Leadership Academy

As a manager, it is not enough to have high-level professional knowledge.

Beyond professional know-how, there are various competencies that are expected from managers. And it is not possible to acquire these skills until one has worked with others and has his own employees. As managers, we discover that external factors – i.e. employees – determine how we are assessed, our performance, our success, or our failure. Or could it be that the crucial role of the employee is not so independent of us? In fact it is not. What is more, it is our task to be able to guide them. We have become managers in order to be able to influence our employees in their work so that their activities breed success in line with the company’s objectives.

Therefore, it is our responsibility to inspire our employees to do the most effective work possible. In order to achieve this, leadership skills which are not taught at universities are necessary.

As managers, much of our job lies in communicating with people rather than dealing with professional questions. If we want to do this in the most effective manner, we need to be open to developing our competency.

The Leadership skills development package provides useful and practical knowledge and skills for both beginning and seasoned managers. The knowledge it bestows makes managerial work easier and can be applied in your everyday work. These training courses develop those managerial skills which are necessary to create motivated, developed, objective-oriented employees who can work independently and at the same time are good team players. 

Between the training programs, the participants will have the opportunity to share their experiences of the training and to discuss the difficulties that they encountered. Coaching programs ensure that the leadership skills that are introduced during the training programs are also utilized by the participants in their everyday work.

The coaching sessions take place according to the methodology of team coaching. The participants will interpret their personal experiences with case studies in small groups of 5 to 6 on the basis of questions asked by the coach, which encourage the application of skills taught during the training program. Each and every member of the group actively participates in these sessions. Different points of view, arising difficulties, and other interpretation possibilities contribute to and enrich the inventory of managerial tools.

• Preparation of the program: 0,5 day
• Insights® - Managerial effectiveness training: 2 days
• Insights® - Managerial effectiveness coaching: 3X2X0,5 days
• Managerial communication training: 3 days
• Managerial communication coaching: 3X2X0,5 days
• Developing leadership training: 2X2 days
• Developing leadership coaching: 4X2X0,5 days
• Motivating leadership training: 2 days
• Motivating leadership coaching: 4X2X0,5 days
• Using the company P.A.S. training: 2 days
• Using the company P.A.S. coaching: 3X2X0,5 days
• Effective team leader training: 2 days
• Effective team leader coaching: 3X2X0,5 days
• Measure of development of leadership skills
• Follow-up: 0,5 day

The trainers who prepare and conduct the development program will become familiar with the company, its main activities, its scope of action, and the participants’ position in the company. The program is tailored to management expectations. An in-depth interview will be conducted with the participants and they will also be observed during their work. The participants will become acquainted with the competencies on which they can base their leadership style. They will also become familiar with company behavioral patterns and norms.

During the coaching program, the participants (approx. 6 people) will review the knowledge and practical skills that they learned at the Insights training program. The participants will also review their experiences and feelings related to the Insights assessment, as well as the new knowledge that they acquired about themselves. During the program, the participants will master tools which will help them integrate recognition into everyday work procedures, efficiently apply the Insights tailor-made knowledge, and through this, create fruitful communication with partners, and handle every communication situation effectively. 

It is through personal interactions that we communicate within the company and with the company’s clients and customers. This means that the manager must communicate via personal meetings to achieve his objectives. The atmosphere of these meetings has a significant impact on the possibility for cooperation, work relations in general, and the company’s business results. A manager is most effective and motivating if he communicates with the employees in an assertive manner. Therefore, the objective of this training is for the manager to master this assertive persuasive form of communication. By utilizing this approach, the manager will be able to prevent conflict, achieve his objectives, and establish a win-win, partner-like relationship by taking the employee’s interests into consideration as well.

During the coaching program, the participants (approx. 6 people) will review the knowledge and practical skills that they learned at the Insights training program. In half a day, every fortnight, they will analyze the applicability of the skills that were taught during the program, and discuss their managerial experiences. In this manner, assertive behavior will be analyzed in various workplace situations. The participants will review the efficient application possibilities of the TA theory, discuss the techniques necessary for realizing workplace games, and analyze the personal conditions necessary for the management of these games. 

