Walker College of Business

Like any other skill, increasing management skills require practice, reflection, guidance, coaching, and a willingness to examine what you’re currently doing and how you are doing it. While participating in this certificate, attendees will have the opportunity to gain valuable management skills they can utilize in the workplace to be a successful manager, team member, and individual.

This certificate includes the following courses:

Note: Certificate courses can also be offered as individual, stand-alone sessions.

Understanding Leadership

Leaders often need to juggle conflicting demands, deliver difficult messages, and address performance problems. There is no instruction manual for how to be a good leader, but having some background knowledge in leadership styles and behaviors can help you determine how you will lead others. This course will introduce you to conceptualizations of leadership along with effective behaviors leaders engage in so you can develop your own leadership framework. 

Gaining Power and Influence

To be effective, leaders must be able to influence others to carry out requests, support new ideas, and implement decisions. The key to influencing others is possessing power. Misused power can manifest in aggression and deceit, but functional leadership power should help peers and subordinates accomplish goals and tasks. This course will provide attendees with an overview of what leadership power is, how to gain it, and how to use it to benefit their workforce.

Self-Awareness

"He that would govern others must first master himself." - Phillip Massinger

In order for leaders to be successful, they must understand their values, motivations, style, strengths, and weaknesses. By understanding oneself, leaders create a foundation for improving their abilities and leveraging their strengths. Self-awareness also provides leaders with the ability to recognize, appreciate, and capitalize on the differences of others and cope with interpersonal conflicts, breakdowns in trust, and misunderstandings. This course will provide attendees with the opportunity to increase their self-awareness and gain an appreciation for those who differ from themselves.

Problem Solving

Organizations are often riddled with problems that leaders must be able to overcome. When issues arise that are novel or rare, the ability to solve problems creatively separates the achievers from the failures. This course will provide attendees with techniques to improve their problem-solving capabilities.

Communicating Effectively

Having positive relationships in the workplace leads to higher levels of information exchange, participation, and commitment from employees. Unfortunately, poor communications and miscommunications can undermine the relationships leaders build with those around them. Being able to communicate messages accurately and honestly without jeopardizing interpersonal relationships is a key skill leaders can use to create and preserve positive relationships with their team.

Providing Feedback

Feedback is a powerful tool that can be used to motivate employees, reinforce desirable behaviors, improve performance, and provide opportunities for continued development. This course will provide attendees with strategies for giving employees both positive and constructive feedback.

Motivating Employees

Leaders influence the motivation of their employees. Since motivation impacts employee performance, leaders must be able to motivate their workforce. This course will provide attendees with an overview of motivation and skills they can use to increase the motivation of their employees.

Empowering & Delegating

Empowered employees work because they want to, not because they were told to. This course will provide attendees with tactics for empowering employees and delegating responsibilities to them. As a result, leaders can increase the satisfaction and effectiveness of their team.

Leading Effective Teams

When teams are effective, organizations often see positive outcomes including increases in productivity, quality, and morale. The extent to which organizations can expect to see these outcomes depends on how well the team works together and ultimately, how well the team is led. This course will provide attendees with tactics they can use to create a positive team environment, develop their credibility as team leader, and conduct effective team meetings.

Conflict Management

Conflict is a valuable, essential part of every workplace. Despite its value, leaders may avoid or fear conflict and do not manage conflict effectively when it inevitably arises. This course will give attendees a new appreciation for the power of conflict and provide them with tools to manage conflict.

Managing Stress & Wellbeing

Stress creates a negative impact on leaders’ personal health and performance, their team, and the organization as a whole. This course will provide attendees with skills to help them identify and remove stressors, be resilient in the presence of stressors, and cope with stress.

Interested in any of these sessions or the certificate?   Click here to find out next steps and view a schedule of our current offerings.