Four-day Manager Development Programme

This is a four-day course commencing 23 September 2025.

Modern day managers wear multiple hats each day – leader, standard setter, counsellor, innovator, and confidante. Being able to navigate these roles successfully is key to being successful in a management or supervisory role.

Course Content

Day 1 – 23 September
Management & leadership skills for the 21st century
• The manager in context: understanding the mission, vision, values and structure of the company/organisation
• Managing yourself – what are your role priorities?
• Organisational culture – understanding culture and it impacts on the performance.
• Expectations: the importance of role clarity and understanding responsibilities of management
• Understand own ability to fulfil key responsibilities of the management role – what makes a good/ poor manager?
• Management vs leadership – is there a difference (and does it matter)?
• Leadership – what’s your style?
• Evaluating your own leadership and management performance.
• Leading by example and managing your own emotions – what signals do you give out?
• Mental Toughness – how resilient are you?


Day 2 – 30 September
Communications and influencing others to create a high-performance culture
• Know what influencing is & what it means within the management role
• Understand the key factors and behaviours used in influencing
• Be able to analyse situations, power relationships and barriers and employ strategies to deal with them successfully
• Skills and behaviours:
• Know how to use body language and verbal communication when including and persuading others
• Effective questioning techniques
• Listening Skills
• Constructive feedback
• What’s your communication style and its implications?
• Challenges to good communications and how to overcome them
• Giving appropriate feedback in an impactful way
• How teams form and how to enable a performing team
• Motivation – how to motivate and inspire others


Day 3 - 16 October
Managing teams and individual performance.
• People and performance – clarifying expectations & setting performance standards.
• When and how to review performance and giving feedback in the right way ensuring balance between celebrating positives and identifying areas for development.
• Appraising Performance and Personal Development Reviews – the similarities and differences and how to make them meaningful including developing training plans.
• Setting SMART objectives for individuals and teams
• How to create a learning culture and a growth mindset
• Utilising effective training and development tools and techniques
• Coaching vs mentoring – differences and similarities
• Dealing with under performance and managing difficult one to one situations
o Capability or disciplinary?
• Recognising the implications around the legal framework and your role in implementing your organisation’s procedures and processes.
• When to escalate and what to record

Day 4 - 29 October
Identifying opportunities for innovation & supporting others through change

• Understanding the drivers for change
• Types of change – transformational vs incremental
• Barriers to change and how to overcome these
• Leadership and management in times of change:
• The importance of managing change – choosing the right approach for different situations
• Stakeholder engagement and communicating effectively - how to support through the change process including customers, stakeholders and the wider environment
• Emotional intelligence and leading with empathy
• Steps to planned change
• Analysing opportunities, including charting, visualising and evaluating options
• Implementing changes – the importance of involving others
• How people react to change
• “The Change House”, which room are you in?
• Personal development action planning
o Where are you now?
o Where do you want to be?
o How will you get there?