MANAGER GUIDES
Good leadership is built in everyday moments
Our free guides are short, practical guides for anyone who manages people at work.
Each one covers a problem that comes up in most workplaces. We explain what could be causing the problem, give you the exact words you can use and offer one thing to try right away.
Each one takes about 5 minutes to read.
Pick a guide. Try it. See what changes.
Choose your workplace
Pick the set of guides that best matches how your team works.
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Office and hybrid workplaces
For managers and team leaders working mainly in offices, remotely or across hybrid teams.
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Site and shift workplaces
For supervisors and team leaders working across sites, shifts, crews and operational environments.
Free manager guides
From doing the work to leading the team
You may have stepped into leadership because you’re good at what you do.
You know the work. You understand the pressure. You’ve built experience in your field. But leading people asks for a different set of skills.
A good leader needs to be able to:
- Communicate clearlySo people know what is expected, why it matters and what happens next.
- Build trustBy listening properly, responding and doing what they say they will do.
- Have difficult conversationsIn a way that leaves people clear on where they stand, what needs to change and how.
- Make fair decisionsAnd explain how they got there.
- Balance prioritiesSo people know what matters most when everything can’t be done at once.
- Give useful feedbackSo people know what is working, what needs to change and what good looks like.
- Help people growBy giving them responsibility, support and opportunities to learn.
- Use good judgementMake decisions and know when something needs to be escalated.
Those skills don’t always come automatically with experience.
Our free manager guides help you build them in the moments you’re already dealing with at work.
Each guide
- Focuses on one common situation
- Gives you practical words to use
- Suggests one thing to try
- Helps you check whether it made a difference
You don’t need to read everything. Start with the situation that feels most useful to you right now.
Who are the guides for?
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People new to managing
You’ve got the job, but nobody handed you the words. These give you sentences you can use before you’re in the middle of it.
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Experienced managers and team leaders
You know what you’re doing. These are for the things that still take up your time: work that comes back wrong, jobs that keep getting added, the same two people carrying the team.
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Supervisors, foremen and crew leaders
The site and shift guides are written to be used on the job, in a toolbox talk or pre-start.
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HR, People & Culture and WHS teams
Something short and useful you can send to a manager today, while the bigger piece of work is still being sorted out.
How the guides work
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Pick a guide
Choose your workplace type and the situation that’s most relevant to you.
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Try it
Use the words in a real conversation, and try the one change the guide suggests.
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Check if it worked
Come back in two weeks and use the check at the end of the guide. If it helped, keep doing it.
Each guide takes about five minutes to read.
Guide topics
What topics are covered?
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Build Trust
Getting people to tell you about problems early, while you can still do something about them.
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Communicate Clearly
Explaining a job well enough that it comes back right the first time.
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Lead Fairly
Making decisions about who gets what in a way you can explain and stand behind.
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Strengthen Teams
Spreading the hard work and the know-how around, instead of stacking it on two people.
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Design Sustainable Work
Making sure that when new work arrives, something else changes.
Also: using AI at work. There are guides on using AI at work too, because it changes how jobs get done, who decides things and what people learn along the way.