Foundations in People Management and Leadership

Gain a practical introduction to people management and leadership styles, including team structure, culture, and hiring. Learn goal setting, employee engagement, handling performance issues, and growth through appraisals.

Develop your own people management and leadership skills by applying course insights alongside HR policies, and consult managers or HR to adapt to startups, SMEs, or enterprises.

Learn how role plays simulate real workplace conversations for practicing as a people manager in mock interviews and coaching, with prep tips, live ai conversations, and automated feedback.

Clarify key terms in people management, including people manager, line manager, direct reports, skip level, mentors and mentees, appraisals, attrition, employee engagement, and HR variants like people operations.

Foundations in people management and leadership define management and the manager role, distinguish individual contributor and people manager tracks, and outline qualities and practices for managing performance, development, and wellbeing.

Define and manage the key responsibilities of a people manager across performance, development, and wellbeing. Implement clear expectations, regular check-ins, and appraisals to guide development and career progression.

Discover leadership personas and how to find your unique style using McKinsey frameworks for decision types. Learn to empower teams with the right balance of guidance, coaching, and hands-on involvement.

Understand how organizational structure, leveling, and competency frameworks shape career progression, and learn to assess your structure, discuss with HR, and map competencies to levels for meaningful promotions.

Explore a top-down competency framework that outlines 12 levels from associate to c-suite and defines key competencies like communication, adaptability, and reliability.

Define team culture as the shared values, attitudes, behaviors, and standards shaping the work environment. Apply steps: define values, be open, seek feedback, enable learning, keep communication open, give recognition.

Explore psychological safety as a shared belief that it's okay to take risks, speak up, and admit mistakes without fear. Show how managers learn from errors and foster candor.

Write clear job descriptions that outline responsibilities and qualifications, review for accuracy, keep them concise and readable, and avoid lengthy two-page descriptions.

Explore a practical interview framework covering screening, two substantive interviews, a test, and chemistry sessions, plus types of questions and templates to hire effectively.

Use interview assignments or tests across all roles to assess real-world skills, reduce bias, and evaluate with clear rubrics and realistic timeframes.

Use an interview evaluation form that blends qualitative notes with a five-point scale to rate personality, skills, qualifications, and critical thinking, and share feedback across interviewers for consistency.

Evaluate new employees during a three-month probation by assessing performance, culture fit, and behaviors, with early feedback and weekly check-ins.

Explore common goal setting frameworks—kpis, okrs, mbos, ogsm—and learn how regular check-ins and alignment with department and company objectives improve manager-employee expectations.

Discover evidence-based goal setting for people managers: set specific, challenging goals aligned to purpose, provide regular feedback, and break work into actionable steps while avoiding overly safe smart goals.

Learn a framework-agnostic goal setting template that fits OKRs, KPIs, or any system, and articulate goals with action, primary metric, target, timeframe, and benefits.

Differentiate skills from competencies and guide direct reports by focusing on core skills and key competencies, monitored through feedback and a competency matrix.

Differentiate evaluation of goals from skills and competencies, and conduct formal year-end appraisals alongside mid-year reviews or quarterly check-ins to monitor progress and provide targeted feedback.

Use downloadable templates in Excel, Google Sheets, or Word to evaluate employee skills and competencies, rate performance, add comments, and assess culture fit alongside key competencies.

Explore three goal evaluation approaches: sum of the parts, qualitative grading, and hybrid, alongside calibration, rubrics, and best practices for fair, transparent performance reviews.

Explore a two-by-two framework for evaluating employee capability and company culture fit, identify four archetypes: stars, cultivators, rough diamonds, and misfits, and learn targeted development and separation strategies.

Learn how to conduct regular, informal employee check-ins to build rapport, monitor progress, identify challenges, and coach for growth while aligning with goals and culture.

Use a check-in template and journaling to document feedback, mistakes, successes, and growth for your direct reports, enabling 30-minute in-person or remote sessions that build trust and prepare for reviews.

Identify wanderers, pathfinders, and trailblazers to tailor career progression conversations with exploratory discussions, mapping, shadowing, stretch assignments, mentorship, autonomy, and strategic projects.

Explore four conflict-management tactics for managers: task vs relationship conflict; Adam Grant's thinking modes; disagree and commit; and the Kilmann instrument to resolve disputes and guide teams.

Identify performance issues in direct reports using the capability and culture-fit framework, and deliver constructive or negative feedback to address lack of skills development, goal progress, and behavior patterns.

Address performance issues by summarizing the issue with specific examples, explaining impact, exploring root causes, and securing a commitment to improvement during regular check-ins or formal appraisals.

Explore the feedback sandwich, its pros for softening negative feedback and aiding new managers, and its cons, including masking impact and limiting skill development in feedback.

Learn how to implement a performance improvement plan (PIP) to address recurring underperformance, set goals over 2 to 3 months, and document progress with weekly check-ins alongside HR.

Learn how to conduct a respectful termination for performance issues, including a performance improvement plan, pre-termination planning, a direct one-on-one meeting, and HR-aligned steps for with/without cause.

Offer diverse learning opportunities, including on-the-job training, mentorship, and MOOCs, aligned with team needs and company goals. Curate resources, budget wisely, and evaluate learning options against impact, cost, and objectives.

Practice running annual performance appraisals by prepping a detailed document, gathering peer feedback, calibrating ratings, and conducting an in-person review with goal-aligned, concrete feedback.

Present a practical template for employee performance appraisals that details goal-based evaluations, competencies and culture fit, strengths and areas to improve, and offline drafting before entering rating scales in software.

navigate the balancing act of managing your own responsibilities while supporting your team’s needs. cultivate patience, self-awareness, empathy, and time management to drive performance and development under pressure.

Explore the foundations of people management and leadership through core topics like manager fundamentals, leadership styles, org structure, hiring, goal setting, psychological safety, and performance appraisal insights.