward
system, take a look at our case study below to see a carefully-thought out system
that rewarded exactly the behaviour the company wanted from its employees.
CASE STUDY:
HANDYMEN R US
Handymen R Us provides handyman services around the London area.
Handymen each have their own list of jobs for the day, controlled by a central
office that allocates work, giving an estimated time for each job.
Customers are charged for actual time taken, in half-hour increments, with a
‘job fee’ on top. Handymen are paid a percentage of what they earn for the
company, and the office tries to ensure that each handyman gets a reasonable
balance of short and long jobs. If a customer is not satisfied with the work,
the same handyman has to return to sort the problem without charging the
customer for the repeat visit, or ‘call-back’.
The company also runs a system of customer feedback, where the handyman
who has the most positive feedback in any month gets a small prize. The
reward system has therefore been designed to encourage handymen:
• To complete jobs promptly. Deliberately taking longer over a job, and

therefore earning more from that customer, means that they will earn
less overall, as they will do fewer jobs, and therefore earn fewer ‘job
fees’. This improves the reputation of the company for delivering on
its time estimates, and not wasting customers’ time, and also means
that the office has to do less juggling of jobs to get someone to each
customer on time.
• Conversely, not to rush the job, since a call-back costs them income.
• To seek customer feedback, ensuring that the company stays aware

of what its customers value about its services.
PERSUASION SKILLS
Leaders also need to be able to persuade others to do something. Of course, a
leadership position means that you can simply tell others what to do, and they are
at least in part obliged to do it, but being able to convince them that they actually
want to do it is much more powerful.
Some people seem to be able to persuade others effortlessly, and almost without
anyone noticing, whereas others fall back on the power of their position to enforce
what they want.
Persuasion skills can be learnt just like any others, and they are a key part of being
able to influence others to achieve your goals and objectives.
WAYS TO INFLUENCE AND PERSUADE

Nagging
We all know people who aim to persuade by talking constantly. They seem to
think they can grind others into submission, by simply reiterating their point of
view constantly. This, basically, is nagging. And it does sometimes work, of course,
because their colleagues or family give in solely to get some peace. But as a
general rule, others persuaded in this way probably haven’t bought into the idea
and are not committed to it.
This means that when the going gets tough, the idea could easily just wither
and die.
Coercion
Others fall back on the power of their position, and order others to do what
they want. This, in its most unpleasant sense, is coercion. Again, their family
or colleagues won’t necessarily like what they’re doing. If it’s hard, they may
well give up. More orders will be issued, to rescue the idea, but again, may be
unsuccessful, because those involved are doing it because they have to, not
because they want to.
A Better Way
The ‘Holy Grail’ of persuasion, then, is to get others to buy into the idea,
and want to do it your way.
And the best way of doing that is in a way that others don’t notice. But how?
The fable of the sun and the wind is a good example:
The wind and the sun decided to have a competition to decide once and for all
who was stronger. They agreed that the winner would be the one who could
persuade a man to take off his coat. The wind blew and blew, but the man only
held on more tightly to his coat. Then the sun shone gently down, and within
minutes, the man took off his coat.
The moral here is that you can’t force someone to do what they don’t want;
instead, the art of persuasion is to get them to want what you want.
PERSUASION UNSEEN
Consider this example of a group of students choosing a leader for a group
task.
The group had agreed on the ideal type of person, and there were two
obvious candidates within the group, Sue and Steven.
Sue suggested that Steven should take on the task, and he accepted happily.
Decision made. Everyone smiled, except for one member of the group, John.
John, who had until that moment been silent, said: “Steven, don’t forget to let
us know what you want us to do to help. With your new job, you’re going to
have a lot on, and you’ll need to make sure you get us organised or we won’t
get it all done.”
Steven looked thoughtful, and then said, “You know, on reflection, I’m not
sure I’ve got time to do this as well as starting my new job. I have got a lot on,
as you say. Maybe it would be better if Sue did it.”
Everyone looked at Sue, who said that she would take it on if the group
wanted. They all agreed that would be best.
Sue later asked John privately why he had intervened when the group had
already decided on a leader. He said that he thought she would do it better
than Steven, and get a better result for the group.
In this example, John had used his persuasion skills very subtly to get what
he wanted, and created a win-win situation from a potentially unpleasant
conversation.
Steven was happy that the group had acknowledged his skills, and equally
happy that he wasn’t leading the task.
In fact, at the end, he wanted Sue to lead it, without John ever having to risk
upsetting him by saying that he thought Sue would be better.
Barriers to Successful Persuasion
One way to think about what works in persuading others is to think about what
doesn’t work first.
In his book Persuasion IQ, Kurt Mortensen lists ten obstacles to successful
persuasion:
• Thinking that you are better at persuasion than you are, and therefore
failing to hone your skills. Instead, take a long, hard look at yourself,
and see where your skills need to be improved.
• Trying too hard to persuade. Seeming too keen probably puts people off
faster than anything else.
• Failing to put in the effort required to get what you want. Nothing,
or at least not much, is free in this world.
• Talking too much. Stop, and just listen to the people you need to persuade.
• Providing too much information, which just confuses people, and makes
them think you are trying to blind them with science. What, they ask, are you
not telling them?
• Getting desperate. Like insincerity, people can spot fear at a distance,

