Help Managers Lead People, Not Just Do the Work
Leadership and people management training covers the everyday work of running a team: delegating without losing control of the result, coaching, giving feedback, holding a performance conversation and holding the same standard for everyone. GullyHR designs and facilitates it around your actual managers and the teams they run, using real management situations from your business.
Leadership and People Management in brief
Leadership and people management training is training in the everyday work of running a team: delegating without losing control of the outcome, motivating people who are not all motivated by the same thing, coaching, giving feedback that changes something, holding a performance conversation, and adjusting your approach to the person in front of you. GullyHR runs it for first-time managers and for experienced ones who were never taught it formally.
- GullyHR is an HR consulting, HR services, training and software company based in Bengaluru, working with Indian startups and small and medium businesses.
- This page covers one training programme: leadership and people management, for first-time managers and for experienced managers who have never had formal management training.
- The programme is built from your own management situations — a delegation that came back wrong, a feedback conversation that was avoided for a year — rather than leadership theory.
- Participants leave with a set of frameworks they will actually use, a rehearsed difficult conversation, and an action plan naming the people on their own team.
- The next step on this page is a discussion about a customised training programme.
The starting point
Did Anyone Ever Show Your Managers How to Manage?
Most managers in a growing business were promoted for strong individual work. They manage the way they were once managed, good or bad, because nobody showed them a second option. The cost is felt in delegation that fails, feedback that never comes and decisions that climb.
We teach what the promotion did not, practised on situations from your own teams.
You may be experiencing:
- Your strongest performer made a team lead who now avoids the conversations the job is made of.
- A manager doing everything themselves because the one time they delegated, it came back wrong.
- An employee hearing about a problem with their work at appraisal, months after the manager first noticed it.
- One manager running every team member the same way, though they need different amounts of direction.
- Underperformance tolerated for two quarters because nobody knows how to open that conversation.
- The same deadline missed repeatedly, and the manager's answer being to do the work themselves.
- Decisions a team lead could take still arriving on your desk, because being wrong feels more dangerous than waiting.
- A new team lead whose first instinct is to take the work back when it is late.
- A manager who praises the team in public but never says what could be better in private.
- An employee unsure what is expected of them, because goals were mentioned once and never written down.
- A team where the manager's absence stops decisions, because nobody has been told what they may decide.
What we can help with
What the Programme Covers
The First Year of Managing
What actually changes when you stop being measured on your own output and start being measured on a team's, treated as a job in its own right.
Managerial Mindset
Thinking in terms of the team's output rather than your own, so managing becomes a decision a person has made rather than a title they were given.
Delegation
Choosing what to delegate and to whom, and briefing a task so it comes back close to right, with agreed check-in points, so delegation stops failing at the handover.
Motivation
Working out what actually moves each person on the team beyond salary, and using it, so motivation is read person by person.
Coaching
Helping a team member work a problem out themselves through structured questions, so a manager learns when to ask instead of answer.
Feedback
Describing behaviour and its effect rather than labelling the person, giving it in time and receiving it in return, so feedback becomes specific, timely and two-way.
Performance Conversations
Structuring a conversation about underperformance, staying on the facts and agreeing the next step, planned before it is held rather than improvised under pressure.
Standards and Style
Setting expectations up front, following through when they are not met and fitting style to how much direction and support each person needs, so the same standard applies to everyone.
The scope
Topics in Detail
These are the topics the sessions can work through, in plain terms. The needs discussion decides which are used and in what depth for your managers.
Moving From Doer to Manager
What changes when your work is measured by what the team produces, and what to let go of.
Setting Expectations
Telling each person what is expected, by when and how it will be judged, in words they can repeat back.
Briefing a Delegated Task
Handing over work with the outcome, limits, deadline and check-in points stated, so it comes back close to right.
Deciding What to Delegate
Choosing tasks and people, and how much freedom suits each person's experience.
Following Up Without Hovering
Checking progress at agreed points without taking the work back.
Understanding What Motivates People
Finding out what each team member values beyond pay, and using it in everyday work.
Coaching Questions
Asking questions that help a team member work out the answer, and knowing when to simply tell them.
Giving Feedback Early
Describing behaviour and its effect close to the event, so nothing waits for the appraisal.
Preparing a Performance Conversation
Planning the facts, the aim and the next step before the conversation, and staying on them during it.
Handling Reactions
Staying steady when an employee is defensive, upset or silent during a hard conversation.
Running One-to-Ones
Using a regular conversation to follow up on goals, remove blockers and hear concerns.
Fairness and Consistency
Holding the same standard for everyone, and explaining decisions so they are not seen as favouritism.
Working together
Ways to Work With Us
First-Time Manager Workshop
A focused programme for employees newly promoted into management, weighted towards mindset, delegation and the first difficult conversations.
