Ultimate Guide To Being A Team Leader

THETHE
ULTIMATE
A B S O L U T E L Y
ATEAMTEAM
LEADERLEADER
guide to being
now I’m a
team leader…
written by team leaders, for team leaders

If we google Leadership, we find
thousands and thousands of definitions
about Leadership, and each one of them
makes sense. All our endeavours in
AIESEC rest upon our fundamental desire
to explore and develop our own leadership
potential. And as a Team Leader, be it as a
member of the Management Body, as a
LC Vice President, or even as LCP, each of
us are in a place to live the best leadership
experience possible.
Today, we know a kind of a formula to
ensure a complete team experience as a
team leader. They are called Team
Minimums. However, we can never forget
Leadership is all about people and
experiences. For each of us to be able to
truly exercise leadership, it is not enough
to just merely follow these minimums, but,
understand how to work around them with
different people and in different contexts.
Experiences of leaders make the best
resource for us to understand this better,
and help us understand our own
leadership sweet spots.
DEAR READER: A MESSAGE FROM ONE TR1BE THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO BEING A TEAM LEADER
“Sometimes it falls upon a generation to be great…”
AIESEC India Member Committee 2014-15
One Tr1be
Dear Sir/Madam,
Due to work commitments I am not able to physically collect my Vodafone
Sim Card for the number 9920 708 182. I have entrusted/endorsed Christina
Kelman to collect the sim card on my behalf.
Thank you for your cooperation in this matter.
Warm Regards,
Abhinav Dhatnagar
Dear Reader,
Dear Reader,
The biggest learning resource has always
been the experiences, learnings and mistakes
of people. In this guide, you will see thoughts
and learnings of Team Leaders which will help
you live your journey better. In February 2015,
a group of Team Leaders from across the
country came together to create this guide to
empower the coming generations of leaders
to live their experience and build the best
possible experiences for their teams.
We hope that this practice of collecting and
compiling experiences does not stop here but
builds on with time, with more learnings
captured and shared. Who knows what can
this turn out to be - volumes of such
guidebooks published every 6 months, or
even online forums hosted and run by the
Team Leader community of AIESEC in India
etc. This is just a start. And let's start with first
doing the best we can to learn from people
who have been in our position before, and
ensuring we activate the
generations after ours to live their experience
better than we could.
In Our Attempt To Scale Up People,
AIESEC in India Member Committee
2014-15
One Tr1be

03introduction
07let’s talk AIESEC04
the leaders we develop05 starting my team
team forming07
team building09
10 weekly team meeting
11 monthly review
12 quarterly team days
13planning
what to remember13
what to forget16
18job description
creation of a jd22
how to use a jd23
24training
training myself25
training my members26
three steps to team education27
31coaching & tracking
tracking systems32
the good and bad news34
coaching35
cheat sheet36
3 things for coaching38
41quarterly team days45
four ways to rock recognition46
reflection & evaluation
table of contents

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
Welcome Team Leaders!
It has started! You are the one, you are a team leader of AIESEC in India. Our
organisation is going to amazing places and you are the one to take it forward!
This guide is not just a textbook for you to be the top-performing team leader in
AIESEC in India neither does this book promise that you will become the top-
performing leader if you read it.
However this book can help you to frame your own team leader experience in the
hopes that you can experience an intense inner and outer journey so that you can
emerge as an individual with stronger qualities of world citizen, solution oriented,
empowering others and self awareness.
You don’t have to read all of it, but during your journey as a team leader, refer to it
from time to time.
These symbols represent different
responsibilities you have to your team.
Each aspect will be covered in one chapter
of the book!
You may see these around. These are tips
and tricks written by the current and
previous team leaders of AIESEC India
especially for you!
You may see this symbol around also,
these are recommended action steps for
you to take throughout your team leader
journey.
actionsteps
& tricks
tips

BEFORE WE START LET’S
The world is changing. All the time. The world is definitely a very
different place to what it was when AIESEC started up in 1948. In
fact, the only constant of our world is that it is constantly changing
and because of that the social problems and societal issues are
changing also.
So how are a bunch of young people supposed to achieve Peace
and Fulfilment of Humankind’s Potential?
We need one solution. We need the right people who can go and
solve these issues! We, as AIESECers understand that leadership
is the fundamental solution to the world’s needs.
But before we move onto WHAT our organisation does to develop
leadership, leadership is a big term. What do we mean exactly by
leadership?
Let’s Google it shall we?
TALK
AIESECSo What is the story of our organisation?
As an organisation we aim to achieve
Peace and Fulfilment of Humankind’s
Potential. This is our vision, but in
simple terms you can think of this as
our ‘Why’. This is WHY we do what we
do., this is what is driving our
organisation forward.
But how do we achieve Peace and Fulfilment of
Humankind’ Potential?
Around 800
million people
go hungry in
the world every
day
1,400
women will
die today as
1,400
29,000
About 29,000 children
die each day, most
from easily
preventable health
problems
they do every day,
from illnesses
related to
pregnancy and
childbirth which
are easy to
diagnose and
treat

BEFORE WE START LET’S
TALK
AIESECSo What is the story of our organisation?
leadership
/‘li:dəʃɪp/
noun
• the action of leading a group of people or an organization, or the ability
to do this. "different styles of leadership"
synonyms: guidance, direction, authority, control, management,
superintendence, supervision
• the state or position of being a leader. "the party prospered under his
leadership"
synonyms: headship, directorship, direction, governorship, governance,
administration, jurisdiction, captaincy
• the leaders of an organization, country, etc. plural noun: leaderships
"the leadership was divided into two camps"
In AIESEC we talk about Leadership in terms of four qualities. We believe that
the leadership the world needs is people who are Empowering Others,
Solution Driven, Self Aware and are a World Citizen
check them out here!

