Management training to unlock your full leadership potential

Every manager should consider having a relationship-building talk with their staff when they start their new position.
Putting excessive expectations on employees can result in a head-on collision with their expectations.
If employees don’t accept what the manager is trying to motivate them to do, it can result in less personal commitment in the workplace.
Both of these affect the relationship between the manager and staff.

• What areas of life influence how committed an employee is to their job?
• How do I get information about this?
• How should I behave when an employee creates distance in these talks?
• How do I, as a manager, incorporate this information into my own leadership behaviour?
• What effect do a manager’s personal expectations have on employees?
• How does a manager get information about what an employee wants?
• What should a manager do if both sides want different things?
• What should a manager know about motivation?

Comments
Using strong communication techniques helps maintain different motivations. These talks provide a manager with information about the communication level with employees: is there a good relationship or not?

Talking with employees in their work environment is the ideal way to analyse what motivates them. Performance motivators are part of an employee’s requirements profile. This provides managers with clear information that they can use to produce such things as a quality assessment.

• How important are workstation talks for managers and for the employees themselves?
• How do managers best observe their employees’ behaviour?
• Which questions are suitable for an interview with an employee at their workstation?
• How do I obtain this information?
• How can I conduct these talks so they give my staff the impression that I’m genuinely interested in their work?
• What is the difference between praise and recognition?
• When should I recognise performance and/or dedication to work in this type of talk?

Comments
Talks at the employee’s workstation are a special form of recognition. These should be the first talks done in the escalation stages of communication.

Changing an employee’s behaviour or way of thinking can be done in two different ways: by good arguments or by exerting authority. Using persuasive arguments that you have gathered from your employees themselves improves the chances of mutual understanding.

• How does a manager prepare to tell their employee that they want them to change their behaviour?
• How can a manager sell this to an employee, so that they accept this change in behaviour and work towards achieving it?
• What’s the main difference between arguing advantages and arguing benefits?

Comments
It is a challenge for managers to become masters at arguing convincingly in order to change employee behaviour. However, being able to do this helps managers to avoid exerting their formal authority too soon.

This module provides an insight into the importance of communication and helping employees to achieve goals.

• What is the difference between: ‘Communicating goals’, ‘Agreeing on goals’ and ‘Helping employees achieve goals’?
• How do you structure goals?
• What does a goal timeline look like?
• What’s the best way to communicate company goals and manager goals to employees?
• What impact does this have on the employee’s acceptance of their manager?

Comments
How well goals are structured has a significant influence on the formulation and implementation of communicating goals. The manager understands that important decisions are always based on well structured goals.

Employees also have their own goals. Supporting and encouraging these is a special challenge for managers. The reason for this is that, unlike the previous module, here the manager’s point of view has to take second place.

• How is a personal development discussion structured?
• What should it cover?
• Which discussion strategies should be used?
• What does ‘agreeing on goals’ mean in this context?
• What should a manager achieve in the discussion?
• Who should the focus be on? Manager or employee?
• What does it mean for a manager to conduct a personal development discussion?
• How beneficial is it to combine this with other types of discussions (goal-setting, appraisals)?

Comments
After this seminar, the manager can distinguish between ‘developing employees’ and ‘managing employees’. When employees see that they are being developed, it has a positive influence on their identification with the company and their commitment to their manager.

In practice, an appraisal review is often prepared by both the employee (self-assessment) and their manager (professional, behavioural and personality). As a result, these discussions are often like haggling at a flea market. An appraisal review should be based on figures, data and facts.

• What should a manager achieve in an appraisal review with the employee?
• What influence does the ratio of time spent by the manager speaking compared to the employee speaking have on the quality of an appraisal review?
• How should a manager behave when consensus isn’t reached over the assessment of performance?
• What role do personal development talks and appraisals have here?
• What is the best technique for communicating decisions?
• What’s the best way to prepare my arguments to back up an assessment decision that has already been made?
• Which situations have a positive effect on a manager during an appraisal review?

Comments
The manager is aware that appraisal reviews strongly tend towards authoritative communication. Managers must be able to substantiate their assessment by involving themselves in the personal development of their employees.

There are many times when a manager is called upon to make presentations. Often managers are unaware of what impact their presenting style has on the people present (unknowingly incompetent).

