31 Claude Skills for Managing a Team

What these skills are

A manager's week, as installable Claude skills. The skills follow a manager's real week, starting where it hurts most. You prepare the conversation you keep putting off, step into the role, delegate and let go, protect the team's capacity, manage up and through change, run the team's rhythm, set direction, and coach and grow your people.

The red line: Claude prepares, you have the conversation. No skill judges, scores or ranks a person, and nothing written about someone leaves your hands unread.

Each skill is one named method or one artifact you walk away with: a prep sheet, a 1:1 agenda, a delegation board, a capacity case, a decision record, a development plan. Each works from what you paste — your notes, your work list, the messy notes from a career talk — with no connector to install, and each one ends with the decision a named person makes, by a date. Legal, health and formal HR questions are sent to HR or a qualified adviser rather than answered.

Mechanically, each skill is one folder with a SKILL.md file. The 31 are grouped into eight parts of the job, and each one gives full value on its own: run one, run a part, or work through the lot in the order the trouble arrives.

Download all 31 skills. One zip: ready-to-install skill zips, readable SKILL.md files, and the evidence notes behind every method. Free, no signup. The same 31 skills are open on GitHub: polar-bear-org/claude-skills.

The 31 skills you get

The set follows the job, in eight parts: the hard conversation, stepping into the role, delegating and letting go, protecting the team's capacity, managing up and through change, running the rhythm, setting direction, and coaching and growing people.

1 · Have the hard conversation

1. Difficult Conversation Prep

Use when: The conversation you keep putting off

Output: A prep sheet with a one-line purpose, dated facts, the first two sentences out of your mouth, likely reactions with replies, and the follow-up note you send afterwards

2. SBI Feedback Model

Use when: Feedback lands wrong, or people hear only the criticism

Output: Situation, behaviour and impact statements, an intent question, one request for next time, and a do-not-say list

3. Performance Improvement Plan (PIP)

Use when: Someone is not doing the job and you need a fair path

Output: A plan framed as support — the expected standard, the observed gap as dated facts, a space for the person's side, the support offered with review dates, and the questions for HR and an adviser

4. Conflict Resolution

Use when: Two people cannot work together

Output: An issue map, each side's interests behind their positions, options, agreed behaviours and a review date

5. Return-to-Work Conversation

Use when: Someone is back after absence

Output: A welcome plan, open questions, support and adjustments to consider, what stays confidential, and the note the person agrees to

2 · Step into the role

6. New Manager 30-60-90 Day Plan

Use when: Promoted with no training, or taking over a team

Output: A listening plan, a map of the team's work, first decisions and early wins, and a 90-day check with your own manager

7. One-on-One Meeting Agenda

Use when: You manage former peers, or 1:1s drift into status updates

Output: A first 1:1 question set and how-we-work agreement, then a report-owned recurring agenda, a question bank by situation, and shared notes with actions

8. Manager README

Use when: The team does not yet know how you will manage

Output: How I work, what I expect, how to disagree with me, how to reach me and what I am still learning — shared as a draft the team can correct

3 · Delegate and let go

9. Levels of Delegation

Use when: People ask your approval for everything

Output: Your recurring decision areas mapped to seven levels of delegation, the board itself, and a short message announcing the changes to your team

10. Delegation Handoff Note

Use when: Handing over work so it does not come back up

Output: The outcome and why it matters, the limits, the agreed level of authority, check-in dates and what done looks like

11. RACI Matrix

Use when: Nobody knows who owns what

Output: Your team's recurring tasks against roles, with exactly one Accountable per row, and the gaps and pile-ups of work flagged

12. Cross-Training Plan

Use when: The team falls apart when one person is away

Output: Critical tasks, who can cover each today, learning pairs, what to document and by whom, and the dates

4 · Protect the team's capacity

13. Team Capacity Planning

Use when: The team is overloaded and you cannot shield them

Output: An inventory of the team's work, the hours really available, a stop, delay or ask list, and a one-page case for leadership