Communication with employees should not be exclusively about motivation. As managers, it is our principal goal, interest, and responsibility to develop professional employees who are capable of working independently. When surrounded by such well-developed employees, the manager in question spends less time on operative questions, as the problem-solving skills of the entire group are sharper and more efficient. As a result, the manager is able to commit more of his time to dealing with even more valuable issues which largely influence the success of the company.

Different leadership styles can be either motivating or demoralizing. The solution lies in their appropriate application. During this training course, the participants will master the skill of selecting the most appropriate style for a given situation and for providing professional support to their colleagues.

During the coaching program, the participants (approx. 6 people) will learn about the skills and competencies necessary for developing leadership. The participants will share their own managerial experiences with one other. They will analyze the difficulties of designing a development plan and discuss the necessary elements of such a plan. During the program, the managers will analyze the dominant leadership styles and investigate those styles that seem relatively foreign to them. They will discuss the obstacles and difficulties that can often be faced during the effective application of situational leadership. The managers will also consider possibilities for development among their own employees.

As both beginning and seasoned managers, we can make the mistake of not paying enough attention to our colleagues. We may not take their level of motivation into consideration. Or, we may not think of how we could provide them with this motivation. By properly defining tasks, emphasizing the importance of a position, stressing the significance of self-assessment, and with overall general care, we can help our employees become more motivated - which is of course beneficial for both the manager and the company as well. However, we must keep in mind that there are both performance-oriented and task-oriented people who are motivated by different factors. Therefore, a manager must encourage each employee to do his best in a slightly different manner. This training course reveals how managers can assess the motivational level of their employees and how they can differentiate between the tools to be utilized for the motivation of performance- and task-oriented people.

During the coaching program, the participants (approx. 6 people) will analyze the most important factors related to motivation. The participants will have the opportunity to discuss their positive and negative professional experiences and the characteristics of a performance-oriented manager. During the program, they will talk about failure avoidance as a motivational factor for managers, as well as the role of other motivational factors. The participants will also analyze the motivational factors that they themselves prefer, and finally will master the knowledge necessary for assessing the motivational level of their employees.  

Nowadays, many companies have a thorough performance appraisal and development system. However, based on our experience, we have found that many managers consider the yearly assessment to merely be a hassle. This is due to the fact that the philosophy of Management by Objectives (MbO) is not known. These managers are not aware of why they have such a system in place, what is the objective of this competency-based assessment, why it is not sufficient to simply tabulate the final results, and what kind of managerial tools they have at their disposal. However, if the managers acquire the necessary knowledge and skills, they will appreciate the value of the appraisal system. They will become familiar with its advantages, its objectives, and its proper utilization.

We may be very good managers. We may also have very well-educated and motivated employees. Nevertheless, it can still happen that, all of a sudden, the global performance of the team begins to drop off or fluctuate. Our employees are not only connected to us, the manager, but to each other as well. Together they form a group. Groups and teams have their own inner dynamics, and individual employees not only have expectations of their manager but of each other as well. A manager has to be conscious of this. He must be aware of the events taking place within the group, their psychological impacts, the conflicts residing in the group, the reason for the existence of these conflicts, and if need be, must settle the conflicts via conscious intervention. The manager must be able to change the inner dynamics of the group and its established norms.

During this training program, the participants will master the most important skills for directing a team, and will be introduced to the methodology of assertive conflict management.

During the coaching program, the participants (approx. 6 people) will review the most significant difficulties and characteristics of team-leading. The managers will discuss the key terms of group dynamics, the characteristics of conflict within a group, and the role and responsibility of the manager in settling conflict and in problem-solving. The participants will analyze the crucial points of the group development procedure and the tools that can be utilized to manage them. The managers will also learn how to take organizational objectives into consideration, so that both the objectives of the team and of the individuals are recognized.

Throughout this process, on the basis of preliminary agreements, we will assess the extent of the participants’ development, highlighting both their strengths as well as their deficiencies.