Seeking Ideas for Effective Team Leadership Practices

Clay Parker · 2025-06-04T17:25:05.535Z

Hey team - I am starting a new job at a new company, and giving some thought to what I will do differently/ better as a team leader and manager. I would love an ideas, books, rituals, cadences, etc you do or would do given a fresh start at your company? Anything you do that your team or leadership loves that is different or impactful? Any awesome practices you do that makes impact or motivates your team? Example, thinking of things like; Required one day no meetings/ Program stop start exercises/ anonymous survey of existing team whats working and whats not/ etc etc

Seeking Ideas for Effective Team Leadership Practices | CMAweekly Customer Marketing and Advocacy Slack

10 comments

· Sorted by Oldest

Nicole Saunders
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I re-read "The First 90 Days" before starting my prior role and that gave me some excellent guidance heading into a new leadership role.
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Rachel Bonistalli
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For your team, you may want to do an exercise monthly where each person brings one thing they did great and one thing that failed as what they learned from that failure and you celebrate both -- the success and the fast learning you did from the thing that failed. That can help normalize experimentation. Good luck!
👍2
Amy Ng
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Dedicated deep work periods or one 'no meetings' day are a definite must! My last leader also had an engineering background, so we played lots of agile games as a team to do feedback / SWOT in a fun way. Another previous leader also booked 30 min. intro coffee chats with everyone on the team so they could feel / understand his door was always open even though we were mostly remote.
👍1
Janet Paik
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Our manager started with a Pechakucha exercise (essentially a photo collage) so all of us can get to know each other and our stories She also opens each meeting with a conversation card
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Emily Coleman
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Janet Paik I did a Pechakucha once! It was so much fun. Clay Parker I would suggest approaching new roles like a consultant. The first 30-60 days is all about listening and problem identification. I also suggest sharing early and often about what you're learning.
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Brittany Burgess
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Read The Trust Edge 💙 trust me on this
Shannon Howard
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These are all fantastic ideas! And Clay Parker, good on you for thinking about it and asking! To what Emily Coleman said, I think the first 30-60 days are about listening—not just to the business problems to solve, but to the people solving them. What are people's strengths? How do they want to grow? How do they like to recognized and appreciated? What makes people tick? That goes a long way to building trust and motivation. Something I love to do for team calls is also what I call "high fives." Just intentional time and space for people to share something great that someone else has done—whether they went above and beyond, ran a killer campaign, got a great response to outbound, etc. It starts off with high energy and helps people feel recognized for their contributions. As part of this, I also encourage the team to take a moment to leave praise in Lattice (our performance management system) so it's on record for people during review periods. It's a small, intentional practice, but it makes a huge impact on morale.
Sunny Manivannan
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I love the ideas listed above. One book recommendation (and I've turned to this book many times as a manager) is https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756 It's an easy read and would be powerful to read before you start your new gig.
❤️1
Charlotte Weiss
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Debriefs and postmortems after launching something. Whether you do them quarterly or after each project, just give some time to breathe in between, to celebrate, and to think about what learnings you can take away
💡1
Christine Newman
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Dedicated days/times for professional development. Each person can choose what they want to do — read a book, take a LinkedIn Learnjng class, actually watch that webinar they signed up for and missed, etc.
👍1

Nicole Saunders
·
·
I re-read "The First 90 Days" before starting my prior role and that gave me some excellent guidance heading into a new leadership role.
❤️2
2
Rachel Bonistalli
·
·
For your team, you may want to do an exercise monthly where each person brings one thing they did great and one thing that failed as what they learned from that failure and you celebrate both -- the success and the fast learning you did from the thing that failed. That can help normalize experimentation. Good luck!
👍2
Amy Ng
·
·
Dedicated deep work periods or one 'no meetings' day are a definite must! My last leader also had an engineering background, so we played lots of agile games as a team to do feedback / SWOT in a fun way. Another previous leader also booked 30 min. intro coffee chats with everyone on the team so they could feel / understand his door was always open even though we were mostly remote.
👍1
Janet Paik
·
·
Our manager started with a Pechakucha exercise (essentially a photo collage) so all of us can get to know each other and our stories She also opens each meeting with a conversation card
👍1
Emily Coleman
·
·
Janet Paik I did a Pechakucha once! It was so much fun. Clay Parker I would suggest approaching new roles like a consultant. The first 30-60 days is all about listening and problem identification. I also suggest sharing early and often about what you're learning.
❤️1
Brittany Burgess
·
·
Read The Trust Edge 💙 trust me on this
Shannon Howard
·
·
These are all fantastic ideas! And Clay Parker, good on you for thinking about it and asking! To what Emily Coleman said, I think the first 30-60 days are about listening—not just to the business problems to solve, but to the people solving them. What are people's strengths? How do they want to grow? How do they like to recognized and appreciated? What makes people tick? That goes a long way to building trust and motivation. Something I love to do for team calls is also what I call "high fives." Just intentional time and space for people to share something great that someone else has done—whether they went above and beyond, ran a killer campaign, got a great response to outbound, etc. It starts off with high energy and helps people feel recognized for their contributions. As part of this, I also encourage the team to take a moment to leave praise in Lattice (our performance management system) so it's on record for people during review periods. It's a small, intentional practice, but it makes a huge impact on morale.
Sunny Manivannan
·
·
I love the ideas listed above. One book recommendation (and I've turned to this book many times as a manager) is https://www.amazon.com/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Fable/dp/0787960756 It's an easy read and would be powerful to read before you start your new gig.
❤️1
Charlotte Weiss
·
·
Debriefs and postmortems after launching something. Whether you do them quarterly or after each project, just give some time to breathe in between, to celebrate, and to think about what learnings you can take away
💡1
Christine Newman
·
·
Dedicated days/times for professional development. Each person can choose what they want to do — read a book, take a LinkedIn Learnjng class, actually watch that webinar they signed up for and missed, etc.
👍1