14. Eisenhower Matrix

Use when: You are running on empty and everything feels urgent

Output: Your week sorted into do, schedule, delegate and drop, three priorities, and a say-no list with the words to use

15. Team Psychological Safety Check

Use when: People stopped speaking up

Output: An anonymous check with questions adapted from Edmondson's measure, a discussion guide and one team experiment, reported at team level only

16. Team AI Playbook

Use when: AI arrived with a usage target and no team rules

Output: Agreed uses, a never-put-in list, review rules, whose name is on the work and a review date, made with the team

5 · Manage up and through change

17. Managing Up Brief

Use when: You are caught between leadership and your team

Output: One page in SBAR form — situation, background, assessment, recommendation — with two or three options and their trade-offs, and the ask with who decides by when

18. Skip-Level Meeting

Use when: You run a skip-level or prepare for one

Output: An agenda, a question set, a way to share themes without naming anyone, and a dated follow-up

19. Change Announcement

Use when: You deliver a decision you did not make

Output: What is decided and why, what is not decided yet, what changes for whom, an FAQ, what you cannot answer yet, and a 1:1 follow-up plan

20. DACI Decision

Use when: Decisions stall or get made above your head

Output: One driver, one approver, contributors and informed, the options with trade-offs and a decision date, then the decision record itself

6 · Run the rhythm

21. Team Meeting Agenda

Use when: Team meetings turn into an hour of monologue

Output: A one-line purpose, typed and timed items, the decisions needed with who decides, and a running action log

22. Working Agreements

Use when: Nobody agreed how the team works

Output: Channels, hours and response times, meeting norms, the escalation path and a review date, facilitated with the team and written up

23. Team Retrospective (Start, Stop, Continue)

Use when: The same problems keep coming back

Output: A facilitation plan, Start, Stop, Continue or 4Ls prompts, unattributed themes, owned actions and the check for next time

7 · Set direction

24. Team Charter

Use when: Nobody wrote down what good looks like

Output: One page: the team's purpose, scope, who it serves, roles and decision rights, with a review date

25. Team OKRs

Use when: The team works hard on the wrong things

Output: One to three objectives with measurable key results, an owner for each key result and a check-in rhythm, graded as work and never tied to individual ratings

26. SMART Goals

Use when: Expectations for one person are vague

Output: Vague expectations rewritten as specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related goals, linked to the team OKRs, with agreed check dates

8 · Coach and grow

27. GROW Coaching Model

Use when: You jump in with answers and people stop bringing problems

Output: Goal, reality, options and will questions on one topic the person chose, a notes page shared with them, and their own next step in their words

28. Career Conversation

Use when: People want growth you cannot map

Output: Past, present and future questions, what energises and drains the person, an honest view of the next level against published expectations, and an options map

29. Individual Development Plan (IDP)

Use when: A career talk needs to turn into action

Output: One or two development goals the person drafts and owns, the on-the-job experiences, the learning, the support you give, and review dates

30. Stay Interview

Use when: Good people leave and you did not see it coming

Output: A question set on what keeps someone here, a listening notes page in their words, and a stay plan of actions the manager owns with dates

31. Employee Recognition Note

Use when: People feel unseen

Output: A specific note naming what someone did and its impact, a choice of where to share it that matches their preference, and a private team-wide list of dates so nobody is forgotten

Where to start, and what the pack rests on

There is no compulsory sequence. You bring one real thing — your notes from the last three weeks, the work list and who is on leave, the messy notes from a career talk — and open the skill that matches what hurts this week. The order in the catalogue is the order the trouble usually arrives in: the hard conversation first, because it is the thing that gets closer to a grievance every week it waits, then the work of stepping into the role, which is what most people get no training for at all.

