At some point in your career, you will probably find yourself in a situation where you need to give feedback. It might be for someone you mange, or it might be for a peer or even someone junior to you. It might be work related, it might be more of an etiquette or personal preferences matter. Whatever the reason, you will need to think about how best to deliver that feedback so that it gets the results you want. All too often, feedback is delivered badly, and this can result in arguments and hostile work environments.

Let’s be honest – managing and maintaining a busy and successful team isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it can be incredibly challenging. But it’s also fantastically motivational, stimulating and fun. And every manager, no matter how new or experienced, will make some mistakes when in this environment. It’s only natural. But rather than wallow in those mistakes and let them ruin your confidence, you should take the opportunity to learn from them and improve for the future.

With the recent rise in mobile working technology and flexible working hours, we are finding more and more teams that are separated from each other physically. While this might work well for everyone involved on a personal and productivity level, for managers it presents a whole host of new challenges. After all, managing a separate ‘virtual’ team that they don’t see on a regular basis can be difficult, and when the primary contact is phone or email it can challenge even the most experienced leaders.