The Middle Manager Development Program: Creating Future Leaders

Introduction:

Many middle professionals have a wealth of experience at handling day to day management issues and are now ready for a bigger challenge. Are there extra skills they need to acquire to prepare them for the next level of leadership? This program is about exploring and mastering those skills and knowledge that will comfortably take you to the next level of competence – from professional to leader.

It will give you a real insight into what drives individual behavior, how to pinpoint the cultural style of your organization, and understand its inherent cultural strengths and weaknesses. We’ll explore team dynamics in the context of the culture, look at functional and dysfunctional behavior, and how dysfunctional behavior can be reshaped. We’ll explore how easy it is for the leader to unwittingly set people up for failure and how this can be avoided. We’ll investigate motivation, reward, and getting the best from the team.

Targeted Groups:

• Managers
• Supervisors 
• Team leaders
• Employees who are being prepared to be promoted to a managerial position

Course Objectives:

At the end of this course the participants will be able to:

• Ensure that you have all the core skills of effective management and leadership
• Understand what drives individual behavior and how to motivate and reward excellence
• Understand the culture of their organization
• Explore team dynamics and discovering their preferred team roles
• Implement successful change
• Gain new insights into their preferred leadership style and learn how to be flexible in both leadership and management
• Learn how to to “read” behavior and use that understanding in creating a motivating environment for their staff
• Understand their own and others’ preferred team roles
• Be able to influence upwards in the organization with confidence
• Plan and lead change

Targeted Competencies:

• Leadership skills
• Management skills
• Building & managing teams
• People skills
• Change management
• Decision making
• Problem-solving

Course Content:

Unit 1: Core Skills Required For Managing a Team

• Delegating effectively
• Goal Setting - S.M.A.R.T. goals
• Performance Appraisals that work
• Introducing a new employee to the job
• Coaching and on-the-job training
• Giving Praise effectively
• Constructive Confrontation skills
• Saying ‘No’ skilfully
• Counseling for performance improvement
• Disciplinary Process
• Dealing with grievances
• Discipline procedures
• Dealing with difficult colleagues

Unit 2: Understanding People:

• Individual characteristics that influence behavior
• Personality styles and traits
• Attitudes and behavior
• Perception in the workplace
• Attributing causes to behavior
• Types of workplace behavior

Unit 3: Organisational Culture:

• The organizational cultural web
• Types Of organizational culture
• Developing organizational culture
• Managing organizational culture
• Changing organizational culture
• How an unhealthy culture develops and how to prevent it
• Signs of a healthy organizational culture
• Effects of a healthy organizational culture

Unit 4: Team Dynamics:

• Group Dynamics
• Team Roles – A Self Perception Inventory
• Team roles and complementarities
• Team formation and dynamics
• Functional and dysfunctional group behavior
• The set up to fail syndrome
• Inter-team relationships

Unit 5: Getting The Best From Your Team:

• What are people looking for in their jobs? Do their managers know?
• The basic motivational process
• Ironies of motivation
• Managing People – ten essential behaviors
• How do you rate on motivating?
• Motivation techniques for greater commitment & output
• Reward systems in high-performance work systems
• How to reward and inspire your team
• Team rewards
• Creating energy in the team
• Knowledge workers and the psychological contract
• Receiving feedback and criticism
• Helpful hints for providing feedback and criticism

Unit 6: Influencing Upwards In The Organisation:

• The Individuals Needs Framework
• The Six Key Weapons of Influence and how to use them
  • Constancy & Escalating Commitment
  • Reciprocation
  • Need to be like others
  • Warming to
  • Power
  • Short supply

Unit 7: The Five Styles of Decision Makers and how to distinguish them:

• Charismatics
• Thinkers
• Controllers
• Skeptics
• Followers
• Selecting strategies and dialogues for each decision-making style
• Matching Appropriate Influencing Principals to Decision Making Style
• The Trigger Words that appeal to each Decision-Making Style

Unit 8: Leadership That Inspires:

• The difference between Management & Leadership
• Leadership and emotional intelligence
• The effects of different leadership styles on organizational climate
• Comparing management with visionary leadership
• Characteristics of visionary leaders
• Characteristics of a good vision statement
• Communicating your vision
• Leaders who are effective at communicating their vision and inspiring people
• Ethical political behavior
• Trust orientation profile

Unit 9: Managing Change Successfully:

• Sources of resistance to change
• Preventing resistance and encouraging effectiveness in coping with change
• Choosing a strategy to implement change
• The steps in a successful change program
• Membership of the team leading change
• Communicating change – the steps involved
• Mastering the art of speaking as a change leader
• Sustaining change efforts

Unit 10: Action Planning:

• What have I learned about leadership that I want to apply back on the job?
• Can I paint a compelling picture of success?
• How should I go about implementing it?
• What barriers might I come up against and how might I overcome them?
• Who might be my allies and how do I build their commitment?
• When will I start and when will it be implemented?