THE
LEADERS
We can think of this s the ‘WHAT’ AIESEC does. Our ‘What’ is
through our Experiential Leadership Development Programs
which include the Global Community Development Programme,
Global Internship Programme, Team Member Programme and
Team Leader Programme through which young people can go
through the inner and outer journey of leadership.
WE DEVELOP
How do we develop this leadership?
You, as a team leader are going through the ‘what’ as you read
this book and throughout the next few weeks, months or even
years will develop the qualities of the leadership development
model that you see next to you.
Inner and Outer Journey is a model used and framed by AIESEC
as the way that individuals can go through an intense ‘outer
journey’ which describes the environment you are in and a
reﬂective ‘inner journey’ which describes the elements of self
reﬂection and reinvention as a result of that external environment
to enable the development of Global Citizen, Empowering Others,
Solution Driven and Self Awareness Qualities.
So if you think
about it, your role
as a team leader
is developing
your leadership in
order for you to
be the change
the world needs.
Let’s get started!

STARTING MY TEAM
Easier than everyone thinks.
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Team Forming
(recruitment &
identity creation)
Team Building
Activities
Weekly team
meetings
Monthly team
reviews
Quarterly team
days
Team Forming
WHY
HOW
It leads to cohesiveness between members and team
leaders by knowing them as a person, as a human
but also knowing them as a team member (their
skills, strengths, behaviours, goals)
The ﬁrst step is through the allocation process.
It is important for you as a Team Leader to have the
opportunity to select your own team - own this
right.
“Team Forming is done through
identifying the correct people for the
department. From mentorship report,
the we can select our members along
with our VP. This is done by identifying
the members preference and
potential.”
- Anonymous Team Leader
“Place people
in the right
position.
Focus on
their strengths
and place
your best
people where
your best
opportunities
are!”
- Dey Dos
Simply how you get to know your team, how they get to know you and
how together you know what the team is all about.
“Why is this important? can’t I
just start work straight away?”
“Why is this important? can’t I
just start work straight away?”
team
forming is
more than
just your
first team
meeting!
“You have the right and the
privilege to select and form
your own team”
“You have the right and the
privilege to select and form
your own team”
rightrightright

FORMING MY TEAM… a bit harder than what I expected
Team Forming
The second step is through the co-creation of the team identity, this is
the most important. All the members of the team need to understand
what the team is all about.
These are the questions you should be asking:
What is the team purpose?
What is my individual contribution to the team purpose?
What is expected of me?
What should I expect from others?
Do I know my members?
Do my members know each other?
Does everyone know how to work with each other?
The Drexler-Sibbet
Team Performance
Model is a fantastic
read if you want to
know how not-for-
proﬁt teams should
ideally form. Great
resource to identify
where is your team
currently and where
you need to go.
“The hardest part of any
team model is identifying
where you are, but once
you have you CAN easily
decide what is needed to
move to the team stage”
“The hardest part of any
team model is identifying
where you are, but once
you have you CAN easily
decide what is needed to
move to the team stage”
& tricks
tips
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Team Forming
(recruitment &
identity creation)
Team Building
Activities
Weekly team
meetings
Monthly team
reviews
Quarterly team
days

BUILDING MY TEAM
Team Building
What should I do to make my team bond?
WHY
Helps bonding between the team members. It delivers the
importance of working together as a team, which is
important for eﬀective functioning of the department.
WRONG QUESTION
How can I build belonging and trust within my
team?
HOW
Team Building is about creating belonging
amongst the team and starting the process of
trust building.
There should be a feeling of pride to be
amongst the team, acceptance amongst each
other and each person feel as if they are ‘in’
“The first team meeting that I
conducted was nothing related
to work, because I wanted my
team to connect on a personal
level first. This helps them to
get to know each other better
and hence, perform better.”
-Jyotsna
“The first team meeting that I
conducted was nothing related
to work, because I wanted my
team to connect on a personal
level first. This helps them to
get to know each other better
and hence, perform better.”
-Jyotsna
WHATfigure it out
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Team Forming
(recruitment &
identity creation)
Team Building
Activities
Weekly team
meetings
Monthly team
reviews
Quarterly team
days

Sunday Football
League:
Members of
AIESEC in
Mumbai meet
every Sunday to
host inter
department
football matches.
This leads to the
members
becoming more
comfortable with
each other, and
bond as a team
Case Study:
Weekly Team Meetings
HOW
Meetings are a space that allow the
members to connect to the team and
work eﬃciently. Meetings ensure strong
communication and they bring everyone
to the table and to the focus/direction of
the team.
One on one interactions with the team members
helps the team leaders to get to know the members
on a personal level and enable the alignment of
team activities towards results needed from the
team.
This step is up to you.
Before you have a meeting, go
through these questions?
What is the purpose of my meeting?
Do I have an agenda? Who will time
it?
Can any of the content be done
virtually? eg. checking priorities on
online tracker?
Will it go over 90 minutes? Why?
How will we allocate responsibilities?
Can this be a standing meeting?
BUILDING MY TEAM
what do your meetings look like?
WHATfigure it out
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Team Forming
(recruitment &
identity creation)
Team Building
Activities
Weekly team
meetings
Monthly team
reviews
Quarterly team
days

Monthly Team Review
WHY
HOW
Monthly team review helps to ﬁnd where the team
is headed and identify the key lacking and loopholes
by evaluating performance and taking feedback
from each other according to the output strategy
through which the plans can be revised.
Start and end with numbers
Ask ‘Are we there yet?’
Don’t change the goal - change your
strategies/ plans
Let the team bring up issues that need to be
discussed
WHATfigure it out
“By conducting monthly team
reviews our members became
aware of their growth over the
last month and were able to
redefine learning goals”
-Wyonna
“By conducting monthly team
reviews our members became
aware of their growth over the
last month and were able to
redefine learning goals”
-Wyonna
BUILDING MY TEAMWhy should I have one? Every month!!
for monthly team review
& tricks
tips
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Team Forming
(recruitment &
identity creation)
Team Building
Activities
Weekly team
meetings
Monthly team
reviews
Quarterly team
days

