> ## Content Index
> Fetch the complete content index at: https://the-unconventional-career-club.ghost.io/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further.

# How to develop your team
- URL: https://the-unconventional-career-club.ghost.io/how-to-develop-your-team/
- Published: 2026-04-20T11:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-14T09:04:22.000Z
- Description: How you manage your team has a huge impact on how people learn. Be the manager that helps people to do their best at work.
- Author: Laura Cloke
- Tags: Career Advice

Some of the proudest moments of my career have been celebrating the achievements of my team. Seeing people I have supported grow and develop is incredibly rewarding, but not something that is easy to do. 

### A little support

Supporting your team to take charge of their career development is challenging. By its nature, personal development is personal. It requires the individual to be responsible for what they do. As a manager, you can’t do it for them, but you can help to set them up for success.

Your role is to create an environment which encourages learning, identify or create opportunities for growth, and role model what taking charge of your career development looks like. It is not for you to decided what someone should do or what they are capable of, but rather create the conditions for them to go after their own goals. 

### Leading by example

How you manage your team has a huge impact on how people learn. Do you create the conditions for people to be curious, to try new things and learn from their mistakes? Or do you insist on perfection, being told what to do and create a fear of blame? 

It isn’t easy. You have the day-to-day work to deliver, you are thinking about your own needs and goals, and on top of that you are trying to help others to do the same. You may be facing a person who doesn’t think they have anything to learn, someone who lacks confidence, or worse someone who is over-confident in their abilities and can’t see their shortcomings. Your approach must be tailored to each person and all of that takes time and thought which you may not have. 

### Encouragement

Supporting the people you lead to grow and develop in their careers can seem like a huge task, but I truly believe that the starting point is a simple thing, encouragement. It is amazing how powerful a few words of support to someone can be and as a leader, you get the opportunity to do that every day.

I love how impactful being encouraging to people can be. Helping someone to see what they are capable of and have the confidence to go after their goals is incredibly rewarding. It is also something that takes minimal time and effort on your part to do. If you are interested in your team and you make time to support them, there will be plenty of opportunities to encourage them at work.

The way I like to do this is to pair an open question with some observations. For example, I might ask a team member what they were most proud of from a project they have completed. Using their answers as a starting point I will affirm what they have said and add in any comments of what I had observed of things that had gone well, particularly how they had improved since doing something similar.

Asking the other person first helps to stop the power imbalance, that I as the manager am the only one who can decide if their work is good or not, and it also encourages the person to think. As I’ve written about many times, reflection is a powerful tool when it comes to career development, so encouraging people to do it by asking them questions will really help them to think.

These conversations don’t have to be in a formal setting like a 121, although that is a great place to have them, you can do them in casual conversations too. I’ve worked for people who are always quick to point out mistakes or what wasn’t good enough and they were a little light on the thank yous. Over time I’ve learnt how to evaluate my own performance, so I’m not seeking approval from other people, but it is always nice to hear that you have done a good job and be appreciated by those above you.

As a leader of people, you have a huge influence over their day-to-day work. Not only do you get to decide what people do, but you also set the tone for how work is done. The way that you choose to lead can be a positive influence in people’s careers, or the thing that makes work a daily struggle for them. So how do you create the environment that empowers your team to go after their goals?

### Empowering your teams 

One of the challenging aspects about supporting people with their development is that you can’t do it for them. You can support and encourage your team, but they must be the ones to do the work. As a leader you can decide how work gets done and you also get to create the environment in which that happens. The way that we learn is through doing, so one of the most helpful things you can do for your team is to give them opportunities to learn.

The dynamic between manager and team member is fascinating to me. Through very simple things, like the words you use or how you ask your team to do things, you can either encourage people to take ownership of their work or keep them looking to you for all the answers. Rather than telling your team what to do, you can bring in a coaching approach to support what you want them to do. It might look like explaining your goals and any parameters you need to follow, then asking the team how they will approach the task or giving them the freedom to deliver work in their own way. 

It is a delicate balance. As a manager, you know what your team needs to do to get the job done, and you may have answers that your team members don’t. Coaching someone to arrive at an answer they have the capability to do is empowering, but if they just need instructions, you will get nowhere, so you may need to balance telling and coaching when you are supporting people.

### Blame game

Creating an environment where learning and failing are ok is so key to helping people to grow. I hear lots of people say “there is no such thing as failure” to make people feel better about their mistakes. The problem is you will get things wrong. No one gets everything right first time, so you need to work in an environment where it is ok to fail. There are good and bad ways to do that. I’ve worked in places where making a mistake was an opportunity for blame, with that culture set up from the top. It made people wary of doing anything new, and if things did go wrong, rather than reflecting on what they could have done differently they blamed other people.

When you are a leading a team, it is your job to find a way for your team to try, and to be able to make mistakes, in a way that isn’t detrimental to your business. This might require a bit more time and effort on your part. It may mean allowing more time for work to get done, so that people can have a go but with supervision to correct any mistakes. It might also be about identifying what is a suitable activity for someone to practice with. You don’t want your most junior team member delivering a presentation for the first time on your most crucial project, but perhaps they could lead the team meeting.

Creating the conditions for your team to thrive is no easy task. When you are faced with the pressures of delivering your objectives, it may feel hard to leave room for mistakes, and trial and error. Your desire for perfection, may in fact be stifling your team and preventing them from doing better work. 

Giving your team the opportunity to try things out may seem like a luxury when you are being met with deadlines and pushback from your managers. I would encourage you to think about the longer term. A team that is growing and learning is going to be better equipped. If you keep telling your team what to do, they remain reliant on you to know what to do. If you can teach them how to think like you and learn new skills, your team can do more and be more effective. It is hard, but it is worth it.

Seeing the people that I have supported at work develop in their careers, do work they couldn’t have imagined taking on, or getting promotions has been some of the most rewarding moments of my working life. The other person has put the work in, but I have created the environment that has helped them to learn. Helping your team to thrive at work feels great, but it also benefits your organisation. Teams that are learning and growing will improve their output, be more satisfied at work, and likely more productive. 

Supporting and encouraging your team is such a rewarding thing to do. So many people are scared or shy about trying new things or putting themselves out there in a work environment. People who are capable of so much lack the confidence to speak up, but an encouraging word or two from a manager might be the thing that unlocks that confidence for them. You don’t have to solve someone’s problems for them, but don’t underestimate the impact a few encouraging words can have.