Leadership skills: exercises for clear decisions and team conversations
Leadership skills show in a clear decision and a respectful conversation: an understood goal, asking the team what it knows, clear ownership, then explaining and reviewing the decision. Zayenha Practice offers short leadership exercises, and below is its pre-mortem practice, where you and your team list possible reasons for failure before acting, free and with no account.
Try it now — free, no account
Pre-Mortem: Imagining the Decision Failed
Pre-mortem canvas
Imagine in one year, your project failed completely. Write 7 likely causes and a preventive action this week for each.
What you write stays on this device only and reappears on the practice page. A Zayenha account is free; the rest of the library (1,400 practices) comes with Plus.
Do not start with “be an inspiring leader.” Start with a situation: unclear team priorities, a delayed decision or work with no clear owner. Choose an observable leadership behaviour for that situation.
Before a meeting, write the result the team needs, why it matters and which parts of the decision are already fixed. Sharing that distinction avoids pretending feedback can change a closed decision while leaving genuine space for input where it can matter.
Gather the team’s perspective
Ask a specific question about a blocker or an option you have missed. Listen before defending your view, then summarise what changed in your understanding. Active listening is relevant even when you hold final responsibility.
Act and review
State who will do what by when, and how you will know whether the choice served its purpose. Explore decision-making and the consistency check. This content is not a leadership certificate or a substitute for specialised professional training.
Install AppWorks in your browser right now — installing is optional
Enable notifications for practice reminders
We use cookies to run essential services. Accept all also allows analytics to improve your experience and the ad-measurement tools of X, Meta (Instagram and Facebook), TikTok and Snapchat, sharing browsing data with them. You can keep essential only. Cookie policy