Quarterly Team Days
WHY
HOW
These help to analyse and review the pros and cons
of the quarter, thereby allowing the strategising of
the way forward to strengthen the weak points.
“The success of a team day
is largely dependent on what
happens before”
-Anonymous
Quarterly team days depend largely on the needs of the team from a
personal and professional standpoint. Assess your team and ask
‘Are we on track’?
in terms of team building or the team plan. This is the time to check the data,
assess where you are and how much you still need to cover. Don’t forget to
review the plan and the job descriptions of each person in the team!
It is also a chance for you to ensure team development is on track - consider
360 feedback, team building activities and/or appreciations.
BUILDING MY TEAMmore than a formality?
WHATfigure it out
“After each quarterly team
day, the team’s vision is
broadened and mistakes are
rectified.”
-Jeff
“After each quarterly team
day, the team’s vision is
broadened and mistakes are
rectified.”
-Jeff
actionsteps
create your team purpose with your team
hold your ﬁrst team meeting
feedback your ﬁrst team meeting with your team
and yourself
create a team building agenda
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Team Forming
(recruitment &
identity creation)
Team Building
Activities
Weekly team
meetings
Monthly team
reviews
Quarterly team
days

THINGS
Planning
Re-planning
Quarterly
Review
OKAY I HAVE MY
TEAM, NOW WHAT?
TO REMEMBER ABOUT PLANNING
In order to have effective planning you must have the right data and
research to commence. Before you start your planning process - ask
yourself
a) What data will we need to plan goals and timeline?
b) Do we know what has happened for the past 2-3 years in our
department?
c) Do we have enough information to start and finish this planning
process.
Why should I use KPIs?
It is the KEY to
success of your
organisation
It is related to
PERFORMANCE
- it can be
measured and
quantified
It can be used as
an INDICATOR -
it provides
leading
information about
future results.
What is a Key
Performance
Indicator? (KPI)
Make better
decisions
Have a clearer
focus
Track
performance
Stronger
coaching
you have two choices:
1. Make decisions about where you want to go
aka. make a plan
2. Go on autopilot
5
What will you do to ensure that each individual understands
his/her contribution to the plan?
Planning is not the role of the team
leader and you don’t just want to plan
for yourself? You need to plan for the
team to contribute - so
The question is how will you build ownership of the plan
for your team?
KEY ACTIVITIES:
1.Pre-planning is important
2.Build Ownership

MAKING THE PLAN:
The plan should contain individual action plans,
clear goals and timeline.
Your plan should include your evaluation points of your activities and
strategies. For every plan that you make you must have a way to track it and
that must be within the plan!
For example - My goal is to lose 20 kgs.
Plan:
- Go to Gym
- Eat Healthy
- Go Swimming
How do I know if going to the gym is eﬀective enough to lose 20 kgs?
How will I measure if my swimming is adding value to lose 20 kgs?
When will I lose 20 kgs?
How often do I eat healthy?
How will I measure if I am really eating healthy or not?
All the answers to these questions lie within how you make your Plan
trackable and measurable.
A
B
1 2 3
For example don’t
just plan how to
get from Point A to
Point B. Plan how at
stage 1, stage 2 and
stage three you
know you are going
the right direction.
For example don’t
just plan how to
get from Point A to
Point B. Plan how at
stage 1, stage 2 and
stage three you
know you are going
the right direction.
You should
measure 2 things:
1. The Outputs and
Outcomes that
need to occur ‘at
the end’
2. The Activities
and actions to
lead to the
outcome that
can be tracked
during the
process.
eg.
1. Lose 30 kgs
2. Going to the
gym 3 times a
week
& tricks
tips
for kpis
Planning
Re-planning
Quarterly
Review
KEY ACTIVITIES:
3.Plan to track the Plan

Plans are based on strategies and strategies are always involving risk. If your
plan is making you feel safe then perhaps it’s too restrictive or not risky
enough.
Due to the nature of plans - it’s okay to re-plan and adjust your activities as
you move forward. Things will never turn out as your expect. As you learn
what strategies are working and which aren’t - keep adjusting as you
progress.
However your goals should not change.
Change your strategies to meet the goal - but never change your goal.
THINGSTO remember ABOUT PLANNING
5
THINGSTO forget ABOUT PLANNING51.Planning is a formality
If you want to build ownership within your teams about Planning, it should
never be a formality.
2. Planning is complicated
The simpler you make your plans the easier they will be to refer to and the more
they will be used by your team.
A Gantt Chart is a
popular way to to show
activities versus time.
On the left will be a list
of activities your team
needs to accomplish
and on the right is a
time scale.
This allows you to
clearly see when does a
project start? when does
it end? How long will it
last? etc.
What is a Gantt Chart?
Planning
Re-planning
Quarterly
Review
KEY ACTIVITIES:
4.If you feel safe, it’s not a good plan.
5. Plans should be dynamic, goals shouldn’t.

3. Over-planning is good
Allow for ﬂexibility in your working style and the working style of others.
4. Planning takes a long time
If you’ve done the research and the pre-planning, planning can easily be
completed within 1 hour. Prepare well and planning can be a fast, fun activity
with your team rather than a administrative formality.
5. If it doesn’t work, scrap it
AIESEC works fast, but sometimes we throw away strategies before going
them the chance to work. Think before you scrap everything.
THINGSTO forget ABOUT PLANNING5
If Plan A
doesn’t work
there are 25
more letters in
the Alphabet
If Plan A
doesn’t work
there are 25
more letters in
the Alphabet
What should a plan look like?
simple!
Have your goal.
What do you want to achieve?
How you are going to get there.
Who will do this?
When will it be done?
actionsteps
Plan your team
planning day
Facilitate and create
your ﬁrst team plan with
your team!
Update your team plan
weekly
Review your team plan
Re-plan
Planning
Re-planning
Quarterly
Review
KEY ACTIVITIES:

other super important
elements of planning!
Re-planning
Re-planning doesn’t need to always be the formal Quarterly re-planning
process. It can as simple as one of your members changing their weekly
timetable and editing their plan as they progress week-by-week.
Make sure that your plan is so simple that it allows for team members to
adjust their individual plans to it.
Quarterly Review
The Quarterly Review is the formal re-planning process with the entire team.
The key theme of the Quarterly Review should be:
a) Are we on track with our outcomes/ goals
b) What did we learn? How does that change things?
The focus of your re-planning should be to refer to the goals and KPIs and
review is these are on track or not.
You can use a simple framework of
Start, Stop, Continue to collect and channel the key learnings for the quarter.
Ensure these changes are reﬂected in your planning sheets.
Quick Test!
What is a Key Performance Indicator?
What are the three things a plan should contain?
What is a Gantt Chart?
When is the right time to change a goal?
Answers to test:
1.KeyPerformanceIndicatorisameasureofwhatwillmakeyouoryourteamsuccessful.eg.KPI
ofsalesactivityis:5coldcallsperweek.
2.Aplanshouldcontainanindividualactionplan,cleargoalsandatimeline
3.AGanttChartisahorizontalchartthatshowsthelistactivitiesandwhentheywillbe
completed.
4.Thereisneverarighttimetochangeagoal.Reconsiderifyouneedtochangethegoalor
changethestrategytoreachthegoal.
Planning
Re-planning
Quarterly
Review
KEY ACTIVITIES:

