Task Leadership Skills Training Course

Duration 5 days 10 modules · 33 contact hours
Level Intermediate Certificate on completion
Who attends Team Leaders, First-Line Supervisors and others
Fee from USD 1,100 KSh 95,000 for Kenyan organisations
Where 52 cities + online See dates by city
Next start 16 Nov 2026 Course code SD-SM-031

Before you join: Participants should have experience coordinating work, supervising colleagues, leading a shift, managing a small team or contributing to operational delivery.

Dates & prices

Two start dates a month in every city, and live online on weekdays or weekends. Fees are per participant; classroom fees include tuition, materials, lunch and refreshments, and the certificate.

Suggest a date or city

Showing the next six months. Later dates, other cities and private deliveries for your team are available on request.

Course overview

Supervisors are judged by whether work is completed safely, accurately, on time and within available resources. That requires more than assigning tasks: they must translate targets into clear work, set priorities when demands conflict, monitor progress without micromanaging, address performance gaps promptly and coordinate action across teams. Weak task leadership produces missed handoffs, unclear ownership, overloaded staff, late escalation and recurring quality problems. Strong task leadership creates predictable delivery while maintaining fair treatment and accountability.

This course develops the practical supervisory methods needed to lead day-to-day work. Participants learn to convert operational targets into SMART objectives, define acceptance criteria, allocate work using capacity and competence, and clarify ownership through RACI matrices. They practise giving concise task briefings, running daily control routines, using visual management, identifying performance exceptions and escalating issues at the right point. The course also covers motivation, recognition, corrective feedback, coaching conversations, root-cause analysis, risk-based decisions and constructive handling of task-related conflict.

Teaching combines short instructor briefings with realistic cases, group analysis, role-played supervisory conversations, planning simulations and individual application planning. Cases can be adapted for operational, service, project, public-sector, banking, NGO or corporate teams. Participants leave with a personal task-leadership action plan, reusable delegation and monitoring templates, and practical structures for improving control of work within their own team. The course is delivered over five days, 08:30-16:30, in classroom locations across 50+ cities or live online. Participants receive a certificate of completion.

The course suits experienced team leaders and first-line supervisors who already manage people or operational work and need more consistent methods for directing, tracking and improving team performance.

What you will be able to do

  • Translate operational targets into SMART objectives, task specifications and acceptance criteria
  • Allocate work using capacity estimates, competence assessments and RACI role definitions
  • Deliver structured task briefings that clarify priorities, authority, controls and deadlines
  • Monitor team delivery using visual management boards, control routines and exception reporting
  • Conduct feedback and coaching conversations using SBI feedback and feedforward techniques
  • Diagnose recurring task problems using gap statements, Five Whys and fishbone diagrams
  • Resolve task-related conflict using interest-based discussion and documented agreements
  • Produce a 30-day task-leadership action plan with measures, review dates and stakeholders

Benefits of attending

For you

  • Greater confidence assigning work without creating ambiguity or dependency
  • Practical routines for controlling workload, deadlines and quality standards
  • Stronger evidence-based feedback and corrective conversation skills
  • Better judgement about when to decide, delegate or escalate
  • A documented plan for improving supervisory effectiveness over 30 days

For your organisation

  • Clearer task ownership and fewer missed handoffs between teams
  • Earlier identification of delivery risks, bottlenecks and workload imbalance
  • More consistent supervisory standards across shifts, functions and locations
  • Reduced rework through clearer acceptance criteria and follow-up controls
  • Improved retention through fair workload allocation, recognition and timely support

Course modules

10 modules over 5 days

Participants can define their task-leadership responsibilities, decision boundaries and operational accountabilities.

  • Supervisor accountabilities: output, quality, safety, cost, people and controls
  • Distinguishing task leadership from technical expertise and people management
  • Translating departmental targets into clear team commitments and priorities
  • Authority boundaries, escalation routes and decision rights documented early
  • Using leadership-versus-management distinctions to select appropriate supervisory responses
  • Balancing production requirements with duty-of-care and control obligations
  • Reading formal and informal power when coordinating peer-dependent work

Participants can convert operational requirements into clear, measurable and achievable team tasks.

