Leadership & People Management: Practical Guides
Original, sourced guidance for people managers: feedback, goals, trust, recognition, teams, development, change and wellbeing, and the software that supports each practice.
Feedback and performance
- How to give feedback at work
Give feedback close to the moment, describe the situation, the behavior and its impact, ask for the other person's view, and agree on one next step you will check. Small, frequent conversations work better than an annual review.
- How to address poor performance with an employee: a step-by-step guide
Address poor performance early and privately.
Engagement, trust and culture
- Employee engagement vs. satisfaction: the difference and how to measure each
Employee satisfaction is how content people are with the deal they get: pay, benefits, workload, conditions. Employee engagement is how invested they are in the work itself: the energy, effort and ownership they bring.
- Toxic leadership: signs, costs and what to do
Toxic leadership is a repeated pattern of disrespect, intimidation, self-serving decisions or unethical conduct that harms people and results.
Recognition and motivation
Recognition and motivation
Teams, communication and conflict
- High-performing teams: what they have in common and how to build one
A high-performing team is a small group of people with complementary skills who depend on each other to reach a shared goal and keep getting better at it.
- How to improve team communication: five habits managers can practice this week
To improve team communication, make expectations and the reasons behind them explicit, ask more follow-up questions, listen and acknowledge emotion before you solve, make it safe and worthwhile to disagree, and close every decision in…
- How to resolve conflict in the workplace: steps and scripts managers can use
Act early, meet each person separately, name whether the conflict is about the task, the process or the relationship, then bring both people together to talk about interests rather than positions.
Developing leaders
- Emotional intelligence in leadership: what it is, how to build and measure it
Emotional intelligence in leadership is a leader's ability to notice, understand and manage emotions, their own and their team's, and to use that information to decide what to say and do.
- Humility in leadership: what it looks like, why it works and how to practice it
Humility in leadership is seeing yourself accurately and acting on it: you admit mistakes and limits, give visible credit for other people's strengths, and stay open to learning from anyone on the team. It is not low confidence.
- What makes a good leader: the qualities research supports and how to build them
A good leader combines character (integrity, courage, humility, honesty about what they see) with competence (setting direction, coaching, deciding, developing people).
Change and decisions
Change and decisions
Software for people managers
More indexes
- Software A–Z
Every product we review, A to Z, with its main category.
- All comparisons
Head-to-head comparisons with a scorecard and published prices.
- Buying guides
How to choose, switch and compare HR software.
- Glossary of HR terms
HR, payroll and compliance terms defined in plain English.
- Software vendors
The vendors behind the products we review, and their line-ups.