Build your management philosophy on time-tested practices.
If you are looking to build a leadership program that fits in with your organizational
philosophies, look no further. Pick from over 15 different leadership courses to customize
your experience. Whether you want to develop on your strengths or learn something
new, each of our courses will help deepen your understanding of what it means to be
a leader.
Foundation Courses
101: The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact
The purpose of this course is to provide an introduction to the management process
by examining the many functions of management and the various roles manager’s play.
Topics include: an overview of the management process; the manager’s job: folklore
and fact; managerial skill sets.
102: Understanding Ourselves and Understanding Others
This course is designed to provide a basic understanding of the impact of individual
differences in organizations. Self-assessment exercises and group discussions will
be utilized to examine the role personality, attitudes and values in the organization.
103: Interpersonal Communication for Managers
One of the three critical skills for effective management of people is communication.
In this course communication is defined as the transfer of understanding and the focus
is on developing an awareness of the various ways the communication process breaks
down in organizations. Topics include barriers and gateways to effective communication,
effective listening, and understanding your own interpersonal style.
104: Supportive Communication
This course builds on the Interpersonal Communication course by introducing the concepts
of supportive communication. Supportive communication is designed to overcome defensiveness
and is the primary used in coaching, counseling and providing feedback.
105: Motivation
This course discusses the various motivational and leadership tactics that lead to
high levels of employee commitment, satisfaction and performance. In this course managers
are exposed to a wide variety of motivational techniques including content approaches,
expectancy models, job enrichment, and goal setting.
106: The Planning and Control Process
This course introduces basic elements of planning and control that are used in strategic
planning, project management and budgeting. The principles of goal-setting and effective
controls are discussed in detail. This course is a prerequisite for the Managing for
Improved Performance and the Strategic Management courses.
Core Courses
201: Managing for Improved Performance
This course uses the principles of planning and control to impact performance at the
individual level of the organization. Topics include performance planning, performance
evaluation, and diagnosing performance problems. Role negotiation is introduced as
a tool for clarifying job expectations.
202: Delegating for Results
The management process is based on achieving organizational objectives with and through
people. At the heart of the process is delegating. This course discusses delegation
as a powerful tool for developing and empowering employees. Topics include authority,
responsibility, and power. Managers learn to delegate without abdicating responsibility
and to overcome the common obstacles to effective delegation.
203: Understanding and Building Effective Teams
This course is designed to assist managers to understand the stages of team development
and the issues presented at each stage. The course also examines the various types
of tams and helps managers to assess the viability of a team for the task. The various
maintenance and production roles involved in teamwork are examined in detail. The
characteristics of highly effective and mature teams are presented.
204: Constructive Conflict Resolution
This course examines the nature and sources of conflict in the organization to assist
managers to develop constructive methods for handling conflict. The course also examines
the characteristics of seven types of difficult people. Self-assessment exercises
are used to assist managers in developing action plans for dealing with difficult
people.
205: Accounting and Financial Analysis for Managers
This workshop is designed for managers who do not have a formal background in accounting
and finance. The purpose of the workshop is to equip the manager with the basic understanding
and analytical tools they need to use accounting information to plan, control and
make decisions. Topics include: fundamentals of financial statements, ratio analysis,
trend analysis, variance analysis, understanding cost behavior patterns, and break-even
analysis.
206: Creating and Sustaining a Culture of Trust
Trust is a critical element in creating sustainable, high engagement organizations.
Creating a high trust culture is done one relationship at a time. When leaders are
trusted an organizations accrues “dividends” in the form of lower costs and higher
transaction speed. Yet, when trust is absent, Covey says relationships and organizations
pay a “trust tax” due to a lack of candor, hidden agendas, and dysfunctional organizational
politics. In this workshop we will look at the nature of trust and the components
that are necessary for building and sustaining a culture of trust.
Advanced Topics
The advanced topics courses have a more strategic and “macro” perspective and are
designed for those managers who will be involved in decisions that impact larger segments
of the organization.
301: The Leadership Imperative
This workshop is uniquely designed to help participants understand the key distinction
between individual contributors, managers, and leaders. The session involves a wide
variety of individual assessments and skill development exercises. These exercises
are designed to help you develop an understanding of the leadership role you play
and to assist you in developing your own leadership style.
Topical Outline:
- Managers and Leaders: Are They Different?
- Important Traits of a Leader
- Leadership Styles: A Continuum
- Contingency Approaches to Leadership: The Situational Factor
- Three Paradigms of Organizational Life
- Making the Transition from Individual Contributor to Manager
- The Next Transition: From Manager to Leader
- Transactional –Vs- Transformational Leadership
- Power Bases and Influence Tactics
- Ethical Dimensions of Leadership
- The Five Temptations of Leadership
- The Final Transition: Becoming a Servant Leader
- Legacy Leadership: What Difference Will You Make?
302: Leading Change: Transformation and Renewal
Today’s organizations are faced with increasing complex and dynamic environments.
In the past, they could view change as a once-in-a while, episodic event. But now
they must face the reality that they are navigating through “permanent white water.”
Leaders must be equipped for this new environment and the constant pressure to transform
their organizations to respond to the heightened demands of the new economic realities.
This workshop equips leaders at every level of the organization to be successful change
agents.
Topical Outline:
- Identifying The Forces for Change in Your Organization
- Force Field Analysis: Specifying the Need for Change and Identifying Resistance
- Understanding The Change Process
- Overcoming Resistance: Resistance as Feedback
- Over-Managed and Under-Led?
- Why Do Transformation Efforts Fail?
- Deep Change: The Ingredients of Successful Change
- Making It Stick: Anchoring Changes in the Organizations Culture
- Alignment and Congruence: The Art of Balance
303: The Strategic Management Process
The focus of this course is the issues and problems of strategic management. Although
strategic management is often associated with the roles of the CEO and a small group
of senior managers, it is becoming increasingly evident that the ability to “think
strategically” is important at every level of the organization. This course is designed
to challenge you in a number of ways. It will not only require the application of
functional knowledge, skills and techniques learned in other courses, but will also
introduce the critical business skills of planning and managing strategic activities.
Topical Outline:
- Developing a mission statement
- SWOT Analysis: Developing an understanding of the relationships between the organization
and its environment
- Formulation of strategic goals and objectives
- Development of organizational strategies
- Implementing Strategy: The role of leadership, structure, and culture
- Internal systems in guiding and controlling the implementation of strategy.
304: The Engagement Factor: Building a High Commitment Organization
Attracting, retaining, and engaging a talented work force is a strategic imperative.
Creating a committed workforce requires a comprehensive set of organizational practices
that emanate from both macro and micro levels of the organization. This workshop is
designed to provide an understanding of the HR Value Chain as the context within which
engagement. Then, we drill down on the micro practices of full-range leadership, job
design, goal setting and performance management, and creating trust. The session involves
a wide variety of individual assessments and skill development exercises that will
help participants develop their own engagement enhancing skills.
Topical Outline:
- Understanding Engagement and Why It Matters
- The Engagement Factor Model Overview
- Setting the Context: The HR Value Chain
- Full-range Leadership: Transactional and Transformational
- The High Performance Cycle: Goal-setting and Performance Management
- Assessing the Level of Engagement
- The Consequences of Engagement: In-role Performance
- Beyond In-role Performance: Organizational Citizenship Behavior
- The Crucial Role of Trust