NAIL IT! Tools for Building a More Engaged Project Team

At the ripe young age of 25, I had 18 direct reports and exactly zero hours of leadership experience or training. But I did have one tool in my toolkit: a hammer. And like any novice leader, I used my one, singular tool to hammer every team member into place—or at least the place I thought they should be.

I'll spare you the gruesome details of how it all turned out. Let's just say the results from my first year leading others left a lot to be desired.

That experience taught me a critical leadership lesson: When you're leading a team project, the best way to get people involved and engaged is to bring them into the process from the very start.

Why You Shouldn't Assign Assignments

I've heard leaders refer to assigning tasks to their team members. I try to stay away from this type of language as much as possible. That's because the very word "assign" implies a top-down, one-way leadership approach. Again, I tried this early in my career, and it definitely didn't work (#nobueno). To avoid this leadership faux pas and, instead, foster true engagement, here are three strategies I now use in one-on-one conversations when defining roles for a new project:

Ask About Interests

It sounds simple, but it’s often overlooked. Team members have unique talents, passions, and perspectives that can significantly impact a project's success. In your conversations, ask questions like:

→"What aspects of this project excite you the most?"

→"Where do you see yourself making the biggest impact?"

→"Is there a skill you'd like to build while working on this project?"

When you show genuine curiosity about someone's interests, they become more invested in the work.

Align "Assignments" ?? Strengths with Responsibilities

People thrive when they can use their strengths instead of being put in situations where they are strained from compensating for an obvious weakness or skill gap. As you learn more about your team members' skills (because you've done an excellent job of asking), make it a point to match their responsibilities to their strengths whenever possible.

I want to clarify that this doesn't mean ignoring development areas. This means creating opportunities where each team member's strengths can shine. When responsibilities feel like a natural fit, engagement and confidence increase. One effective tool I've used is behavioral assessments. Most BAs are scientifically validated. This helps so that you are not relying solely on your observations or the team member's self-assessment. Use the BA, in conjunction with the latter, to identify strengths and potential blind spots. All of this information will help align tasks more accurately.

Co-Create Success Metrics

Here, you want to ask more questions and use each team member's response to generate a rubric. Defining success together gives everyone ownership of the project outcome. Instead of dictating goals, involve your team in setting key performance indicators (yep, good ol' KPIs) and milestones. To do this, you can ask questions like:

→"What would success look like for you on this project?"

→"What checkpoints can we establish to track our progress?"

→"How will we know if we're on the right track along the way?"

Again, in my humble experience totally flubbing this as a new leader, I've learned that when people co-create the roadmap, they take greater ownership of the journey.

The Impact of Inclusion

I want to clarify that, as of the writing of this article, I am no longer a horrible boss. In fact, I have been a fully reformed, impact and inclusive leader for well over a decade now. My transformation began with I learned to listen actively and took a more inclusive approach to work initiatives.

After I made the shift from hammering people into roles to inviting them into the process—and on the many occasions I helped other leaders do the same—I consistently saw engagement soar. What's even more exciting is that employees who were once disengaged became energized contributors. That's because they now had a sense of purpose and agency. Instead of being told what to do, these employees now got to identify and define how they wanted to participate.

In my journey from bad boss to leader of leaders, I learned that true leadership isn't about forcing people into predefined boxes (the whole square peg round hole thing). Assigning tasks without information from and about your direct reports, no matter how noble and well-meaning your intentions, can become this.

So, the next time you kick off a new work project, remember: engagement isn't assigned—it's built through curiosity, alignment, and shared goals. Invite your team members into the process. When team members have a voice in shaping their roles, they show up with more energy and focus, as well as a genuine sense of accountability.