Management/Leadership Courses

Elevate your management skills with our specialized training programs. Our courses are designed to empower you with the knowledge and strategies essential for effective decision-making, team empowerment, and organizational success!

The Role of the Manager

This course explores management myths, the concepts of power and authority, the characteristics of a good manager, why managers fail, and the particular challenges faced by new managers. The course also covers what managers do, their roles and contributions to the organization, and the often-conflicting expectations of the manager by employees and upper management. 

Ethical Leadership

This course focuses on the importance of value-based leadership. It presents a set of principles and values of public sector ethics. Using scenarios and cases, the class discusses issues and concepts in ethics, including the nature of an ethical dilemma, the appearance of impropriety, universal versus situational ethics, and frameworks for making ethical decisions. 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

The purpose of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality inventory is to make the theory of psychological types described by C.G. Jung understandable and useful in people's lives. The MBTI instrument assesses each of the four personality preferences and identifies the person as one of sixteen different personality types. 

In this course, participants will receive the results of their MBTI assessment. Participants will learn about the Myers-Briggs instrument and how it can be used to understand their personality type and those of others. Through group exercises, the class will learn how to work and communicate with others who share different personality types. 

Strengths-Based Leadership

In this interactive workshop, you will explore your own strengths-based leadership style. Using your individual results from the Gallup Strengths Finder instrument, explore your own leadership strengths, develop an understanding of the strengths of others, and create strategies to elevate your own work and that of your team. Participants will complete the Strengths instrument in advance of the workshop. 

Decision Making and Problem Solving

This course curriculum is geared for those decision-makers that understand the importance of making decisions in groups. The session focuses participants on solving real problems and equips them with a set of tools to make better, informed decisions. Participants will also learn how to effectively implement the decisions that they make. 

Strategic Planning

This session provides an overview of strategic planning. The primary focus of the presentation is on the component parts of the strategic planning process: planning to plan, gaining and sustaining commitment, identifying and analyzing stakeholders, conducting an external scan and internal assessment, setting the strategic direction, identifying strategic issues and establishing key results, identifying and employing strategies, communicating the plan, implementing the plan, and evaluating the process and progress. 

Measuring Organizational Performance

Oftentimes organizations include performance measures in budget documents, but rarely use the information to make management decisions. During this hands-on session, participants will learn the fundamentals of performance measurement and more importantly how to create an organizational system where performance measurement information is incorporated into decision-making processes. 

Streamlining Governmental Processes

In the current fiscal environment, government organizations find themselves with fewer dollars and fewer staff - yet the demands for service continue to grow. Organizations are faced with reducing or eliminating services, or finding more efficient ways to provide those services. The objective of this workshop is to provide participants with the tools and techniques they need to streamline organizational processes. 

Diagnosing Organizational Culture

This course covers the definitions and concepts of organizational culture, sources of culture, levels of culture, and strategies for changing, embedding and reinforcing organizational culture. The participants complete the Harrison-Stokes culture diagnostic instrument prior to the session. 

Leading Change

This course covers the role of the leaders as change agent, the dynamics of change, resistance to change, and strategies for overcoming resistance. Participants complete the Change Style Indicator to reveal their change style preference and how to use the style in approaching change. 

Coaching and Counseling Employees

This session provides participants the opportunity to understand and practice tools that can be used to develop professional employees who provide quality citizen service and reflect positively on the organization. Coaching is used to provide the knowledge, skills, and abilities needed for an employee to successfully perform the duties of their position. It is used when it appears that the employee does not have the necessary training or experience to meet expectations. Counseling is used when an employee has the knowledge, skills, and abilities to successfully perform the duties or their position but is not performing to that level of expectation. 

Influence and Persuasion

This session presents the various influence and persuasion techniques used by leaders in the political and business world, and the psychological principles behind the techniques. This session will also address psychological obstacles to influence and persuasion. Video presentations and case studies will be used to supplement the participants' understanding of the techniques. Particular attention will be paid to the persuasive power of stories and data. Participants will learn how to use data and stories in presentations to policy makers.  

Motivation

This session includes an overview of major theories of motivation, with an emphasis on the implications for management practices and organizational culture, reward and recognition, systems job enrichment, pay and motivation, and understanding the nature of the workplace. Participants complete exercises designed to make jobs more motivating and rewarding. 

Team Building

Through a series of interactive team building exercises, in this session participants will learn characteristics of effective teams, team building skills and strategies, team leadership, the appropriate use of teams, and barriers to teamwork. 

Effective Leadership Styles

This session reviews Goleman's six leadership styles. Through video examples and case studies, participants learn the difference between the styles, and which styles are more effective in various work situations. 

Leading in Turbulent Times

Local government organizations have experienced a Great Recession, a pandemic, and increasingly polarized communities. Based on interviews and research we explore the characteristics of high performing organizations under stress and the leadership attributes that sustain high performance. 

Developing an Organization With Meaning and Purpose

We know organizations anchored around vision, values and purpose perform better in highly disruptive environments. We will discuss approaches to reinforce the meaning in work and connect employees to the higher purpose of the organization. 

Leadership Practices Inventory

Explore the four key practices of leadership as outlined by Kouze and Posner's work, The Leadership Challenge. In this practical and interactive workshop, we evaluate each of the four practices, determine current areas of focus, and create plans for future focus. Complete your personalized instrument and develop your own plan. 

Mindful Leadership and Gratitude Practices

In this experience-based workshop, we will explore strategies for fostering a mindful approach to leadership and for developing or enhancing a gratitude practice. Both are foundational to personal and professional well-being and success. Try out different activities and determine what works best for you. Take away ideas you can incorporate into your daily life and leadership.