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Team Leadership
Learn the core practices that distinguish effective team leaders from accidental managers. This course gives you practical frameworks for role clarity, motivation, accountability, and performance culture.
First-time managers, team leads, and professionals stepping into leadership roles who want a structured, evidence-based foundation for managing people.
Course content
Workbook & downloads
Put the course into practice — a printable workbook plus editable templates you can fill in and reuse.
Preview the workbook
This workbook puts the frameworks from the Team Leadership course into immediate practice. Each section maps to a course module and gives you exercises, worksheets, and checklists you can use with your actual team — not hypothetical scenarios. Work through it sequentially for a first-time team setup, or jump to the section most relevant to your current challenge.
Roles, Structure, and the RACI Framework
Translate role clarity theory into a working RACI for your team and run the workshop that gets everyone aligned.
Exercise: Role Ambiguity Audit
Before building a RACI, identify where ambiguity currently exists. Think about the last 4 weeks of your team's work and answer the following prompts honestly. This audit is for your eyes only — be specific.
- Name one task or decision in the last month where two or more people thought someone else was handling it. What was the outcome?
- List any decisions that were escalated to you that you believe should have been made at the team level. What stopped the team from deciding?
- Which team member has the most unclear scope of responsibility right now, and what is one consequence of that ambiguity you have observed?
- Rate your team's current role clarity on a scale of 1 (total confusion) to 10 (every person knows exactly what they own) and write one sentence explaining your rating.
Worksheet: RACI Builder — Your Team
Fill in the table below for your team's 8–12 most significant recurring activities or decisions. Use R, A, C, I, or leave blank. Then validate: every row has exactly one A; no individual carries more than 3 A's.
- Activity or decision
- Team member 1 (name/role)
- Team member 2 (name/role)
- Team member 3 (name/role)
- Team member 4 (name/role)
- Team member 5 (name/role)
- Validation check: Does this row have exactly one A? (yes/no)
- Notes or open conflicts to resolve
Checklist: Role Clarity Session Preparation Checklist
- Pre-fill the RACI template with the activity list and distribute to all participants 48 hours before the session
- Ask each participant to complete their individual RACI independently before the session
- Book a room or video call with 60 minutes blocked and a visible timer
- Prepare a method to display all individual RACIs side by side (spreadsheet, shared screen, or printed copies)
- Brief participants on the purpose: resolving ambiguity, not assigning blame
- Identify any politically sensitive role conflicts in advance so you can facilitate them without surprise
- Assign someone to publish the final agreed RACI within 24 hours of the session
- Schedule a 30-day review to assess whether the RACI is working in practice
Motivating Individuals on a Diverse Team
Run the motivation diagnostic for each team member and build a personalised motivation plan you can action in the next 30 days.
Exercise: SDT Need Assessment — Self-Rating
Before running the diagnostic with your team members, complete this exercise for yourself. Rate your own three SDT needs on your current role to calibrate your instincts before applying the tool to others.
- Autonomy: on a scale of 1–10, how much agency do you currently feel in how you lead your team? What one change would move that score up by 2 points?
- Competence: which leadership capability do you most want to develop in the next 6 months, and what is the specific gap between your current skill and the level you need?
- Relatedness: how connected do you feel to your team's purpose right now? Describe the moment in the last month when that connection felt strongest and weakest.
Worksheet: Individual Motivation Profile — Per Team Member
Complete one row per team member after running the motivation conversation from Lesson 4. Use their own words where possible — paraphrase back what they said, not your interpretation.
- Team member name
- Dominant unmet SDT need (Autonomy / Competence / Relatedness)
- Energy givers — activities they named as energising
- Energy drains — activities they named as draining
- Growth aspiration (their own words)
- Most meaningful part of team work (their own words)
- Biggest frustration or obstacle they named
- Development level on primary task (D1 / D2 / D3 / D4)
- Planned action to address dominant need (specific, time-bound)
- Review date
Checklist: Motivation Conversation Readiness Checklist
- Schedule a dedicated 30-minute 1-on-1 for the motivation conversation (do not tack it onto a regular check-in)
- Review the five diagnostic questions from the course before the meeting so they feel natural
- Prepare a notes template with the five question categories pre-filled so you capture answers in real time
- Commit to at least 70% listening — set a reminder if needed
- Identify one concrete action you can take within 2 weeks based on what you hear
- Tell the team member what you plan to do differently as a result — close the loop within 1 week of the conversation
Accountability Conversations and 1-on-1 Discipline
Build your 1-on-1 habit, practise the SBI feedback model, and script your first missed-commitment conversation.
Exercise: SBI Feedback Drafting Practice
Think of two recent situations where feedback was warranted — one positive and one developmental. Draft each using the SBI structure below. Then read each draft aloud: if any sentence contains a character judgment or a generalisation (always, never, you tend to), rewrite it.