KEY ACTIVITIES:
Creation of
the Job
Description
from the Plan
Negotiation of
the Job
Description
with the
members
Quarterly
Review of the
Job
Description
It is so that each member understand his or her role and contribution.
It tells a member what they need to do, for how long they should do it, the
main ways they will be measured and the knowledge, skills and attitudes
needed but also developed for the job.
The Job Description should include Roles & Responsibilities, Duration, MOS,
Competencies Required & Developed.
what do my members do?
let’s deﬁne it in a job description
what is a job description?
JOB DESCRIPTION
" According to me, Job Description is an
integral part of anyone's AIESEC
experience. It gives them a clarity as to
what is expected out of them.
If they have a clarity of what they are
supposed to do, then they will do it
better and with more heart. It will
connect them more to the organisation and
will result in more productivity.
Job descriptions are something that should
be implemented strongly in our LC’s and I
will make sure that they are implemented
well here.”
-Jeel Sanghvi, Ahmedabad
well here.”
well here.”
well here.”
well here.”

JOB DESCRIPTION
How do I make one?
“So you’re put into a team which has been given particular
targets to be achieved, what would you want to know ﬁrst? It
would be …
The JD’s contain roles and
responsibilities, duration, MoS,
competencies required and developed.
Roles and Responsibilities: the team member has to be given some
responsibilities and they can be held accountable for the work delivery. This
way each person has the responsibilities and the work burden narrows down.
NOTE: Responsibilities doesn’t mean that the particular team member has
to complete the whole task. It simply means that he needs to make sure that
the work is done and the work doesn’t reach to the level above in the
hierarchy (team leader in this case). Therefore if a member is unable to
complete the task he has been held responsible for, he has to make sure
that the particular task has been given to some other person and the output
isn’t aﬀected.
“what do I have to do?’”
The Job Description is what a new
team member’s role and contribution
in the team that would help achieve
the team goals.
It channelizes the work and makes the
work easier by dividing it in the group.
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Creation of
the Job
Description
from the Plan
Negotiation of
the Job
Description
with the
members
Quarterly
Review of the
Job
Description

JOB DESCRIPTION
A Job Description gives clarity for a team member in understanding
his role in the team. When a documented proper JD’s are given, it
brings a sense of professionalism amongst the team members which
is a very important factor in achieving the team goals.
So basically after you get a JD, you know how critical your job in the
team is, and hence a sense of responsibility would help in making you
work more eﬀectively.
A team leader expects something from the team member, so the JD
acts as the base of expectations from the team member.
—
If a proper document is maintained, the member can go
through it whenever he wishes to, which would help in
making his task productive and also can help him in
self-realisation after completing the task and the
member and the leader can keep a track of
performance.
—
When a work is divided segmentally, it helps making the work easier
and the team goals could be achieved easily at a smoother pace.
What important to remember is that:
Job Description’s are tangible
Why do we need one?
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Creation of
the Job
Description
from the Plan
Negotiation of
the Job
Description
with the
members
Quarterly
Review of the
Job
Description

JOB DESCRIPTION
HOW
JD is basically the tasks and expectation setting of a
team leader and a team member. So, when JD is given
to a team member, he himself knows what he has to do
and what is expected out of him. The team leader then
explains the team and the term plan to the team
members for the easy understanding.
When the team leader interacts with the team members, he can ﬁnd out
the competencies of the team members through some basic tests and
conversations and hence he can analyse the member or make a SWOT
analysis so that he can focus on the member’s strength and can make the
JD’s better.
—
Job Descriptions should be adjusted to bring out a member’s strengths.
—
“Team Minimums are very
important and need to be
implied in every team.
According to me
the most important Team
Minimum is giving the
members a very well
defined Job Description.
The reason being it gives
every member a perfect
idea as to what is
expected out of them in
the team.”
- Aditya Punjabi, VIT
According to me
members a very well
idea as to what is
the team.”
According to me
members a very well
idea as to what is
the team.”
According to me
members a very well
idea as to what is
the team.”
According to me
members a very well
idea as to what is
the team.”
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Creation of
the Job
Description
from the Plan
Negotiation of
the Job
Description
with the
members
Quarterly
Review of the
Job
Description

JOB DESCRIPTIONThen the team leader distributes the job keeping in mind that The JD’s
should be department speciﬁc and not be generalised. For example JD of a
member of iGIP would 90% diﬀer from one of the Marketing Department.
So keep the JD’s department specific.
The 80-20 ratio should be kept in mind by the team leaders, and
accordingly the plans and JD’s should be explained to the members.
80-20 Ratio
What is the job role of
you - the team leader
and what is the job role
of your members?
When in doubt, follow
the 80-20 rule.
20% personal
productivity
80% empowering,
developing and leading
others
what’s the link
between the plan
and the JD?
WHEN?
How can you make a Job Description from the
Plan?
Retention will be a word not used in AIESEC INDIA is
JD’s are implemented properly. Everyone will stay.
Right after you make your plan, plot your timeline,
understand what are the competencies required and
how will you align with the members you have.
This will tell you how people
are ‘specialised’ in certain
areas.
For example one member
receives more sales activities
can have a sales JD.
Your plan will have the activities
with the key responsible.
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Creation of
the Job
Description
from the Plan
Negotiation of
the Job
Description
with the
members
Quarterly
Review of the
Job
Description

