Leadership Development Training Course for Managers

Lead with Confidence and Clarity

Leadership

Leadership Enhancement

Develop leadership skills with personal coaching, enhancing team motivation and effective communication abilities.
Positive

Inspire Growth

Cultivate a positive and inspiring leadership style to foster strong, trusting team relationships.
EQ

Emotional Intelligence

Master emotional intelligence for improved conflict resolution, feedback delivery, and lasting behavioral change.

Refine your communication skills by learning to harness your emotional intelligence with one of the UK's most acclaimed management training courses.

Why Choose This Training?

More Than Just A Course Of Lectures

What gets in the way of developing and holding on to new communication skills are old habits of thinking and speaking. Even if the advice is very good the reason why it rarely sticks are the mental habits people inevitably revert to, especially under pressure.

Unlearning those old habits and internalising a more effective and lasting approach to communication needs more than a short course of lectures on how to do it.

What Makes This Training Stand Out?

What makes this training stand out is the exceptional support through one-to-one coaching sessions and continuous feedback. Changing behaviour is not an easy task as old habits are hard to break.

With a 40-year track record we can help you cultivate practical skills, and build your confidence to so you can successfully navigate real-world challenges, ensuring lasting behavioural improvements.

Testimonials

Join thousands of participants getting results

"What I love about this course is that I didn't just learn about the topic, this course is about ME.  I'm confident I can reliably use my new skills, even when under pressure".

5 stars

A Project Manager At A Tech Company

"A lesson for life! The power of effective communication is incredible when one masters the skills "listening with empathy" and "speaking assertively"

5 stars

A Project Quality Engineer

Clients We Have Worked With

Well-known companies who have used this course again and again, over many years

  • Amgen 3
  • BBC
  • aunt bessies
  • Cargill 2
  • Heinz Logo 3
  • Civil service
  • NHS 2
  • Kelloggs Logo 2
  • IGT
  • JM 4 copy
  • Schweppes 3 logo
  • Castrol 3
  • Dewhirst 2
  • avon logo png
  • Nestle Logo
  • RSPB Logo 2022
  • Shell
  • UNHCR 3
  • unilever 2
  • BP 2
  • FBN 2

Course Summary

Training Objectives

This course is designed to help you develop your leadership and people management skills. You will learn two fundamental emotional intelligence skills that are crucial to the success of your communication, motivation, team building, and conflict resolution. You will develop a leadership style that works for you, and expand your flexibility in your approach to managing people so you can better create a positive work environment. It is suitable for all levels of experience and tailored to meet the needs of various industries.

Develop Your Emotional Intelligence

You will learn a set of powerful emotional intelligence communication techniques so that you can manage difficult conversations, handle challenging situations, build relationships and set firm boundaries.

Transferable Skills

The goal of this training is to equip you with the tools they need to build strong, lasting relationships in your professional life, although because these skills are so transferable many clients report vast improvements in their personal relationships as well.

Develop Skills

This is a skills development rather than just a theoretical programme, so the emphasis throughout will be on you taking turn after turn, practising your skills, while receiving feedback and coaching about your effect on others.

Repeated Practice and Feedback

In your coaching sessions you will be helped to practise dealing with the kinds of situation you find challenging, again and again, until you are confident you can do it successfully.

Video Analysis

We'll combine practical, hands-on experience with video replay and analysis and discussion of the principles involved to help you gain both skills and understanding. Special attention is paid to your individual training needs, so you can practise your skills in real-life situations that you have to handle at work.

Sustained Change

That's why as well as your place in a small group, this training includes a generous amount of private and confidential one-to-one coaching sessions online, spread over several months, ensuring an exceptional level of support. This will ensure the changes you make are sustained over a longer period of time and any obstacles are overcome. Choose between online training available worldwide, or in-person face-to-face courses in the UK.

Course Dates and Price

For a list of upcoming course dates (for online coaching and face-to-face training), the locations of the next 3-day public courses in the UK and pricing Click here.

Free Initial Session

This initial coaching session serves as an introduction to the "Skills with People" course, allowing you to understand the course's relevance and effectiveness for your specific needs before committing to it.

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Now he listens before jumping to conclusions

What makes this leadership training so effective?

Developing Authentic Leadership Practices

What makes this leadership training so effective?

For more than 40 years this leadership and people management training course has proven to be one of the most highly acclaimed. Over the years we've had thousands of managers and professionals through our hands. Many have said it's one of the best leadership skills training courses they ever attended. We have helped our clients develop their skills so they can communicate more effectively, and succeed in both their personal and professional lives.

In today's competitive business environment, leadership skills training courses are everywhere. Choosing one that is right for you is more important than ever, so you can be confident you are spending your budget wisely. The right course can help you build a strong team, increase productivity, create a positive working environment, and become a more successful leader who is more able to reach your professional goals. So how do you pick the right one? How do you know if this particular leadership training is actually any good?