- Positive SBI draft: Situation (specific time and context) — Behaviour (what you observed, observable by a camera) — Impact (effect on you, the team, or the work result).
- Developmental SBI draft: Situation — Behaviour — Impact. Then add: what question will you ask to invite their perspective after delivering the SBI?
- Review both drafts: have you named a behaviour or a character trait? Rewrite any character judgments as observable behaviours.
- Identify the next opportunity to deliver each piece of feedback in person. Write the date and context.
Worksheet: 1-on-1 Running Log
Use one row per 1-on-1 meeting. Capture the team member's agenda items and commitments in their own words, not your summary. Review commitments at the start of each subsequent meeting.
- Team member name
- Date
- Their top agenda item this session
- Key issues or concerns they raised
- Commitments they made (specific, time-bound)
- Commitments you made to them
- Feedback delivered this session (SBI summary)
- Follow-up needed before next 1-on-1
- Development level reassessment (D1/D2/D3/D4) — any change?
Checklist: Missed-Commitment Conversation Checklist
- Hold the conversation within 24 hours of noticing the missed commitment — delay normalises the pattern
- Open by naming the original commitment in neutral language (no tone of disappointment or sarcasm)
- State what happened factually, without adjectives or character references
- Ask what happened and listen fully before responding — do not fill the silence
- Distinguish between a legitimate obstacle you can remove and an excuse that requires a different response
- Re-contract with a specific new commitment: what and by when
- Write the new commitment in your shared 1-on-1 notes immediately
- If this is the second missed commitment on the same item, name the pattern explicitly and discuss consequences
Building a High-Performance Team Culture
Diagnose your team's current cultural health, run a norms workshop, and design the rituals that will sustain high performance.
Exercise: Five Dysfunctions Diagnostic
Score your team on each dysfunction from 1 (severe dysfunction) to 5 (fully functional). Then run the same 5-question survey anonymously with your team. Compare your scores to the team's average — the gap reveals your blind spots.
- Trust: when team members make mistakes, do they readily admit them and ask for help? Score 1–5 and write one piece of evidence (a specific situation) that supports your score.
- Conflict: does the team engage in open, productive debate on important decisions, or does it avoid disagreement in favour of artificial harmony? Score 1–5 with evidence.
- Commitment: do team members leave meetings with clear buy-in and alignment, or do you hear second-guessing and re-litigation of decisions afterwards? Score 1–5 with evidence.
- Accountability: do team members call out substandard performance or behaviour in each other, or is that left entirely to the manager? Score 1–5 with evidence.
Worksheet: Team Norms Agreement
After running the 90-minute norms workshop from the course, document the agreed norms here. For each norm, capture the observable behaviour definition and the reinforcement mechanism the team agreed on.
- Norm statement (1-sentence)
- What this looks like in practice (observable behaviour)
- What this does NOT look like (counter-example to prevent misinterpretation)
- How the team will reinforce this norm (call-out phrase, retrospective question, etc.)
- How the team will address violations of this norm
- Date agreed
- Next review date
Checklist: High-Performance Culture Launch Checklist
- Run the Five Dysfunctions diagnostic with your team before any culture initiative — address the lowest-scoring dysfunction first
- Schedule and protect the team norms workshop in the next 30 days
- Publish and post team norms where the team sees them daily after the workshop
- Set up the weekly stand-up as a recurring calendar event — protect it from cancellation
- Schedule the first monthly retrospective before the first month ends
- Identify and implement one friction removal from the quarterly friction audit
- Model one act of public vulnerability in your next team meeting
- Set up a public wins board (digital or physical) and add the first entry yourself
Your Action Plan
- This week: run the Role Ambiguity Audit privately and identify the top two areas of unclear ownership on your team
- Within 7 days: build a draft RACI for your team's 8–12 core activities and share it with one trusted team member for a sanity check
- Within 14 days: run the team role clarity session and publish the agreed RACI within 24 hours of the session
- Within 14 days: schedule and complete a 30-minute motivation conversation with each team member using the five diagnostic questions
- Within 21 days: complete an Individual Motivation Profile for each team member and identify one action per person
- This week: draft two pieces of SBI feedback (one positive, one developmental) and deliver both within the next 5 business days
- Immediately: set up recurring 1-on-1 calendar blocks for every team member at the appropriate frequency (weekly or bi-weekly) and create a shared notes doc for each
- Within 30 days: run the Five Dysfunctions diagnostic with your team and identify the one dysfunction to address first
- Within 30 days: facilitate the 90-minute team norms workshop and publish the agreed norms document
- Within 60 days: implement all four team rituals (weekly stand-up, monthly retrospective, quarterly health check, public wins board) and hold the first instance of each
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