People manager toolkit

For many, the first experiences of managing come with a promotion within an existing team. Moving from team member to manager can be difficult because it requires a fundamental shift from executing tasks (often ones you are very good at, hence the promotion) to enabling others, often creating awkward dynamics with former peers. New managers must navigate changing relationships, learn to delegate rather than "do," and manage emotional baggage, all while building trust and shifting their mindset to focus on team success. 

Never fear, we have a full eLearning course to guide you through the process:

From Team Member to Manager: A Guide for New Managers

Managers should use coaching to foster a high-performing culture by unlocking employee potential, increasing engagement, and boosting productivity. It shifts focus from micromanagement to empowerment, helping staff solve problems independently while strengthening relationships, reducing turnover, and accelerating skill development. Coaching also drives innovation and creates adaptable teams. 

Coaching acts as a "superpower" for leaders to build a, resilient, and high-performing workforce. 

Coaching modules on the development platform include:

Coaching awareness : Successful managers can get the best out of everyone in their team but creating and sustaining a high-performance culture is a challenge. Coaching is a non-directive technique which empowers team members to take increasing ownership of their own performance improvement. Managers who coach ask questions rather than providing answers, support instead of judging, and facilitate development instead of micromanaging. This course will give you an awareness of how coaching can help you and your team. By the end of this course, you should be able to recognise how to use the GROW model to guide your coaching conversations.

Development through coaching : In this course, you'll learn the key points to carry out coaching effectively, encouraging each team member to reflect on their performance and supporting them through the process, providing the necessary tools for them to grow through personal development.

Manager as Coach : Coaching is a highly effective option for supporting people in their development. Managers can also use the coaching approach to strengthen the self-responsibility, motivation, and performance of their employees. At the same time, given the countless offers that are available, there is tremendous uncertainty about what coaching actually is and how it can be employed for best results. This training explains what coaching is all about and how managers in particular can put coaching to use for their teams. It also explains key skills and methods as well as a globally established model that can be used for structuring coaching conversations.

Just like coaching, delegation increases team productivity, develops employee skills, fosters trust, and boosts morale, which ultimately enhances overall organisational performance and prepares team members for future leadership roles. 

Delegation brings lots of benefits, firstly, by handing off tasks, managers can focus on planning, strategy, and high-impact work that requires their specific expertise. Delegation also provides team members with new challenges, helping them develop skills, gain confidence, and prepare for promotion.

Distributing tasks to the right people allows work to be completed faster and often more effectively, avoiding bottlenecks and giving employees responsibility demonstrates trust, which boosts engagement, job satisfaction, and loyalty.

Delegation also ensures business continuity by ensuring multiple people know how to complete critical tasks, reducing reliance on one person. Team members may also find more efficient, innovative approaches to tasks than the manager’s original method. 

However, delegation is very easy to do badly, effective delegation involves clear communication of expectations and outcomes, allowing employees to take ownership while the manager remains responsible for the results. 

Delegation modules on the development platform include:

The secrets of skilled delegation

How to delegate

Managers need effective problem-solving skills to ensure organisational, team, and operational success by overcoming obstacles, driving innovation, and facilitating sound decision-making. Proactive problem-solving improves productivity, fosters team cohesion, enhances customer satisfaction, and keeps workflows running smoothly. It transforms challenges into opportunities for growth, rather than allowing barriers to halt progress. 

Problem-solving modules on the development platform include:

Critical Thinking for People Managers : In this course, you'll cover what critical thinking is, why and how to think critically, and how to both use critical thinking to support your team's effectiveness as well as how to develop your team members' critical thinking skills.

Improve Your Problem Solving and Decision Making Skills : In this dynamic and practical course, we will explore the crucial aspects of efficiency, decision making, and problem solving within the context of your work environment. Efficiency is the cornerstone of productivity, and understanding its importance is essential for your professional growth.

The Risk of Heuristics in Problem-Solving : In this microlearning  yopu'll learn about five common heuristics, find out why heuristics can be both a help and a hindrance, and explore what you can do to avoid heuristics negatively impacting your problem-solving efforts.

