IT employees spend a lot of time dealing with end users and managers. Still, training an IT staff in people skills can be a challenge. But here’s a simple way to teach a staff those soft skills.

It’s important for IT staff to get a handle on soft skills, either because they deal with people or so they can be primed for leadership positions in the future. But those things aren’t always at the top of tech employees’ lists of strengths.

But here’s a way help people develop that kind of knowledge, courtesy of IT consultant Hunter Lott:

Give them a small dose of leadership experience. Assigning someone to be in charge of a small project is a good way to help him or her learn interpersonal skills quickly. It should be something relatively small, without a whole lot of pressure. But putting different people in charge of small teams will give everyone a chance to give leadership a try.

At the very least, it can help let you know who’s management material, and who isn’t.