Mentoring, teams, and professional development

Learning objectives

• Delegate effectively and resolve conflict between staff members.
• Apply classic motivation theories (Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor) to managing planning staff.
• Distinguish coaching, mentoring, and sponsorship, and describe what makes mentoring work.
• Plan for succession and measure whether leadership development is working.
• Explain how leaders build accountability and inclusive practice into institutions.
• Describe professional development expectations for certified planners, including Certification Maintenance.

Key concepts

Delegation

Delegation develops staff and frees leaders to lead, but only if it's real. Effective delegation gives the person:

• clear expectations: what outcome, by when, to what standard;
• the authority to make the decisions the task requires; and
• accountability: agreed check-ins and ownership of the result.

Match the task to the person's readiness, and increase the challenge over time. Delegating responsibility without authority sets people up to fail.

7 more sections follow in the full lesson.

Key terms

• Delegation: Assigning responsibility and authority for a task, with accountability.
• Coaching: Short-term development of specific skills or performance.
• Mentoring: A longer-term relationship supporting professional and career growth.
• Sponsorship: Using one's influence to create opportunities for someone else.
• Stretch assignment: A task just beyond a person's current experience, used for growth.
• Succession planning: Preparing internal candidates to fill key roles.
• Knowledge transfer: Capturing and sharing institutional knowledge before people leave.
• Certification Maintenance (CM): The continuing education AICP members must complete to keep certification.
• Accountability: Answering for decisions and results, openly.
• Hierarchy of needs: Maslow's ordering of needs from physiological and safety needs up to self-actualization.
• Hygiene factors: Herzberg's term for conditions, such as pay and policies, that prevent dissatisfaction but don't motivate.
• Motivators: Herzberg's term for factors, such as achievement and responsibility, that create satisfaction.
• Theory X and Theory Y: McGregor's contrasting assumptions that workers need control (X) or seek responsibility (Y).