Solving Problems as a Team : In this short course, you’ll learn to distinguish between individual and collaborative problem-solving. You’ll also learn about the pros and cons of a collaborative approach as well as how to achieve better outcomes when solving problems with others.

Key skills for managing and leading teams include clear communication, emotional intelligence, delegation, conflict resolution, and strategic decision-making. Effective leaders also require strong organizational skills, adaptability, and the ability to foster a positive, motivating, and psychologically safe environment for team members. 

Top learning bites for this area include: 

Motivating Your Team : In this course, you’ll review types of motivation and how this links to creating an empowering culture for your team. You’ll also understand the unique forces that motivate individuals—and use that knowledge to everyone’s advantage.

Mentoring to Make Your Team Grow : In this course, you'll learn the key points to increase commitment and unleash the full potential of team members.

Managing Teams and Fostering Positive Team Cultures: A Rough Guide : This course is designed for you to dip in and out of, focusing on the areas that are relevant to you and your team. If you are new to team management, you may want to work your way through all of the material. We would recommend doing this in short 20 - 30 minute chunks.

Successfully Structuring Team Development : Learn the basics for your job as a team leader by setting realistic goals and motivating the team for the long run. This course teaches you how to ensure a clear distribution of tasks within your team and how to not only agree on, but implement goal-oriented rules. Furthermore, this e-learning includes measures to promote constructive communication and shows the participants how they can use simple means to sustainably promote trust and cohesion on their team.

The Four Stages of Team Development :  What are the stages of team development? And how can managers help their teams progress through the stages of development more quickly? Learn the answers to these questions in this short course.

Leading with Emotional Intelligence : Can you identify your emotions and understand why they’re happening? What about the emotions of others? Are you skilled at spotting and responding to their cues?

Those with high emotional intelligence readily recognise their feelings, manage their reactions, and build positive interactions with others. A skill that leads to success inside and outside the workplace, emotional intelligence is well worth refining.

In this course, you’ll first unpack what emotional intelligence is. Then you’ll learn to boost your emotional intelligence skills by strengthening your personal and social competence.

Intercultural Communication in Teams : Teams are becoming more diverse, as members can often hail from different countries and cultures. Consequently, intercultural communication is becoming more and more important, especially at work. In this e-learning course, users will learn what "culture" means and discuss important concepts from the works of Geert Hofstede and E. T. Hall. Participants will also learn how to become more aware of cultural differences and receive valuable leadership tools with which to manage intercultural teams. The aim of the course is to enhance the intercultural skills of the participants.

Leading with vision : What exactly does it mean to have vision? And how do you express that vision to others?  In this microlearning, you’ll learn what vision is and why it’s important, and get some tips for developing and communicating a powerful vision statement. 

Situational Leadership : In this course, participants learn to lead employees in a way that corresponds to their individual situation. Four different leadership styles are discussed: instructive, coaching, participative, and delegating. They also learn how to assess the respective maturity level of an employee.

Other resources

LSE's effective behaviours framework: Supporting the principles laid out in the LSE Ethics Code, the Effective Behaviours Framework sets out examples of the kinds of behaviours that are expected of all colleagues in the School.

Know where to access the policies and resources at LSE that relate to staff behaviour, including the Dignity at Work Statement and the School’s mediation provision which sets out a voluntary way to support and improve working relationships without the use of more formal procedures.

Team wellbeing refers to the collective state of health, happiness, and satisfaction among team members, encompassing their physical, mental, and emotional health in a professional setting. It involves creating a supportive, trusting environment that reduces stress, fosters collaboration, and promotes work-life balance to enhance performance. 

Key aspects of team wellbeing include creating a safe space where team members feel valued, respected, and heard. Actively encouraging habits that support mental health and physical fitness. Respecting boundaries, such as the right to disconnect from work outside of hours. Fostering strong, collaborative relationships and providing autonomy in tasks and offering opportunities for growth through training, mentoring, and clear, constructive feedback. 

Prioritising team wellbeing leads to higher motivation, reduced burnout, and better overall team resilience and performance. 

Learning modules: 

Fostering Psychological Safety in the Workplace : In this short course, you’ll learn what psychological safety is, why it’s important, and five steps for creating it in the workplace.