and don’t like it.
• Being afraid of rejection. This can even stop people from trying to persuade
in extreme cases.
• Not being prepared. You can’t ‘wing it’ every time. Your audience will see
through you, and will think that you value your time more highly than theirs.
• Making assumptions about your audience, and then not being prepared
to reassess when new evidence emerges.
• Forgetting that the whole conversation is important. You need to engage

in order to persuade, right from the beginning.
Successful Persuasion
Research shows that there are a number of things that people like about
successful persuaders.
Kurt Mortensen’s research suggests that these elements are largely emotional.
They include keeping promises, being reliable and taking responsibility, being
sincere, genuine, and honest, knowing their subject, and believing in it, building
rapport, and being entertaining, as well as not arguing and providing solutions
that work.
The key skills for successful persuasion, then, are pretty wide. First of all,
successful persuaders tend to have high self-esteem and good emotional
intelligence more generally. They really believe that they will succeed.
You also need to remain motivated and believe in yourself and your ideas.
Additionally, you need to understand how your audience thinks.
Key skills here include empathy, and good listening skills. If you listen, your
audience will usually tell you what and how they are thinking. It also helps to be
able to build rapport; people like those who take time to become a friend, as well
as an influencer. It follows, really: if we’re honest, we’d all much rather do what
a friend suggests than someone we dislike, however sensible the idea. Building
rapport also helps to build trust.
Good persuaders or influencers also have very good communication skills.
It’s essential that you can get your point across succinctly and effectively,
otherwise you’re never going to persuade anyone of the merits of your position.
The final skill of good persuaders is being organised. They do their homework,
they know their audience and they know their subject. They have taken time to
organise themselves and think about what they want to achieve.
DEVELOPING BETTER
PERSUASION SKILLS
It should therefore be clear that leaders need good persuasion skills. Developing
these skills in practice, however, is hard.
This section therefore describes some models of persuasion, including Tim Baker’s
Four Persuasion Strategies and Robert Cialdini’s Influence Weapons. It is designed
to help you to develop your persuasion skills in a rather more scientific way.
Tim Baker’s Persuasion Strategies
Tim Baker developed a framework for persuading others effectively in his book,
The New Influencing Toolkit: Capabilities for Communicating with Influence.
The framework describes two different styles of influencing and two different
influencing approaches.
Influencing style: Push/Pull
• A ‘push’ style of influencing requires the influencer to ‘push’

information out to other people. It is a very direct means of
communicating, and often highly assertive.
• A ‘pull’ style of influencing is more subtle and less direct. It points

to the answer, rather than leading to it, for example, by identifying
the negatives of the current situation.
Influencing approach: Logical/Emotional
The two types of influencing approach are logical and emotional.
• The logical approach appeals to reason, and therefore works

through the mind. Logical persuaders tend to rely on facts and
figures, and being ‘right’.
• The emotional approach works through feelings and therefore

appeals to the ‘heart’. It has to ‘feel right’ to the listener.
Tim Baker’s framework takes these two styles and approaches, and brings them
together to create four different influencing strategies:
Tim Baker’s Influencing Strategies
Infuencing Style
Push Pull
Emotional
Infuencing Approach
Motivation Collaboration
Logical
Investigation Calculation
TIM BAKER’S
INFLUENCING STRATEGIES
1. Motivators
Motivators use emotion, and tend to be good at creating a compelling vision.
They set out their stall clearly, showing those they want to persuade how the
world could be, building morale in the process.
The classic example of motivation used to persuade is Martin Luther King’s “I