• What do I want to achieve with my presentation?
• What do I need to think about when preparing a presentation?
• What communication skills and techniques should a manager use for their presentation?
• How does the competence model for managers help them to develop new presentation skills?
• How should a manager design the opening, main body and closing of their presentation?
• How do I deal professionally with a problem during part of a presentation?
• What’s the best way to use body language during a presentation?
• How does the manager come across to the people present?
• How does a manager convince their audience that they know what they’re talking about?
• What’s the best way to communicate with the audience, especially with challenging members of the audience?

Comments
The manager is more aware of when it’s the right decision to give a presentation. The manager understands the training effort required. The manager understands how body language draws attention and how they come across to others.

Moderating is always a good way of extracting your employees’ know-how on specific tasks.

• Which situations justify the need to moderate?
• How important is goal-setting when preparing for moderation?
• How do you put together a moderation plan?
• What needs to be organised prior to a moderation?
• What are the elements of a moderation plan?
• What are the phases of a practical moderation cycle?
• What is the significance of leading a moderation in terms of a manager’s leadership skills?

Comments
A manager needs to send out signals within their team. A manager needs to be accepted as a competent leader. Every moderation session must have a purpose, actively involve employees, be structured and have specific follow-up actions. The manager can decide when it’s the right time to use moderation.

Managers quickly make decisions in their heads or on paper. However, the quality of how these decisions are communicated is the benchmark for their influence on, and acceptance by, employees.

• In which situations of a manager’s everyday work do decisions play an important role?
• What stops managers from making decisions?
• What stops managers from making decisions? What is the significance of making decisions in the everyday work life of a manager?
• Which tools and approaches (check lists) can help with examining a decision?
• How should decisions be communicated?

Comments
The manager is more aware of making decisions and can live with their consequences. The manager accepts that sometimes making decisions is sometimes a bitter pill to swallow but that it is an important management skill. The manager knows that postponing a decision means it will be even more difficult to implement in the future.

Conflicts between employees or between managers and employees occur because they do not have the right skills to prevent conflicts arising in the first place.

• What role does a manager play when there are communication problems between employees?
• What is the role of the Competence Model in this situation?
• What is the definition of a conflict?
• What role does a manager play when there are communication problems between themselves and their boss?
• What are the symptoms of cracks in the relationship?
• How should a manager prepare for discussing personal relationships?
• How should a manager conduct the discussion?
• Which communication techniques are important for resolving conflicts?
• Which communication techniques help to predict or prevent future conflicts?

Comments
The manager recognises and senses poor communication at the relationship level. The manager is aware that solving conflicts also involves making decisions. The manager can sell different scenarios and illustrate different points of view.

Due to time limitations, it is often the case that goal-setting discussions, assessment appraisals and personal development discussions are integrated into a single employee discussion.

• What’s the best way to combine these discussions?
• What is your understanding of an employee discussion?
• Does this also include communicating goals?
• Does this also include performance appraisals?
• Does this also include taking into consideration the employee’s wishes?
• What is the difference between an employee discussion and other discussions?
• What are the challenges for me as a manager when conducting these discussions?
• How do I incorporate internal company forms into these discussions?
• What do you call your discussions/talks?

Comments
All of the concepts that I give you can be adapted to your own processes. The prerequisite for this is your cooperation in providing the necessary information (for example: appraisal forms, interview forms).

Managers see it as a special distinction to delegate responsibility to an employee. How well the employee handles this responsibility provides a manager with an insight into their abilities and what motivates them to perform.

• Which tasks are worth delegating?
• What does a manager really want to achieve through delegation?
• What are the right conditions for delegating a responsibility?
• How do you conduct a delegation talk?
• When does it make more sense to instruct an employee instead of delegating?

Comments
The manager can distinguish between their own interests and those of their employees to develop themselves. The manager knows the objectives and conditions for delegating. The manager knows the time and effort required to provide support. Employees are motivated by being delegated a responsibility.

The many different types of situations requiring communication with employees also require different leadership styles.

• Is there a model which managers can use to find the right leadership style for each situation?
• How can managers achieve a high standard of leadership skills?
• What type of training is available for different leadership styles?

Comments
Training in different leadership styles with different leadership situations consolidates a manager’s leadership skills.