JOB DESCRIPTIONYou might originally receive a template of a Job Description for your team.
However it is your responsibility to tailor this to your team plan and the
individual members.
It is important within the
ﬁrst 10 days of a
member joining your
team for you to clarify
and negotiate the Job
Description.
This process is called
Job Description
Negotiation
—
Based on this knowledge you are able to edit the Job
Description with them to suit the member’s needs to
ensure higher development and therefore high
performance.
—
This means that you ﬁnd out this member’s strengths and weaknesses,
personal and professional goals and their expectations of the
organisation.
Quarterly Review
Every time you adjust the plan, you must also adjust the Job Description.
Therefore a Quarterly update of each JD is necessary.
In your quarterly review you can do you performance assessment and based
on the performance achieved/ not achieved and change in personal and
professional goals edit, remove or add roles, responsibilities and MOS.
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Creation of
the Job
Description
from the Plan
Negotiation
of the Job
Description
with the
members
Quarterly
Review of the
Job
Description

KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education
TRAININGEvery team has an educational cycle that includes a breakdown into
knowledge, skills and attitudes.
This should be based on the operational and team cycle and can enable and
drive the job description.
WHY
Your team members have their JDs, but
don’t know how to go about it. Training
them will build a concrete base in which
they can work and explore. For example, If
your member has to get ﬁve ICX raises but
isn’t clear on cold calling. There will be no
productivity.
- Akshat Shivkumar
be concrete
Team Members have to explore
themselves and come up with
solutions. They cant solely depend
on their team leaders for providing
them the required information. This
way you have chances of
generating innovative solutions.
-Akshat Shivkumar
independence
foundation
Foundation is required so
that plethora of
developments can occur.
Focus on providing team
member which such a
strong foundation so that
they get clear about the
operation and crystal clear
about the objective. 
 
They should be well aware
of the principles and not
more on techniques and
tactics are manipulative.
-Siddhant
need sensing
-Exploring skill sets
needed for the
department. 
 
-Archie
“spoon feeding in the long run teaches us nothing but
the shape of the spoon” - M. Forster
“Using google forms to
know your members
existing skill set.”
Don’t forget about the
Global Learning
Environment
Forget the perception
that training has to be
a session at a
conference. Training
can be within the
team or a simple as a
conversation with
your team member

Attend a national or international
conference
Apply for an online course
Ask your VP for a book read
recommendation
What is the education I
as a Team Leader
need?
TRAINING
HOW
Let’s ﬁrst consider you the reader. What is the initial education that you
need as a new Team Leader? Or what is the initial education you have
already received? As a team leader you cannot be restricted to what you
have been given.
Kudos to you for reading this book to gain more knowledge!
Skill
Development
“As a member in
the Marketing
Department, I
wanted to learn
how to use
photoshop & mail
chimp. During the
course of time I
eventually learned
how to do it.”
actionsteps
“Training is not just a
classroom … this can be done
through a webinar, google
hangout with the vp and even
a the conference.”
-Shivani Sapra
-Shivani Sapra
-Shivani Sapra
-Shivani Sapra
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education
What else can you do to train yourself?
Talk a previous MB from last year
read articles from Harvard Business Review/
Forbes on the topic you want to learn
Inform your EB/ LCP/ MC of the knowledge you
want to gain.

Now, as a Team Leader how do I start the initial education process? Always,
always refer to the competencies required and developed within the job
description.
—
What are the key skills, knowledge and attitude that
someone would need to perform this JD to the best of
their ability.
—
Hopefully you were part of the selection/ allocation process
otherwise ask someone for the details - so now you can compare! What are the
key knowledge/skills/attitude someone would need - what knowledge/ skills/
attitude has your new member displayed . Now make your initial education
plan as a gap analysis of this.
What is the education my members need?
Operational Cycle
Modules:
The operational cycle
is a collection of
theory-practice
modules, designed to
take members
through a learning
experience as
qualitatively as
possible while
allowing them to
convert this learning
to performance in
parallel.
TRAINING
Knowledge: What are the basics of your
members Job Description that they need to
know?
For Example:
What is Exchange?
What is the role of Exchange in AIESEC?
What are the customer ﬂows?
What is Net Promoter Score?
Skills: What activities does your new member need to
complete? What are the skills that can enable my
member to perform this activity better?
For Example:
I need to deliver a pitch for projects: Sales Skills
I need to plan a project: Project Management Skills
I need to contribute to the team: Team Management Skills
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education

For Example:
I need to achieve my goals: Attitude of achieving, striving for excellence
Attitude: What is the world/self
perspective that your members
need in order to be high
performing and high developing?
TRAINING
What do I do next?
.
Make a Plan.
Planning is important. So often many Team Leaders reach the end of their
term realising that they never planned for the education of their teams and
as a result operations or the team achievement suffered.
So how do I plan for my team education?
THREE
steps
team
to education
11Education Plan must be
based on the team plan.
Operations timeline should inform when you need to educate you team
members. For example. Does it make sense to teach your members about
promotions during matching time?
22
Needs Sensing should
inform your plan.
As with any plan, your education plan should be dynamic and flexible. Need
Sensing is your ability to see what is happening with your members that tells
you where their education/ training is lacking or needs improvement.
You can do this through
simple questions in a
survey “What
knowledge or skill gap
is stopping you right
now from doubling your
performance” or
assessing needed skills
“Rate your sales skills
out of 5”
Need Sensing
through
conversation
or survey
actionsteps
make your first
team education
plan
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education
Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education

After you identify the key educations/ trainings that need to be delivered you
must ensure that these are placed within a plan/ output. Think about these
questions that will help you plan.
What are the outputs (short-term results) and outcomes (long-term results)
of the training? How will you measure it?
How will you deliver the training? Are you using elements of the Global
Learning Environment? Does the training need to be always in a session -
can it be in a team meeting?
When are these trainings happening and are they consistent with the
operational timeline?
Does my plan reﬂect all the answers to these questions?
Conferences
Delegate
Be part of activities
and discussion which
helps us to discover
more and clarify our
information
Facilitator
Team Leader
Guide your team through the
diﬀerent activities and
conversations and enable their
learning through mentoring.
Share your knowledge
and stories and enable
your own growth
Always be frequent in
passing on information
and have a frequent
reminder of the
previous session plus
the assessment
continued with a related
topic on the current
meeting to not forget
nor get confused
avoiding the lack of
interest, The current
topic too needs to be
the bridge between the
future and past
sessions.
TRAINING
33 Ensure the plan has an output
“Conferences have taught me
a lot, it has given me an
inner of the organization
has helped me network and
build more friends”
 