  • SMART objectives linked directly to service, quality, cost and risk measures
  • Output specifications define quantity, standard, deadline, authority and constraints
  • Breaking annual targets into weekly deliverables and daily task sequences
  • Leading indicators distinguish controllable activity from lagging performance results
  • Acceptance criteria agreed before assignment to prevent avoidable rework
  • Priority rules applied when urgent requests conflict with planned commitments

Participants can plan work, allocate resources and delegate tasks with clear ownership.

  • Work breakdown structures convert deliverables into manageable activities and handoffs
  • Capacity estimates use task duration, availability, skills and contingencies
  • RACI matrices clarify responsible, accountable, consulted and informed roles
  • Delegation briefings specify expected results, boundaries, resources and check-in points
  • Match task difficulty with competence, confidence and development needs
  • Control spans and workload allocation expose overloaded team members early

Participants can communicate task requirements clearly and verify shared understanding.

  • Briefings use purpose, priorities, process, performance standard and problem routes
  • Closed-loop communication confirms instructions, ownership and completion criteria
  • Daily huddles focus attention on constraints, risks and immediate commitments
  • Questioning techniques test understanding without creating defensive responses
  • Written task instructions distinguish mandatory controls from local discretion
  • Escalation messages state situation, impact, action requested and decision deadline

Participants can track delivery, identify exceptions and intervene before problems escalate.

  • Visual management boards show planned work, actual progress, blockers and owners
  • Daily control routines compare output, quality, safety and staffing indicators
  • Exception reporting separates normal variation from intervention-worthy performance gaps
  • Traffic-light status criteria prevent optimistic reporting and late surprises
  • Kanban work-in-progress limits reveal bottlenecks and queue accumulation
  • Follow-up commitments record owner, action, due date and evidence required

Participants can sustain task commitment through fair allocation, recognition and appropriate autonomy.

  • Task significance connects individual assignments to customers, colleagues and mission
  • Expectancy theory identifies effort, capability, resources and valued consequences
  • Recognition distinguishes specific contribution from generic praise or popularity
  • Autonomy levels matched to competence, risk and task criticality
  • Fair workload allocation addresses perceptions of favouritism and unequal burden
  • Early signs of disengagement trigger timely supervisory conversations

Participants can hold constructive performance conversations that lead to observable improvement.

  • SBI feedback structures observations around situation, behaviour and operational impact
  • Coaching questions separate diagnosis, options, commitment and follow-through
  • Facts, assumptions and interpretations kept separate during performance discussions
  • Corrective conversations address standards, consequences, support and review dates
  • Feedforward identifies the next observable behaviour required for improvement
  • Documenting agreed actions protects fairness, continuity and managerial accountability

Participants can diagnose task-performance problems and make proportionate, risk-aware decisions.

  • Define problems through gap statements, evidence, scope and affected stakeholders
  • Five Whys distinguishes recurring root causes from visible symptoms
  • Fishbone diagrams test people, process, equipment, materials and environment causes
  • Decision matrices compare options against safety, quality, cost and time
  • Risk assessments identify hazards, likelihood, consequences, controls and residual risk
  • Escalate decisions exceeding authority, expertise, budget or risk tolerance

Participants can address task-related conflict while protecting delivery, dignity and accountability.

  • Thomas-Kilmann conflict modes compare assertiveness and cooperation under task pressure
  • Separate positions from interests before proposing workable agreements
  • Ground rules keep task disagreement from becoming personal confrontation
  • Structured mediation gives each party voice, evidence and agreed actions
  • Addressing conduct breaches promptly while preserving dignity and procedural fairness
  • Cross-functional handoffs repaired through shared measures and clarified responsibilities

Participants can create a focused plan for improving task leadership in their own team.