Disability Inclusion : In this short course, you'll explore a range of disabilities and identify what support is available for disabled employees.

How to Build a Resilient Team : This microlearning explores the traits of resilient teams and what managers and leaders can do to foster resilience skills in their people.

Leading with Empathy : Those who show empathy and attentiveness to other people can also better assess their attitude and thus avoid the negative consequences of misjudgments. However, leading with empathy is something that needs to be learned. In this training course, you will learn how to be more perceptive of other people's emotions and understand their motives. By applying this understanding, you will have greater assurance in working out suitable courses of action.

Overcoming Impostor Syndrome : In this module, you’ll learn to define impostor syndrome and determine whether it’s something you’re experiencing. Then, you’ll learn how impostor syndrome holds you back as well as how to face that insecurity head-on.

Webpages and toolkits

Support, guidance and resources about each of the following areas at LSE:

Staff Wellbeing - the main wellbeing webpages for LSE staff include resources (whether you’re working remotely or on campus), activities, guidance and much more!

Wellness Toolkit – practical advice and tools to promote better wellbeing, including guidance on how line managers can support wellness in their teams and advice about spotting and addressing stress. The Wellness Toolkit also includes guidance for line managers on wellbeing and mental health discussions, and a guide for line managers about building team wellbeing.

Wellbeing support and resources - useful resources for managers to support wellbeing

Supporting mental health at work: Practical guidance : guidance from CIPD and MIND

Mind — Workplace Mental Health Support Hub

Menopause Toolkit - menopause guidance, case studies, FAQs and more for staff and managers. The toolkit is complemented by the Menopause Policy.

Sickness Absence Toolkit - information and guidance for employees and managers about the School’s sickness absence procedure and how to support staff who are ill

Flexible Working Toolkit - Guidance, tools and tips to promote effective flexible working

1-1 wellbeing checklist - This guide provides both an overview of general good practice when it comes to team wellbeing and ideas for how to agree and introduce local wellbeing actions that are right for your team.

Guidance for line managers on wellbeing and mental health discussions - This document aims to provide line managers with a framework to help them discuss and agree ways to support the wellbeing and mental health of their staff, primarily through one to-one meetings.

Managers should be skilled in recruitment because they are the "talent gatekeepers" who define team culture, performance, and long-term business success. Effective recruitment by managers reduces costly turnover, ensures team diversity, and builds a strong employer brand. Rather than delegating entirely to HR, managers who take a hands-on approach to hiring ensure that new talent aligns with specific team goals and technical requirements. 

Recruitment and selection online course : At the end of the course, participants will:

• Be familiar with the requirements under Equality Act 2010
• Be able to define unconscious bias and its implications for a fair recruitment process
• Be aware of how the anonymisation of application forms works
• Know what steps recruiting managers need to take to meet the school’s obligations to safeguard immigration as a whole and prevent illegal working, and who they can go to for support
• Be able to proactively plan the recruitment process and implement LSE policy and procedure
• Be able to shortlist fairly and objectively

Webpages:

The Recruitment Toolkit - All the resources you need to find the right candidate. 

Fair recruitment advisers - The Fair Recruitment Advisers initiative is an important way in which, as a university based in one of the world's most diverse cities, we're working to enhance the diversity and inclusivity of our staff community. Together, our Fair Recruitment Advisers help to reduce the impact of unconscious bias during recruitment for senior level Professional Services staff (PSS) at Bands 7 and above. 

Disability Confident Scheme: Information and guidance for hiring managers

Managing new starters 

If you have any new starters in your team, the Manager’s Induction Toolkit covers everything you need to make sure that your new starter has a great induction. Beyond the induction, make sure that you make use of the School’s tools and guidance concerning review periods so that the new starter understands what is expected of them in their role, is supported appropriately during their review period and any meetings and other check-ins are documented. You can find further details in the Review Periods Guidance for Professional Services Staff.  