-Eklavya Shetty
 
-Eklavya Shetty
 
-Eklavya Shetty
& tricks
tips
for training
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education
Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education

TRAININGactionsteps
Start now! Google
how to train someone
and do some basic
research
“Google how to train
someone”  
 
The one who uses google for
everything is the one who’s
learning the most. Google
acts as the most prior way
under outsourced education
to train someone. Google can
give thousands of way of
training differently to
different person.
Eg: You want to train
someone on pitching skill
use google to have some
effective phrases lack in
the pocket to strike on
phrases back in the pocket
to strike on the right
point. How to keep
conversation interesting? If
we have access to
knowledge provider like
google, make full use of it.
It helps to check where we
are lagging, how to improve,
work on it. As a TL, how to
improve, work on it. As a TL
we can gain knowledge also
and apply in the most
efficient way”
-Parth
someone”  
 
different person.
point. How to keep
we have access to
efficient way”
-Parth
someone”  
 
different person.
point. How to keep
we have access to
efficient way”
-Parth
someone”  
 
different person.
point. How to keep
we have access to
efficient way”
-Parth
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education

Outsourced Education
External references within your training:
We’re not always experts for all the content we need to deliver during
training and in order to deliver the best content it is important to leverage
off external references. Why?
Make your point catchy. Ensure members understand it from various
points of view. To spice things up - make it interesting.
Don’ts
Overdo this. It might cause their distraction from
the gist of the topic.
Show complicated videos or articles like a 45 min
TED-X video
Do’s
Use relevant videos and articles
Give a debrief after the content 
Throughout our AIESEC journey we come across clients, alumnus and
senior members who expertise in certain areas such as customer
relationship management, on ground marketing etc. When training our
members we should not use the contacts to help us train our members
and acquire an outsider’s perspective. 
For example, you could provide your members with sales training by
having them call up alumnus or senior members and pitch them as
potential clients. This way members would learn his areas of improvement
and not affect potential customer flow. 
Skype calls, webinars and team day meets with these individuals would
help members to gain on outer perspective and it would also align with the
personal goals members have joined AIESEC for. It acts as a resource.
-Amruta Sukumaran
External Mentors and Outsourced Education Case Study:
TRAINING
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Initial Education:
Transition/
Education
Education Planning
Conferences
Outsourced
Education

KEY ACTIVITIES:
Weekly Team Meeting
TRACKING
Tracking is to ensure the
implementation of the plan. It
is based on the plan and also
the Job Description.
It enables us to measure the success and productivity of our local entities,
teams and members. Tracking also enables us to react and make good
decision making if problems arise.
WHY
“In my previous
department, trackers
were made to keep the
record of work done in
which we were supposed
to fill colours according
to work done(green),
Pending/in
process(yellow), Not done
(red). Also we were ought
to fill a tracker
regarding our personal
goals and priorities for
short term.”
- Anonymous
“In my previous
Pending/in
to fill a tracker
short term.”
- Anonymous
“In my previous
Pending/in
to fill a tracker
short term.”
- Anonymous
How do I make sure my members are performing?

what’s been happening recently in AIESEC
“Till now, tracking was done by team leaders of TM department
which subsequently faded their interest from work and
subsequently from AIESEC. Now, I know tracking can be done
efficiently, if team leaders are tracking their own respective team.
This would help them to keep a track of their team’s productivity.
Members should be solution oriented & their performance should
be measured on their achievement”
Tracking System
Tracking of members productivity, activities and work is make much simpler
through the use Tracking Systems.
Podio:
It can help to centralise the whole tracking process so that any proper
evaluation of membership growth can be done. Try using Podio more than
just a survey tool. It’s team and workspace functions enable strong tracking
and project management.
Google Documents:
Google Documents are strong for priorities tracking and timeline tracking. It
is also strong for a central system of your team’s activities, meeting minutes,
documents etc.
No matter what system it is important to ensure you have a
way to know who does what, where and when?
TRACKINGactionsteps
Open up Podio
and make a
workspace for
your team!
Create a google
drive for your
team documents
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Weekly Team Meeting

TRACKING
A system of follow up of every activity from attending a team meeting
to attending national conference via pocket tracking.
Pocket tracking will divide data which we want to track , Eg: tracking
team minimums, diﬀerent elements LDM, value generation, skill
enhancement, which would be regularly updated in membership
databank.
What is Pocket Tracking?
Case Study:
• Break down the elements that need to be tracked reducing the
amount of data to be filled at a time, thus helping to make tracking as a
behaviour.
• Prepare a tracker which includes progress of a member in a period of
10 days.
• Strategise plans to improve productivity & take feedback from co-
members on ill performing members. Parallel acknowledging
membership who achieved something really worthwhile.
• Have sessions in LTS, LC forum or departmental meetings to
emphasise key points
Follow Up
—
With regular tracking we reach the point when
we can understand each of our members more
in terms of how to motivate, empower them
and what each individual needs to be coached
on.
—
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Weekly Team Meeting

Ensure that you understand that the weekly team meeting is not necessarily
the place to tracking membership activities but rather activities that are
contributing or still need to contribute to the overall progress of the team.
TRACKING
The good and bad news about
team meetings
WARNING
AIESEC India team members have
indicated that the key area of
improvement for team leaders is how to
hold effective team meetings.
the good news
• All of was mentioned on the previous page can be covered in
one touch-point. The weekly team meeting.
• Find out more about eﬀective team meetings in the TEAM
chapter
• Meetings are a great way to communicate
• Meetings are empowering
• Meetings develop knowledge and skills
the bad news
• Meetings don’t have focus
• Members attending the meeting are unprepared
• AIESEC has too many meetings
• Most meeting times are wasted
actionsteps
Think about some
of the best and
worst team
meetings you’ve
attended. What was
the main diﬀerence
between them?
Create your own do
and don’ts for team
meetings
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Weekly Team Meeting