Experienced Manager Programme
For managers who never had formal training, weighted towards performance conversations, coaching and consistency.
Multi-Cohort Roll-Out
The same programme across departments or locations while a manager layer is being built or strengthened.
Learning Journey With Reinforcement
The workshop spread into a sequence with real practice at work between sessions and a closing review.
For a longer, assessed programme with a senior leader track and a mentoring element, see the Leadership and Manager Development Programme under management consulting.
The deliverables
What You Receive
Depending on the scope of your engagement, deliverables can include:
- A participant workbook covering first-time manager skills, mindset, delegation, motivation, coaching, feedback and standards.
- A delegation briefing format and a feedback and performance-conversation format managers can reuse without us.
- A manager self-assessment, issued before and after, with an optional second view from their own manager.
- Role play and case material written from real management situations in your business, de-identified before use.
- An individual action plan for every participating manager, naming actual team members and situations.
- A briefing note for whoever the managers report to, on what was practised and what to reinforce.
- A before-and-after comparison on the self-assessment and a participant feedback summary.
- A certificate of participation for each attendee, where you want one.
- A one-to-one meeting format managers can reuse with each team member.
- A manager's expectations-setting sheet covering goals, deadlines and how work will be judged.
Step by step
How We Work
Discuss the Management Situations
A conversation with you, and where useful with the managers themselves, about which management situations are going wrong. We then collect real ones: the delegation that failed, the feedback never given.
Self-Assess
Participants assess their own management habits before the programme and, where you want it, their own manager gives a second view, so each person's starting point is recorded.
Design for the Cohort
First-time managers are weighted towards mindset and delegation, experienced managers towards performance conversations and consistency. You approve the design before anything is scheduled.
Practise the Conversations
Short input on a framework, then structured practice: participants rehearse a delegation briefing, then run the harder conversation, such as difficult feedback, and take feedback.
Plan, Brief Seniors and Review
Each manager writes down the specific team members and situations they will handle differently. Whoever they report to is briefed, and a session after an agreed interval reviews what happened. Where it is included in the engagement, a pilot session with a small group is run first and the design is refined from what those participants found.
The difference
What Trained Managers Give You
A leadership programme helps your managers:
We do not promise outcomes. We record a baseline before work starts, covering managers' starting self-assessment and how often decisions and disputes currently reach the owner, and report against it, so you can see what changed and what did not.
- Delegate work that comes back closer to right the first time, because the brief and check-ins were agreed up front.
- Raise underperformance while it is still a conversation rather than absorb it until it is a decision.
- Give feedback through the year, so the appraisal contains nothing an employee is hearing for the first time.
- Manage people in a way that fits how each one works, instead of one style for everyone.
- Hold a standard consistently, so employees stop testing whether a rule really applies.
- Settle decisions and disputes where they arise, so fewer travel up to you.
- Set expectations that an employee can repeat back accurately.
- Run a regular one-to-one that follows up on goals and blockers.
- Plan a performance conversation around facts and a next step before holding it.
- Explain a decision in terms of a standard, so it is less likely to be seen as favouritism.
Find your fit
Who This Programme Is For
Newly Promoted Managers
Employees newly in their first people-management role, usually for strong individual performance rather than for managing.
Experienced Managers
People who have run teams for years without formal training and manage largely on instinct and habit.
Businesses Building a Manager Layer
Companies where the founder has stopped supervising every employee directly.
Supervisors and Team Leads
People on a shop floor, in stores or on project sites, whose daily manner sets output and attrition.
Companies After a Management Failure
Businesses where a resignation, a tolerated performance problem or a team conflict traced back to how it was managed.
Organisations Preparing for Promotion
Companies that would rather a group of employees start with a foundation than build one by trial and error.
Founders Handing Over Day-to-Day Management
Owners who want middle managers able to run teams without referring every decision upward.
High-Performing Individual Contributors
Specialists being considered for a first team lead role who want to understand what the job involves.
Managers of Mixed or Remote Teams
People managing across locations or shifts who need a structured way to stay in touch with each member.
Good to know
How the Programme Runs
Before the sessions
- Needs analysis: a conversation with you about the management situations causing difficulty, such as avoided conversations, failed delegation or missed deadlines.
- Design around your roles: modules chosen from the topics above, with cases written from real situations in your business, de-identified, for the managers you name.
During and after the sessions
- Delivery: short input on one skill at a time, in the format agreed with you.
- Practice: managers rehearse a real conversation, such as a delegation brief or an underperformance discussion, and receive feedback.
- Follow-up: individual action plans naming real team members and situations, a briefing for the managers' own managers, and a review session where it is included in the engagement.
Nothing is scheduled until you have approved the design.