The Career Development Review Scheme (CDR) for professional services staff is a continuous process designed to allow you and your line manager to:

• Manage workload
• Ensure wellbeing and work-life balance
• Set objectives and performance standards
• Review progress
• Give and receive feedback
• Explore development needs
• Discuss career aspirations

Courses:

Making The Most of Career Development Reviews as an LSE People Manager As an LSE people manager, Career Development Reviews or CDRs are an essential part of the process of you managing your team. This course takes you through what a CDR is, what it involves and how to ensure you give your team supportive and effective CDRs.

How to Give Feedback This short course looks at how to use the appreciative enquiry model to give regular, constructive feedback in a way that stimulates development and motivation, and shows how anticipating likely responses to feedback can help us to pitch key messages at the most appropriate level.

Learning plans:

CDR Essentials for People Managers - Learning at LSE A collection of courses and learning bites that will give you everything you need to ensure a meaningful CDR experience for your team.

PS Staff Career Development Toolkit - Learning at LSE A suite of learning linked to our PS Career Development Toolkit. Most modules are 10-20 minutes in length. Topics covered include: understanding your strengths, developing a career plan, driving your career, finding a mentor, writing a cover letter and designing a CV.

Webpages:

CDR Toolkit - Set objectives, explore development needs, discuss career aspirations

How to do 1-1s - guidance for staff and managers 

Setting objectives - guidance for staff and managers 

Toolkit for Parents and Carers - Resources to support working parents and carers

Sickness Absence Toolkit - Information and guidance for employees and managers on sickness absence management at the School.

Flexible Working Toolkit - Guidance, tools and tips to promote effective flexible working

The Recruitment Toolkit - All the resources you need to find the right candidate. 

Manager's induction toolkit - Learning is more than just going on a course: ways you can support your team with their learning

Supporting ongoing development - Everything you need to know to give your new staff a flying start at LSE

Staff Disability Toolkit – a comprehensive resource designed to support both managers and employees in creating an inclusive and accessible work environment.

Personal Relationships Policy – sets out the expectations and responsibilities of the LSE community in respect of personal relationships.

Fertility Toolkit – a toolkit of guidance and resources to support staff and managers dealing with the impact of fertility challenges at work.

Performance management is a continuous, strategic process designed to align individual employee goals with organisational objectives to maximise productivity and value. Rather than a single annual review, it involves ongoing communication, including goal setting (SMART goals), regular feedback, coaching, and performance appraisal. Key components include planning, monitoring, developing, and rewarding employees to improve performance. 

Monitoring Performance Effectively : In this course you will explore good practice for monitoring your team's performance effectively. You will look at the benefits of ongoing monitoring, informal vs formal monitoring, and how to take a collaborative approach. How can you use these strategies in your own team? By the end of the course, you will be able to identify effective strategies for monitoring your employees' performance.

5 Leadership Styles to Boost Performance : This microlearning explores 5 styles of leadership and when to use them

Supporting Your Team's Performance : Supporting your team to make the most of their performance and job satisfaction is a key skill for all managers. Knowing the best strategies to use to support your team to do their best work can be very helpful. This short course allows managers to put their skills to the test. How well can you support your team to make sure their performance is at its best?

Setting Smart Objectives : SMART objectives keep projects on track and workers motivated and engaged. They provide a clear way to measure progress and performance and to make sure each employee contributes to the organisation's overall goals in the best way. Setting good objectives is key to managing performance for individuals, your team, a project, and for personal development. In this course you'll find out about the benefits of setting SMART objectives. By the end of this module, you should be able to recognise the process for setting SMART objectives.

Conflict Management and Resolution : This course will show you how to pinpoint disagreements and apply the right solution to solve them efficiently while promoting team cohesion. It is designed to empower you with the knowledge and practical skills necessary to understand, manage and resolve workplace conflicts.

Managing Remote Workers - Learning at LSE : This course looks at the benefits and challenges of remote working and provides advice for leaders and managers on how to ensure that their home workers remain connected, engaged and productive.

Transformational Leadership : With the help of transformational leadership, employees can become more motivated. Furthermore, they can enjoy the advantages of possessing a clear vision, serving as role models, receiving and giving individualized attention, and questioning conventional practices. This e-training course will present the core elements of transformational leadership in detail, reinforced by illustrative examples. Participants will also learn how they can apply a transformational leadership style for providing optimum support to their employees.