Coaching is to improve the competencies
of your members.
It looks forward to improve the implementation and attainment of goals. It is
based on the plan and also on the Job Description and focuses on performance
and connecting development with performance.
What’s my role? leader?
mentor? coach?
WARNING
AIESEC India team
members have
indicated that the
key area of
improvement for
team leaders is
having monthly
coaching chats
“ I believe coaching is like this.
My member has been given a
target of 20 raises in a month in
oGCDP. Now, depending upon J.D
his/her performance will be
tracked to ensure proper
implementation of plans is
happening. In case if he/she fails
to achieve the target, he/she
might be demoralised, motivated
and depressed. So, now we need
to see what was the reason, he/
she was unable to achieve his
target.So, now accordingly
coaching will be given so that his
performance could be increased.
Additionally he/she will start
believing on himself which will
eventually lead to his learning
and development and boost his
confidence.”
- Anonymous
confidence.”
- Anonymous
confidence.”
- Anonymous
confidence.”
- Anonymous
asking the right
questions
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly Individual
Meeting

odelling and Equipping is a very simple model
for how coaching can be taken forward by you.
your coaching
cheat sheet
M 1. I do it
2. I do it and you are with me
3. You do it and I am with you
4. You do it
5. You do it and someone is with
you
Competence
Demonstration
Coaching
Empowerment
Reproduction
in simple terms..
Assessment. This is about asking the right
questions to your team member.
Where is this person now and where do they want to
go? Your questions and assessment will aid your
members to develop self-awareness and insight
towards themselves and their role.
Challenge. This step is about challenging them to
where they need improvement to better manifest and
further develop their strengths. Push your members to
think outside the box, look for more solutions,
challenge their assumptions about themselves.
Challenging them doesn’t just need to come from you,
support the challenge with resources, conferences,
books, videos that can enable their personal growth.
Support. You are pushing people outside of their
comfort zone. Are you just doing this for higher
performance or do you care about your members?
How will members feel your support and know that
you are listening?
Why coaching?
Coaching helps us to
improve
competencies of our
membership. It helps
us in improving
performance of our
members which in
turn leads to
improvement of
learning and
development of our
membership.
everything that you need to know about coaching
let’s look at these in more detail…
asking the right
questions
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly Individual
Meeting

COACHING
Modelling and Equipping
1. I do it
2. I do it and you are with me
3. You do it and I am with you
4. You do it
5. You do it and someone is
with you
Competence
Demonstration
Coaching
Empowerment
Reproduction
This simple process of modelling and equipping enables you to be
with your team members and guide them through to success.
For example you have a member who is truly struggling at sales -
especially at meetings.
1. I do it - I go to the meeting and debrief you after and you watch
and learn through me doing the taks.
2. I do it and you are with me - I go to the meeting with you and
we handle the meeting together. You are able to see more of
the process and understand more through observation and
small participation.
3. You do it and I am with you - You go to the meeting and I tag
along to as a back up.
4. You do it - there is no longer a need for me to go with you. You
are strong enough to handle it. I don’t even need to check I just
expect you to come and tell me the result individually or in the
meeting.
5. You do it and someone is with you - you replicate this entire
process with another person to pass along the sales culture,
skills and attitudes to another as a ‘pay it forward’
asking the right
questions
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly Individual
Meeting

There are three elements in coaching that enable a team leader to drive
leadership development in others.
1. Assessment
This step is about asking the right questions about your
team member. For example: Pick a person you are
currently leading and looking forward to develop into a
leader. Ask yourself:
A. Where does this person seem to be failing?
B. Where are these person’s blind spots?
THINGSTO remember ABOUT COACHING
3
asking the
right questions
C. What does my intuition is ‘oﬀ’ in
this person’s thinking?
D. Why is this person not
transforming his/her potential
into performance?
E. Who might be leading this
person in the wrong direction?
F. When does this person do well and excel?
G. When does this person stumble?
H. What telltale clues can I ﬁnd that give me insight into where this
person needs helps?
I. Where is this person’s sweet spot?
asking the right
questions
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly Individual
Meeting

2.Challenge
This step is about challenging them to
where they need improvement to better
manifest and further develop their
strengths. Ask Yourself:
A. Which books or resources can you recommend
this person? How can you find proper
recommendations for this person?
3.Support
Support as a team leader in AIESEC is not
just about ‘How to get more performance’
but it is also about supporting them
throughout their life difficulties and their
leadership difficulties.
A. Do you care about this person as a person? What he/she is going
through? (After all, it is difficult for someone to make the most out of
their leadership experience if the rest of their life is a wreck!)
B. Do you know this person’s story?
C. How can you support this person to use his/her leadership experience
as a tool for self-expression?
B. How can you increase the level of challenge for this person to further
develop strengths
C. What practices can you recommend to enhance character
D. How can you move from supervisory meetings to mentoring
conversations?
THINGSTO remember ABOUT COACHING
3asking the right
questions
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly Individual
Meeting

Monthly Individual Meeting
Make sure each monthly chat is a follow up from the previous
month’s chat and it is a continuous flow but also addressing current
issues.
You can’t coach someone you don’t trust/ who doesn’t trust you
All of the above mentioned are topics that can be
covered in your monthly individual meeting.
Your members might not have an objective for the monthly chat -
but you do, so make sure you prepare your content for the chat.
Your monthly individual meeting
doesn’t need to be so formal, rather it
can be a casual conversation over
coffee and tea.
Giving Feedback
Feedback is a necessary part for member retention and better productivity.
So the team leader(after a particular time period) must also ask the team
members for feedbacks which might help in the team plans becoming
stronger and the bond to connect even stronger.
If the member doesn’t seem growing in the work that he has been assigned
to, or if he isn’t liking what he is doing. The responsibility of the leader is to
make sure the member grows and can also shift to the place which would
benefit him as well as the department.
NOTE: An important suggestion: the team leaders also might keep a record
of each and every member(on paper or documented) and might show him
the parts where he is growing to build self confidence in the team member.
• Build a connect
with your
members
• See where he/she
can improve
• Appreciate if they
have done
something good
& tricks
tips for coaching
& tricks
tips
asking the right
questions
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly Individual
Meeting
COACHING