Good to know
How We Check It Is Working
During and straight after
- Manager self-assessment: how participants rate their own management habits before and after, with an optional second view from their own manager.
- Participant feedback: which exercises helped and which did not.
In the weeks that follow
- Action plan follow-through: whether managers report having held the conversations they planned.
- One-to-one rhythm: whether regular meetings are happening and what they cover.
- Observations by senior managers: what the managers' own managers notice in the weeks after the sessions.
Measures are agreed beforehand. We report what moved and what did not, and we do not claim a programme changed team results.
Good to know
Format and Boundaries
Each programme defines
The audience, group size, delivery format and duration, agreed with you in writing after the needs discussion. First-time manager, experienced manager and multi-cohort formats are all possible.
Requires a separate agreement
- Individual coaching for a participant beyond the programme sessions.
- Formal assessments or psychometric instruments, which are scoped and licensed separately.
- Certification or accreditation through an external body. A certificate of participation, where you want one, is a company training record.
- Licensed third-party content or tools.
- Travel, venue and equipment arrangements.
Matters that are disciplinary or carry legal implications are handled under your own procedure, with specialist advice, and are not covered by training. Longer assessed leadership programmes are a separate engagement.
Good to know
What We Need From You
What we ask you to share
- The roles and approximate number of managers who would attend, and how new or experienced they are.
- Examples of management situations that went badly, with names removed.
- Any existing goal-setting or appraisal format, so the training fits it and does not contradict it.
Sponsor and manager involvement
A named sponsor approves the design and measures. The participants' own managers are briefed separately on what was practised and asked to follow up on action plans, because reinforcement from above is what keeps a new habit in place.
Good to know
Participant Information
Handled by agreement
Before work begins we agree what we collect about participants and their teams, who may see it, how it is stored and when it is deleted. Action plans that name team members are kept to the participating manager and, where agreed, their own manager.
Self-assessments and practice
A manager's self-assessment is theirs to see. What is rehearsed in the room stays there, and management reports describe the group, with individual results shared only where the participant agrees.
Good to know
Frequently asked questions
The first year of managing, managerial mindset, delegation, motivation, coaching, feedback, performance conversations, and standards and style. The weighting depends on whether the cohort is new to managing or experienced, which the needs discussion establishes.
Yes. Role plays and cases are written from management situations collected in your business, de-identified before use, so managers practise the delegation briefing or the underperformance conversation they actually face.
That programme is longer and assessed, with a first-time manager track, a senior leader track and a mentoring element, and sits under management consulting. This is the shorter training programme, which can be run as a workshop, a roll-out or a learning journey.
Anyone responsible for other people's work. New managers and experienced ones are usually trained separately, because their gaps differ. Briefing the people the managers report to matters as much as the cohort, since they decide whether the practice is supported afterwards.
It helps managers who lack a skill and are willing to build it. It will not fix a role that does not suit someone, and any decision about an individual is yours. The programme gives a manager a fair chance to show whether the gap is skill or fit.
Yes, though practising delegation briefings and difficult conversations works best in a room. A common pattern is the main session on site and the reinforcement session online.
With the before and after self-assessment, participant feedback, individual action plans and the briefing to senior managers. We report what moved and what did not. We do not promise outcomes, and what changes shows in the next delegation or review.
Yes, where you want one. Each attendee who completes the leadership training programme receives a certificate of participation. It records that the person took part and finished, which is all it can honestly say, and it does not certify managerial competence or readiness for promotion.
After the needs discussion about which management situations are going wrong. The proposal then states the modules, cohorts, format and reinforcement, and it is agreed in writing before anything is scheduled, so you can see exactly what you are committing to and what is deliberately left out.
Management covers running a team day to day: delegating, giving feedback and holding standards. Leadership training usually looks at wider topics such as direction and influence. This programme is weighted towards the first.
Yes. Newly promoted managers are one of its main groups, and mixed cohorts with experienced managers can work well because both learn from the same situations.
By briefing a real task, stating the outcome, limits, deadline and check-in points, and then reviewing how it went. The programme rehearses that briefing with feedback.
It can give them a structure and a chance to rehearse. Whether they use it depends on the habits of the team around them, which is why the manager briefing is part of the design.
Often not, since seniority can make people careful about what they say. We agree the groupings with you after the needs discussion.
Where you have an appraisal format, the sessions can be built to match its language and timing. Anything beyond that is separate consulting work.
Pricing depends on the number of participants and cohorts, the modules chosen, the delivery format and whether follow-up is included. Share your requirements and we will send a tailored proposal.
Teach What the Promotion Did Not
Give your managers a way to delegate, coach, give feedback and hold a standard, practised on situations from the teams they run.
Prefer to talk first? Call +91 80958 58589 or write to hello@gullyhr.com.
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