A manager's guide to resolving team conflict : In this course, you’ll learn why conflict happens, common ways people react to conflict, and how to turn workplace disagreements into opportunities for constructive dialogue, change, and new understanding.

The School’s commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion is one of its six strategic priorities, as highlighted in LSE's Shaping the World campaign, and ‘equity of respect and opportunity’ is one of the core principles set out in the School’s Ethics Code.

Learning resources

EDI Learning Pathway for Managers - Learning at LSE This pathway will take you through a range of materials that will support the embedding of equity, diversity and inclusion practice in your day to day work as a people manager as well as ensuring that you fulfil your legal requirements under the Equality Act.

Inclusive Leadership Inclusive leaders create an inclusive workplace culture, building inclusive relationships both within their immediate team and beyond, and eliminating the impact of unconscious bias on their decisions.This course contains up-to-the-minute insights from pioneers in the field of inclusive leadership, combined with original drama demonstrating inclusive leadership in action and tools for developing inclusive leadership skills.

Supporting Trans and Non-Binary People at Work: A Guide for Managers This short course provides an essential toolkit for managers in managing and supporting transgender and non-binary staff at all levels of an organisation.

Supporting Working Carers: Advice for Managers In this short video, various working carers give advice and tips to managers and leaders on how to support carers on their teams, and approach the subject in a way that is appropriate and inclusive.

Tackling Race Bias at Work: A Guide for Managers This course takes a look at the nature of 'modern racism' and its influence in the workplace and sets out the crucial roles that leaders have to play in tackling it.

Implementing Reasonable Adjustments Reasonable adjustments aim to ensure that people with disabilities have access to the same opportunities and services as people who do not have disabilities as much as possible. In this course, we will explore what reasonable adjustments are, what they aren't and how they can be implemented in the workplace.

Webpages

Staff Disability Toolkit

Access to Work Toolkit

Menopause Toolkit

Toolkit for Parents and Carers

Equity, Diversity and Inclusion

The LSE Manager programme is designed to support Professional Services Staff (PSS) to be as effective as possible in the people management part of their role. The programme is designed for all new PSS people managers who have either:

• been promoted into a people management role at LSE for the first time or
• been appointed externally to the School to a people management role.

You can find out more here. 

LSE’s leadership framework outlines the School’s approach to leadership and within this the expecations of anyone leading at the School. The framework recognises that leadership can be demonstrated by everyone, not just those with leadership in their job description, in varying degrees, at individual, team, and LSE levels.

The framework has been developed so that it is underpinned by our organisational ethics and informed by our beliefs which in turn informs our actions as leaders at LSE.

The framework encompasses three leadership dimensions each with observable positive indicators:

• Leading Self - How I lead myself in my day-to-day work
• Leading Others - How I lead groups or teams, either formally or informally
• Leading LSE & Beyond - How I demonstrate leadership to contribute to LSE’s success

This framework has three primary objectives:

• Establish professional standards for leadership across LSE that define the culture needed to deliver our strategic vision
• Embed these standards throughout the employee lifecycle in practical ways to attract, retain, engage, and develop talent
• Equip leaders with the mindsets, skillsets and practices necessary to foster shared ownership of our cultural norms at LSE 

You can find the full framework here. 

The framework is the key pillar of our leadership development offer at the School. It underpins all of our development pathways and programmes.

For anyone looking to develop their skills or practice in leading, consider the following possible steps: 

Step 1: Conduct a diagnostic assessment

The first thing to do is to conduct a self-assessment and review of your current leadership skills. This is available to anyone at LSE, and can be used as a tool to focus on current or future development areas.

The self-assessment and review can be accessed here.

A guide to setting up and understanding your review can be found here.

If you would like support in understanding the results of your review, you can book a conversation with a leadership expert within Organisational Learning and Development by emailing hr.learning@lse.ac.uk . As part of this conversation we would need you to share your review with us. This would be confidential and not be shared more widely. 

Step 2: Access our leadership learning pathways

Your review report will identify your strengths and areas for development as a leader. You will be able to use this report to leverage and build on your strengths and address your areas for development in a targetted manner.