have a dream…” speech, and others who used this style effectively include John F.
Kennedy (“We choose to go to the moon…not because [it is] easy, but because [it
is] hard…”). Political rhetoric is often in this style, because many political decisions
are not driven by logic, but by political views and emotions.
2. Collaborators
Collaborators also use emotion, but unlike the motivators, they see themselves
as equal partners with others in the decision.
Collaborators believe in engaging ‘hearts and minds’, getting people to buy into
the outcome by being involved in the decision. They build relationships and trust,
and communicate very openly.
There are fewer obvious examples of collaborators, because they tend to be the
people who make groups work well, and often do not seek any credit. However,
Tim Baker suggests that Mother Teresa was a collaborator, who was able to
persuade others to buy into the importance of alleviating poverty.
3. Investigators
Investigators like to have all the facts available and use data as a way
to persuade others.
Their approach tends to be quite structured and methodical, and they like to lead
people step by step to their desired solution. They are very much about gathering
the evidence, and presenting ideas, using data to address any arguments.
With the right group, this can be very effective, but it can also lead to a suspicion
that you are trying to ‘blind people with science’. Al Gore, the former US Vice-
President, is something of an investigator in his work on climate change.
4. Calculators
Calculators tend to present both the positive advantages of changing,

and the negative aspects of the status quo.
They weigh up the options, and offer concessions where they think they can
afford to do so. Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was a very
effective calculator.
Using Baker’s Strategies
Like leadership styles, each one of these styles is likely to be effective

in particular situations.
For example, collaborators may be particularly effective in professional

organisations such as schools and hospitals, where line management
arrangements are less important than professional respect.
However, in many situations, effective persuaders and influencers will use all four
strategies to combine emotion and logic in the most powerful way and ensure that
they appeal to everyone.
It is therefore important to understand and be able to use all these strategies

when necessary, and to combine them fluently.
ETHICAL PERSUASION
As you develop your persuasion skills, it is important to remember that you
should only use them ethically. You should never try to persuade people to do
anything illegal, or anything that is actively against their interests and in yours.
Of course there will be times when you need to persuade people to do

something challenging, or that is difficult for them, because it is in the best
interests of the organisation or the wider group.
Persuading others of the importance of managing climate change is a good

example of this, as is getting buy-in to a major change initiative that will
result in some redundancies, but will make the organisation fit for purpose
into the future. This is not unethical, but you do need to find a balance
between individual and group needs.
Robert Cialdini’s Influence Weapons
Robert Cialdini’s book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, sets out six
‘influence weapons’, which can be deployed to help you to persuade others.
This makes persuasion sound like a battle or war, which may be less than entirely
helpful (creating a win–win situation is always going to be more effective).
However, these six ideas may be a useful way of thinking through your options in
any particular situation.
1. Reciprocity
This might be thought of as ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’.
In other words, if you do this favour for me now, then I will do one for you later.
Of course, you will need to be prepared to return the favour later. Failure to do
so is likely to limit your ability to use this tactic in future.
2. Commitment and Consistency
If you can get people to make a commitment, especially in public but even just
to you, they are much less likely to go back on it later.
We like to be seen as consistent, and we also like to think that when we make
a commitment, it matters: think ‘My word is my bond’. These ideas may be old-
fashioned, but they are powerful and effective.
3. Social Proof
The idea behind social proof is ‘strength in numbers’.
It is partly a reflection of ‘herd mentality’, but it is also about laziness: if someone

else has done all the research and concluded that product A is best, then why do
all the research again? This concept is behind the idea of testimonials on websites
and in brochures, and it also explains why we like to consult on social media
before buying anything.
4. Liking
This has two aspects: liking someone and being like them.
We are more likely to be open to persuasion by someone we like. It is therefore

worth investing time in building relationships, which is, of course, consistent with
Tim Baker’s Collaborator strategy.
Showing that you are similar to someone—for example, that you have tastes and
values in common—helps to build rapport and relationships much faster, so is an
element of this.
5. Authority
Sometimes, you may be able to persuade someone simply by virtue of your

position. If you are in a position of authority, you can tell people what to do.
This works very well in the armed forces, but any sales campaign that relies on
‘experts’ to explain the benefits of a product is also using this type of strategy.
It is, however, a fairly limited strategy for long-term success as a manager or