  • Personal task-leadership diagnostic identifies strengths, gaps and priority behaviours
  • Thirty-day action plans specify situations, behaviours, measures and review dates
  • Stakeholder mapping identifies managers, peers and team members requiring alignment
  • Implementation barriers anticipated through contingency actions and escalation arrangements
  • Peer accountability agreements set feedback dates and evidence of progress
  • Manager check-ins convert course commitments into operational improvement routines

Exercises and examples are adapted to each cohort's sectors and roles.

What you take back to work

  1. SMART task objective and acceptance-criteria template
  2. RACI responsibility matrix template
  3. Delegation briefing checklist
  4. Daily visual management board model
  5. SBI feedback and corrective-action conversation guide
  6. 30-day task-leadership action plan

Who should attend

  • Team Leaders — need consistent methods for assigning, monitoring and improving daily work
  • First-Line Supervisors — require clearer control routines for people, quality and delivery
  • Operations Supervisors — must balance output targets, staffing constraints and risk controls
  • Service Delivery Managers — need reliable handoffs, escalation routes and performance visibility
  • Project Workstream Leads — coordinate tasks across contributors without direct authority
  • Newly Promoted Managers — need practical structures for moving from peer to supervisor

Skills and tools covered

Task planningWork delegationPerformance controlSupervisory communicationFeedback coachingOperational problem-solving

Tools and standards

SMART objectives, RACI matrix, SBI feedback model, GROW coaching model

How the course runs

Training methodology

The course uses short instructor briefings to introduce task-leadership methods, followed by cases based on common supervisory situations: competing priorities, missed deadlines, uneven workloads, weak handoffs and recurring quality errors. Participants analyse task assignments, build simple control systems, practise feedback and escalation conversations, and make decisions from operational evidence. Group exercises examine different supervisory responses, while simulations test communication under time pressure. Individual application planning converts course methods into actions, measures and review dates for each participant's workplace.

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have experience coordinating work, supervising colleagues, leading a shift, managing a small team or contributing to operational delivery. They should be familiar with the basic performance measures used in their function, such as output, quality, service levels, cost, safety or compliance. The course assumes participants can discuss real workplace situations and reflect on their own supervisory practice. No formal management qualification is required. Prior study of leadership theory, project management, finance, psychology or human resources is not required.

A typical training day

08:30 – 10:30First session
10:30 – 10:45Refreshment break
10:45 – 12:30Second session
12:30 – 13:30Lunch and networking
13:30 – 15:00Third session
15:00 – 15:15Refreshment break
15:15 – 16:30Workshop and daily review

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in East Africa Time, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

  • Instruction by a practitioner facilitator
  • Full course workbook and materials
  • Exercise files, templates and case studies
  • Refreshments and lunch on classroom deliveries
  • Certificate of completion
  • Post-course application plan

Frequently asked questions

You should have some responsibility for coordinating work, supervising people or leading operational delivery. No formal leadership qualification or prior management course is required.

Bring examples of the tasks, targets, measures and recurring delivery issues you manage. Participants can use these examples when preparing their task-leadership action plan.

The course is designed for team leaders, first-line supervisors, operations supervisors, service delivery managers and newly promoted managers. It also suits project workstream leads who coordinate contributors across functions.

General leadership courses often focus on leadership style, influence and organisational direction. This course concentrates on the daily supervisory work of setting tasks, delegating, monitoring delivery, correcting performance and resolving operational problems.

Participants receive templates for task objectives, delegation, visual control, feedback and action planning. These can be adapted to current team routines, shift handovers, service targets or project work packages.

The five days contain ten teaching modules, each covering approximately three contact hours, supported by structured practice and reflection. Training runs from 08:30 to 16:30 each day, providing about 6.5 contact hours daily.

Questions about this course?

Ask about dates, fees, group bookings or running it for your team. Our training team replies by email.

Ask on WhatsApp info@skillsetdevelopment.com

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