Several of them chain. mgr-difficult-conversation-prep turns each fact into a feedback statement with mgr-sbi-feedback, and when repeated feedback has not closed a gap that moves to mgr-performance-improvement-plan, whose review points are run inside regular 1:1s with mgr-one-on-one-agenda. Delegation runs in order too: mgr-delegation-levels sets the level per decision area, mgr-delegation-handoff hands over the first piece of work at its new level, and mgr-raci-matrix clarifies roles where several people touch it. So does growth — mgr-grow-coaching points at mgr-career-conversation when the topics turn to growth, mgr-individual-development-plan makes it happen, and mgr-stay-interview checks what keeps the person here.

The pack is research-informed, not validated. A scan of what managers say they struggle with set the order of the skills and the words in each "use when": public posts and questions collected on 27 September 2026, about 960 items read, 219 kept as pain statements and grouped into 15 struggles. Reddit leans to venting, LinkedIn leans to coaches and vendors, and relevance search is not a random sample, so the counts show emphasis in what was pulled, not how common a struggle is. The methods themselves come from public guidance and institution pages — the Center for Creative Leadership on SBI, the Acas guides to challenging conversations, performance problems and return-to-work meetings, the Harvard Program on Negotiation on interests behind positions, Google re:Work on manager behaviours, GROW and OKRs, Edmondson (1999) on psychological safety, Management 3.0's delegation levels, the Atlassian Team Playbook, the UK Health and Safety Executive's Management Standards, the IHI's SBAR tool, SHRM on stay interviews, US OPM on development plans, and Doran (1981) on SMART. The one shared file in the pack, resources/evidence-and-sources.md, lists them source by source with the finding used and the limit on it. No skill here has been tested in a trial.

Setup guide

1. Download the pack. One zip: an install folder with 31 ready-to-upload skill zips, a skills folder with the same 31 skills as readable SKILL.md files, and the evidence notes — resources/evidence-and-sources.md — which name the source behind every method and where it stops.
2. Install your skills. In Claude Code, add the marketplace and install ai-for-managers-pack, and all 31 load at once. In Claude, turn on code execution in Settings, Capabilities, then go to Customize, Skills and upload one zip per skill from the install folder. Prefer working from files? Add the SKILL.md files to your Project knowledge instead; it works, just less cleanly.
3. Bring one real thing from your week. No connector, no integration, no admin: every skill works from what you paste — your notes from the last three weeks, the work list and who is on leave, the messy notes from a career talk. Start with whatever hurts this week and write "run mgr-difficult-conversation-prep". Where you have little, each skill starts from the minimum and marks what is still to find.

Where to start

The quality bar

Every skill in the pack holds the same standard, the one we hold when we manage our own team:

• One named method or one artifact per skill, with the method's real steps, not generic advice
• It tells you exactly what to paste, and starts from the minimum when you have little
• It says when not to use it, and what fits better
• Every skill ends with a fixed template and a decision a named person makes, by a date
• No invented numbers, quotes or findings, and legal and health points go to a qualified adviser or HR
• No skill scores, rates or ranks people: methods that label individuals were left out, and team checks report aggregates only
• The red line: Claude prepares, you have the conversation — and nothing written about someone leaves your hands unread

Who made this

Polar Bear is a people ops consultancy for human-size teams (20 to 200 people). Built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. This pack is the free, self-serve version of how we work.

The pack carries one manager's week. When you want your whole team working this way, AI carrying the overhead so people do the part only people can do, across management, HR and everyday operations, that's what we build with clients.

Meet Pauline. New to managing, or managing former peers? Bring the conversation you keep putting off, the work you cannot hand over, or the overloaded week. Book a 30-minute call · Pauline on LinkedIn

Install in Claude Code

Two lines, and every skill in the pack loads at once.

/plugin marketplace add polar-bear-org/claude-skills
/plugin install ai-for-managers-pack@polar-bear-skills

Using Claude on the web instead? Download the zip and upload each skill from its install folder under Customize → Skills.