Leadership:
Civil Service examples by grade

In my contact centre team of 12, I noticed that two newer colleagues with hearing impairments were regularly left out of informal briefings held on the floor at the start of each shift, and were missing updates that affected the advice they gave callers.

I spoke to both colleagues privately to understand what would help, then raised it with my team leader with a practical suggestion: a short written summary of each briefing posted to our team channel. I offered to write the summaries myself for the first month.

I also noticed some colleagues joking about the “extra admin”. I explained calmly why the summaries mattered and that the jokes were not acceptable, and the comments stopped. At our next team meeting I credited one of the colleagues whose feedback had shaped the format.

Within a month, both colleagues said they felt fully up to date, and call quality checks on policy updates for the whole team rose from 81% to 93%, because everyone was now using the written summaries.

When my team of six merged with another team of five after a restructure, morale was low. The two groups worked in different ways, there were tensions over workloads, and several people felt their approach was being dismissed.

I held one-to-ones with all eleven people to hear their concerns and ideas, then ran a workshop where we agreed a shared set of objectives and a single way of working that combined the best of both teams. I made sure everyone knew who owned what and by when, and published the plan on our shared site.

A few weeks in, a disagreement between two senior team members escalated into comments that crossed a line. I spoke to both separately the same day, set out the standards expected, and agreed how they would work together. I kept my senior manager informed. I also started recognising contributions from both original teams in our weekly update.

Within three months the team was meeting all its service targets for the first time since the merger, our People Survey engagement score rose by 14 points, and nobody left the team.

I led a 20-person policy team responsible for a regulatory reform that affected three other departments and an arm’s-length body, each with different priorities and some scepticism about the change.

I set out a shared vision based on the outcome all four organisations cared about, a simpler process for small businesses, and set up a joint working group so the others helped shape the proposals rather than simply receiving them. I deliberately brought in two secondees from industry and made sure their outside experience was heard, even when it challenged established views in my own team.

When a senior stakeholder pressed us to drop a consultation stage to save time, I listened to the concern but defended the team’s recommendation to keep it. I explained the legal and fairness risks of skipping it. Inside the team, I gave people ownership of each workstream, shared credit for progress in senior forums, and ran regular sessions where anyone could challenge the direction.

The reform was agreed by all four organisations, the consultation produced changes that reduced the expected burden on small businesses by an estimated £12m a year, and team engagement rose from 58% to 76% during the project.