You can use the outcomes of your report to target online learning linked to each of the pillars of the leadership framework. We have a learning pathway on MyStaffDevelopment for each of the four pillars. If, for example, you have found that your development areas are clustered under the belonging pillar of the framework, you can use the associated belonging pathway to target development in this area. 

You can find the pillars here: 

Agility

Belonging

Collaboration 

Delivery

Step 3: Undertake a leadership programme

You can find out more about all our programmes here. 

AI tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot are increasingly part of day-to-day work across LSE. As a manager, your role is both to use these tools responsibly in your own practice, and to support your team in using them appropriately, fairly and with confidence.

For detailed guidance on how to support an AI-enabled team, see the M365 Copilot Manager Guidance. For more information on available training and resources for you and your team, see Understanding Copilot. This page brings together learning options for different levels of confidence, including responsible AI guidance, introductory learning, practical Copilot pathways and live workshops focused on common Microsoft 365 apps.

Using AI in your role as a manager

AI can support a range of management activities, particularly where it helps with preparation, drafting and organising information. For example, you may use it to:

• prepare for one-to-ones by summarising notes or previous emails
• draft agendas, communications or reports
• review and refine written content, including checking tone and clarity
• summarise discussions or highlight key points from longer threads

AI should support your work, not replace your judgement. Managers remain fully accountable for decisions about people, performance and team dynamics. Any AI-generated content should always be reviewed and adapted before use.

To learn more about appropriate use of AI, explore the AI: Responsible Use at LSE course and the Responsible-AI-Checklist. These resources can help managers and staff think through appropriate use, data handling, accountability, bias, transparency and the need to review AI-generated outputs before they are used or shared.

Setting expectations for your team

You play an important role in shaping how AI is used within your team. Clear expectations help ensure consistency and fairness:

• AI use is optional - staff should not feel required to use it
• use or non-use of AI should not be used as a proxy for performance
• individuals remain responsible for the accuracy and appropriateness of their work, including anything supported by AI
• outputs should always be reviewed for accuracy, tone and potential bias

Not all colleagues will have access at the same time, and access may vary by role or device. This should not affect how work is assessed or distributed.

Supporting adoption in a fair and inclusive way

Teams will have different levels of confidence and interest in AI. As a manager, you can support this in a balanced way by:

• being clear that exploring AI is encouraged, but not expected
• sharing practical examples of how you use AI in your own work
• allowing time and space for experimentation where appropriate
• encouraging peer learning and knowledge sharing within the team

Open conversations about how AI is being used can help identify support needs early, clarify expectations, and build shared understanding across the team.

Encourage your team to explore training that matches their confidence level and role. Staff who are new to Copilot may want to begin with the introductory learning pathway, while colleagues who already have some experience may find the confidence-building pathway more useful. Managers can also use these resources to identify shared learning opportunities for their teams, support peer discussion, and help colleagues make informed choices about when Copilot is useful and when other approaches are more appropriate.

• Getting started with Microsoft 365 Copilot - Learning at LSE - an introduction to key features and responsible use.
• Advancing your Copilot confidence - Learning at LSE - practical support for more confident, purposeful use.

Managing risks and maintaining good practice

AI tools can generate helpful suggestions, but they do not understand context, relationships or organisational nuance. Good management practice remains essential.

As a manager, you should:

• treat AI outputs as drafts or prompts, not final answers
• avoid relying on AI for decisions involving people, including performance, progression or wellbeing
• check outputs carefully for accuracy, tone and unintended bias
• use human judgement and direct conversation for sensitive or complex situations

If AI produces content that feels unclear or inappropriate, treat this as a signal to review and add context, rather than something to act on directly.

Supporting wellbeing and confidence

The introduction of AI tools can raise questions about workload, expectations and confidence. As a manager, it is helpful to:

• avoid creating pressure to work faster or differently without support
• encourage staff to use AI in ways that suit their role and confidence level
• signpost staff to training that matches their confidence level, including responsible AI, Copilot learning pathways and live workshops
• reinforce that AI is a support tool, not a measure of performance

Where there are concerns, these should be addressed through normal management conversations and support routes, rather than through AI tools.