KEY ACTIVITIES:
One way to improve the
performance of your members:
Reflection & Evaluation
Monthly tracking
of performance
& feedback
Quarterly Team
Days
Rewards and
Recognition
Performance Appraisal to assess performance and organisational
contribution to Measures of Success. Assessing an individual’s
development through the achievement of personal goals and
development of leadership qualities.
evaluationnot a tool for judgement
The Evaluation period starts as soon
as team member gets his own job
description and starts working.
As a team leader you should be able
to understand what your team
members are doing to an extent that
you can give remarks and feedback.
In School you have an exam at the end of the year
that evaluates your grade and school performance,
the question is: what do you want to use as a team
leader?
Remember:
The purpose of the evaluation is to be update on his or her growth,
performance and development but not for the purposes of ‘judging’ or
‘comparing’ people.
After all there is a reason why people prefer the learning environment of
AIESEC over schools.

Reflection
Members should be able to identify the things that they can improve on
and also the mistakes that can be prevented from repeating.
Depending on a member’s reﬂection a member can try and make
changes in his actions and goals. The team leader has to be with the
member during the entire journey to make sure they are supported and
learning
“You never make the same mistake twice. The second
time you make it, it’s not longer a mistake, it is a
choice” - Lauren Conrad
A useful tool..
The Performance Appraisal is used to assess performance and
organisational contribution to Measures of Success. Assessing an
individual’s development through the achievement of personal goals and
development of leadership qualities.
Once the member is evaluated he or she
should be able to understand more
about themselves - their strengths,
weaknesses and areas of development.
Another useful tool..
Standard performance measures, which allow you to evaluate an
member’s performance objectively, can cut down on the amount of time
and stress involved in the evaluation.
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly tracking
of performance
& feedback
Quarterly Team
Days
Rewards and
Recognition

Although developing these measures can be one of the more time-
consuming parts of creating a performance evaluation system, it’s also
one of the most powerful.
This is what you can use for your monthly tracking of performance and
feedback
If you have current job descriptions for each position, already the ﬁrst
step toward creating standard performance measures is taken, which
are essentially speciﬁc quantity and quality goals attached to the tasks
listed in a job description.
Case Study: Examples of a Local Committee
tracking performance measures
- Accumulate all the available trackers
- Prepare a target vs achieved report
- Include names of the member who have done exceptionally well
to encourage them and motivate others
- Make a Business Intelligence report that exactly points out the
impact of the department on the entire LC
- Include the growth graph that compares the previous month and
current month
- Draw proper inferences (in terms of numbers)
- Quantitative analysis of department stats and quantities
representation of each member’s contribution (KPIs and MOS
achieved)
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly tracking
of performance
& feedback
Quarterly Team
Days
Rewards and
Recognition

Case Study: Feedback from Colleagues and Family
Taking feedback of member from other members, Vice Presidents , Team
Leaders and family members after a certain period of time in terms of:
• Behaviour
• Attitude towards people around
• The way he/she looks at different situations and people
• Impact he/she is generating on others
• How much he/she has improved work wise (attitude towards work)
• Experience gained
Did you know team
meetings can be used for
evaluation and reflection?
At the start of each meeting have a
5-15 minute check in about your
emotional state/ key learnings of the
week.
At the end of a meeting you can have a 5-15 minute check out about
your emotional state, how you feel about the team, how you feel about
your performance etc.
Minutes of a corporate meeting can be used to analyse the flow of the
meeting and understand the point where one went wrong. This could be
used to reflect and improve the content and delivery next time.
Example: Suppose you are meeting a company, minutes of such an
appointment will help you analyse where exactly you may have gone wrong
and also find the key points that the company actually liked about your
product and your pitch.
These points can be used by other members as an example about what
to do and what not to.
& tricks
tips
how to use your team
meetings for
reflection
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly tracking
of performance &
feedback
Quarterly Team
Days
Rewards and
Recognition

Quarterly Team Days
Team days per quarter can be used to showcase the results of each member’s
performance in the respective department, recognise the hardworking
members, give space for self reﬂection and help the Team Leader to
determine a development plan for improving job performance and ability
utilisation.
A team day would proceed with each member looking up to each other and
their development and so the member would evaluate himself on the
development basis, per month, followed by the member’s by the member
reﬂecting upon himself and where he stands.
“Talking from personal
experience, my LC came up
with an RNR campaign when I
was a team member which
gave all of us the required
push.
the most performing
department would get
recognized and rewarded at a
local conference and the most
performing member gets a
free winter internship in Sri
Lanka.
This was a very lucrative RNR
and it boosted the LC
operations tremendously and
created a healthy competition
between all the members and
the department.”
- Anonymous
push.
the most performing
Lanka.
the department.”
- Anonymous
push.
the most performing
Lanka.
the department.”
- Anonymous
push.
the most performing
Lanka.
the department.”
- Anonymous
actionsteps
Create your
quarterly team
day agenda
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly tracking
of performance &
feedback
Quarterly Team
Days
Rewards and
Recognition

four ways to rock employee recognition
Rewards and Recognition
Rewards and recognition are a very important part of member development
and retention because if not received member will lose interest and the will
to work as they lose the motivation to work towards any set goal. Think
about RnR campaigns but also causal but genuine individual recognition
within teams.
be in the moment! be timely. If you
see something good - don’t hesitate,
recognise!
be in context! see what is your team
purpose and plan - if an employee is
doing things that matter, recognise!
be appropriate! how are you
recognising being on time versus
completing a major project? Be fair
and appropriate
be authentic! you have to mean it -
people will see through inauthenticity
and it will do more harm than good.
actionsteps
Who would you
like recognise this
week? Send them
a message now (:
KEY ACTIVITIES:
Monthly tracking
of performance &
feedback
Quarterly Team
Days
Rewards and
Recognition

…ENDING NOTES, a message from
the team leaders of aiesec india
not to spoil the ending for you,
but you will figure it out.
make this book a top secret of
your top performance
the team leader experience awaits you

written by team leaders for team leaders

Ultimate Guide To Being A Team Leader

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