leader, because you cannot stand over people forever. Sooner or later, you will
have to trust them to get on with it, and then they are unlikely to do so if they
don’t believe in it themselves but were only doing it because of your authority.
6. Scarcity
The final ‘weapon’ is persuading people that something is valuable because of its
scarcity. Sales people use this when they say ‘Only five more left – buy now!’ or
‘Limited period only’. This taps into a fear of missing out, and is very powerful, but
should be used carefully. It will eventually lose its power if you do it too often on a
personal basis.
More scientific influencing strategies
These are only two of the possible models of influencing strategy that you could
use. There are, inevitably, many others out there. The idea behind exploring
them is to help you think through possible frameworks and ideas, and become
more aware of your own preferred strategies. By broadening your range, you can
become a more effective influencer.
It takes time, but develop these skills, and you will start to develop ‘authentic
power’, which means that you have power because people believe in what
you’re saying.
Once you have that, you are likely to be much more successful in persuading and
influencing others, whether at home or at work.
Chapter
Moving up the Ladder:
9 Motivation from a More Senior Position
As you develop as a leader, and take on a bigger span of

leadership, it becomes harder to motivate the individuals
working under you. You start to need to create a motivational
environment and culture; in other words, you have to provide
organisational motivation.
Fact: Every person in your organisation is motivated.
The big question is whether they are motivated to do the

things that you, as their leader, want them to do. If they are
not doing what you want them to do, they don’t stop doing
altogether, they are simply motivated to do something else.
Here are three simple habits that you, as a leader, can exhibit
every day to create a culture that motivates people to follow
you willingly.
SHOW YOUR APPRECIATION
It motivates people to have their efforts appreciated. That doesn’t just mean
‘paid for’; it means noted and commented upon. It doesn’t have to be a big
razzmatazz or a special award or valuable prize, just a simple, low key ‘thank
you’, delivered in person.
Research by Dan Ariely in association with MIT suggests that people whose work
is not appreciated need to be paid double to be as productive as people whose
work is appreciated. This isn’t soft fluffiness, it is hard economics.
Conversely, it switches people off when they see their effort completely
unappreciated, hidden or destroyed. ‘Unsung heroes’ of today tend to become
the defectors or the saboteurs of tomorrow. So, sing!
Of course, if you are the leader of a large organisation, you seldom actually see
many of the people who work for you. Showing your appreciation of their efforts,
in person, regularly, is not easy; it takes a lot of time and effort.
There are three habits that can help you if you are in this position:
• Show your appreciation of the efforts of the workforce to your

immediate reports. Ask them to pass on your recognition and gratitude.
• Make a conscious effort to refer to the appreciation you have for your
workforce whenever you are dealing with outsiders. Whether it is the
media, shareholders or customers, make sure to “big up” your staff.
• Practice ‘Management By Wandering About Taking An Interest’. A great

way to appreciate someone’s contribution is just to take an interest in it,
ask questions rather than offering judgements.
HELP YOUR PEOPLE
TO DEVELOP ‘MASTERY’
At the beginning of the modern era of mass manufacture the watchword was
‘efficiency’. The whole job was broken down into small, repetitive chunks and each
person solely worked on their chunk. Employees might spend their entire 48-hour
week putting the front, left-hand side wheel on cars, but never actually see a
complete finished car. That was the norm when the company was manufacturing
cars, and the staff had little education or access to information.
Now your staff members are more educated and have more information at their
fingertips than ever before. They also have higher long-term aspirations. They are
likely to be providing some more knowledge-based service to customers; the basic
manufacturing is more likely to be completed by machines.
Developing ‘mastery’ of their chosen area of career means that they want to keep
abreast of the pace of change, they want to improve their knowledge and skill and
they want to broaden their experience. This doesn’t mean that as a leader you
have to send them all away on long expensive training courses.
Here are some habits that will help you to create an environment where people
can gain mastery:
• Encourage exploration amongst your departments or teams. Job-swaps or

work- shadowing help people understand the bigger picture and provide
new eyes to look at old problems and practices. Rather than employing
consultants to look at improving performance and processes, encourage your
people to do it themselves. When they make recommendations, appreciate
them, and where possible implement them. Allow the people to judge what
has worked and what hasn’t.
• Encourage ‘informal learning’:
“THE ODDS ARE THAT DEVELOPMENT WILL BE ABOUT 70%

