Leading and Managing People
Leading and Managing People
This domain tests how you create direction, commitment and constructive behaviour in teams. The exam expects you to distinguish leadership from management, diagnose team maturity and choose an intervention that fits the evidence.
Core rules and concepts
- Leadership sets direction and creates commitment; management plans, organises and controls resources. Effective managers move between both.
- Situational leadership (Hersey and Blanchard) matches task and relationship behaviour to follower readiness. Low readiness needs clear direction; high readiness needs delegation.
- Tuckman's stages - forming, storming, norming, performing, adjourning - explain predictable team friction. Storming is not failure; it is a stage to facilitate.
- Belbin's team roles describe behavioural contributions, not job titles. Balance matters more than having nine perfect people.
- Motivation is multi-source: Herzberg separates hygiene factors from motivators; Vroom's expectancy theory links effort to performance and reward; McClelland highlights achievement, affiliation and power.
- Conflict can be handled by competing, collaborating, compromising, avoiding or accommodating (Thomas–Kilmann). Collaboration is not always right; safety or speed may require another mode.
Worked example A newly formed cross-functional team misses its first two deadlines and blames unclear ownership. A weak answer says apply Tuckman and stops. A stronger answer diagnoses storming plus low readiness on the task, so the manager clarifies roles with a RACI, sets short milestones, models constructive disagreement, and only then moves to coaching and delegation. Reasoning: the intervention must match both team stage and follower readiness, and it must be evaluated at the next milestone.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating leadership and management as opposites.
- Applying one leadership style as universally best.
- Confusing Belbin roles with performance ratings.
- Calling all conflict dysfunctional.
- Offering motivation as a single lever, such as bonus pay.