FROM ON-THE-JOB EXPERIENCES, WORKING ON TASKS AND
PROBLEMS; ABOUT 20% FROM FEEDBACK AND WORKING
AROUND GOOD AND BAD EXAMPLES OF THE NEED; AND
10% FROM COURSES AND READING.”
‘The Career Architect Development Planner’ Lombardo and Eichinger
It is therefore helpful to encourage people to take on responsibilities above

their grade level, even if only for short periods.
• Encourage the setting of challenges for individuals and teams (not higher
targets, but challenges to improve things, solve problems and learn and
demonstrate new skills).
• Encourage teams and individuals to seek performance feedback, to analyse

and to learn from both good and bad experience. This is an area that can be
challenging; analysis of bad experiences can often appear to be or descend
into “blame sessions”, analysis of good experiences can be seen as a waste of
time (”it went well, why the post mortem?”), but it is worth pursuing.
• Encourage your people to read, to benchmark and to use the web and social
media to keep abreast of new developments and competitor activity.
• Keep the more formal learning going; invest money and intelligent effort
in providing in-company training and development. Sponsor people to gain
relevant qualifications.
SHARE THE BIG PICTURE
It is often said that what separates a ‘manager’ from a ‘worker’ is the ability ‘to see
the bigger picture’.
That may well be one of the important characteristics, but it doesn’t mean that
the people lower down the hierarchy aren’t motivated by being shown the
bigger picture.
There is that old story where a visitor to NASA in the 1960s saw a janitor sweeping the
floor and asked him what he was doing; “Helping to put a man on the moon” was the
reply. (It probably isn’t a true story; why on earth would anyone look at a man who
was sweeping a floor and ask him what he was doing?)
As a parable, the story hints at the day-to-day motivational effect of knowing the
overall purpose of the organisation and how your little bit contributes to that grand
design. Implicit in it is also the fact that the janitor had a pretty good idea how the
organisation as a whole was doing in relation to actually getting Neil Armstrong to
take that ‘one small step, one giant leap’.
Most CEOs will share these elements with their colleagues on the Senior
Management Team.
To create an environment that motivates everyone you need to make sure that
these messages are spread quickly and frequently to the whole workforce -
including the janitor!

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LEADING AND

PART 3 MANAGING OTHERS

The Skills You Need Guide to

Skills You Need

This is one of a series of eBooks

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed,

CHAPTER 2 - Building a Team...........................................................................................................11

CHAPTER 3 - Managing and Overseeing Work........................................................................28

CHAPTER 4 - Delegating Work........................................................................................................33

CHAPTER 5 - Giving and Receiving Feedback.........................................................................38

CHAPTER 6 - Coaching Skills.............................................................................................................44

CHAPTER 7 - Appraisals and Performance Management..................................................52

CHAPTER 8 - Influencing, Persuading and Motivating Others........................................62

CHAPTER 9 - Moving Up the Ladder: Motivation from a More Senior Position........79

The previous eBook in this series explains about the personal

This eBook now moves on to consider the next stage of

Some of the skills described relate to formal management

To be a leader, it is necessary to have followers. Many people are recruited

Perhaps the most important skill in managing a team

Both managers and leaders also need the skills

New managers—and, indeed, many established managers—often fail to delegate

This happens for two reasons:

That, however, is not your job.

By releasing it only on a ‘need to know’ basis, their thinking goes, they

3. Failure to Be Available to the Team

This means that you need to be there for them.

There is more about this in the chapter on Appraisals and Performance

5. Failure to Manage Your Team

Managing means delegating, managing work, and setting goals and

Failure to do so is an abdication of responsibility: it is, effectively, failing to

Learning from Mistakes

The first step towards leading is to have some followers.

This chapter aims to demystify the recruitment, selection

Recruitment is a time-consuming and expensive business, so it pays to get it right

STEP 0. BUILD NETWORKS

The art of successful recruiting is therefore to build a network which contains

A POSSIBLE PROCESS FOR PREPARING A JOB

• Where you are going to advertise the post

STEP 3. SETTING AN ASSESSMENT STRATEGY

Inviting shortlisted candidates to spend time with the team could be

You may be:

• The recruiting manager, the person who is going to be managing

• There to give a second opinion of the candidate. Such

• An independent assessor or HR representative, there to manage

Perhaps the most important aspect of successful interviewing is knowing what

On the Day of the Interview

Everyone is nervous in an interview, so candidates will be better able to show you

One interviewer will generally lead the interview. They should:

• Introduce the members of the interview panel and outline the

• Explain broadly what the interview is going to cover and who

Interview questions generally take three forms: experience- or competence-

“Tell me about a time when you….”

Such questions might include:

Their questions may be illuminating: for example, do they seem to be interested

STEP 5. MAKING A DECISION

It is important to bring together all your information: the application form or CV

You want the fullest picture possible of all the candidates.

Do not get carried away.

You still need to take up their references.

Induction/Orientation vs. Onboarding

• Induction or orientation is a process which introduces the new recruit to the

»» The business environment, including challenges facing the organisation;

A Successful Induction and Onboarding Programme