The most important way to determine if leadership training is effective is to look at its results. Will the training help you become more effective and efficient in your role? How can you make sure this particular leadership skills training program will meets your needs?

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What skills will you learn on this leadership development and people management course?

You'll be better at building a stronger team. As a more effective leader you'll know how to build stronger relationships, and create a more encouraging, motivating, inspiring, engaging and generally more exciting work environment. This can boost team morale, a bye product of which is increasing productivity.

You'll be better equipped to confidently handle difficult situations. As a more confident leader with strong leadership skills you will be better equipped to handle difficult situations and challenges. With more effective communication skills you will be able to talk more effectively with your team, including how to provide feedback. You'll be able to make tough decisions and handle challenging and difficult conversations with much more easily.

You'll be much more effective at providing honest, authentic, sincere feedback. You will learn how to communicate effectively with your employees, including how to provide feedback and handle difficult conversations.

You'll be more confident at resolving conflicts and handling difficult situations in a positive and productive way.

You will be confident about setting achievable goals and manage performance, as well as how to motivate and engage your employees.

You will learn and develop a leadership style that works for you. You may have to be flexible. Different team members may require you to deal with them in different ways. Some people will want you to be more authoritarian, some people will resent it if you aren't able to persuade them. You'll need to tune in on each of their wave-lenghts to work out what is going to work for whom.

As a strong leader you'll be more able to build trust and respect with your employees, which can help you to improve communication and collaboration between your team members.

You'll know exactly how to fostering a more positive and productive atmosphere and working environment. As a more effective leader you'll understand how to build strong relationships with your employees, which will help to improve employee morale and reduce turnover.

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Learn how to be soft on the person yet tough on the issue

What makes this leadership and people management course stand out?

You'll develop your emotional intelligence - Once you know what to pay attention to you'll be more capable at recognising and moderating your own emotional reactions, as well as recognising those people's emotional reactions to what is being said or done.

You'll develop your self-awareness - As part of the emotional intelligence training you'll become much more aware of how your behaviour is affected by your emotions, and therefore your affect on others. To begin with it is pretty common for people to struggle identifying and naming their own and other people's feelings, and find it a bit unusual talking about them in a work setting, but with practice you'll pick it up quite quickly. You may find it a revelation to know that you easy it is to talk about your feelings if, for example you tell someone how “impressed you are with their work”, or how “worried you are about a deadline”.

You'll develop your listening skills - If you expect other people to pay attention to you and tune in on your wave-length, you'll need to demonstrate your willingness to reciprocate. In order to do that well you'll need to develop your active listening skills so you can acknowledge others' feelings and perspectives. You can do this by learning how to paraphrase and reflect back what the other person is saying.

You'll develop your empathy - As part of developing your active listening skills (see above) this course will give you an opportunity to develop and master your ability to demonstrate how well you understand other people. This is listening at a deeper level. You'll get used to swiftly and accurately not only identifying what it is they are saying, but being able to put a name to the underlying emotion that underpins their point of view. Once you are able to word it with diplomacy and compassion then they're REALLY going to feel understood. You might wonder how to do this if you don't agree with their point of view, but with some skill and practice you can master the skill of demonstrating that you get where they are coming from, even if you disagree. You're not endorsing their point of view, just by demonstrating you get where they are coming from.

You'll develop you assertiveness - It can come as quite a revelation to participants on this course that there is simple and direct way to to express your thoughts and feelings in an open, honest, authentic and sincere way, without worrying whether you're in danger of jeopardising your relationships, starting a fight, or offending other people. On this course you'll drilled in this, so you'll not just learn all ABOUT it in theory, you'll actually develop you skills, so you know exactly what to say, and how to say it. Once you've mastered it there are many different applications for this skill. You'll be much more confident about managing difficult conversations, handling challenging situations, setting firm boundaries and providing clear and helpful feedback.

You'll use a video camera - On this training course we use a video camera as a learning tool. It'll give you an opportunity to see for yourself how you come across when you are going through your paces. It is also a valuable to tool for being able to gather valuable feedback about the effect you are having on other people as you practice navigating difficult conversations or challenging scenarios, or awkward relationships. You'll get immediate feedback and analysis, so you can better understand what you did that works, and what could have worked better. You'll then be able to have adjust your approach and have another go. We go to great lengths to make sure you are learning in a safe environment, so you won't need to worry about making mistakes. It may sound terrifying at first, but you'll find it a valuable learning opportunity.

You'll learn to be more aware of cultural issues - For example, sometimes non-Europeans who integrate seamlessly with clients in the West have to unlearn some of the cultural habits they picked up as children, so they can develop behaviour that will be considered more appropriate in the West (e.g. the UK, Europe and the US). This can take time, and considerable practice, and reassurance they are not overstepping a line and being incredibly insensitive or rude.

You'll receive a generous amount of one-to-one coaching - In addition to a place in a group you'll also have a number of private and confidential coaching sessions to help you develop your skills, and refine your approach back at work, in the real world. As a matter of fact we're so confident you'll be satisfied with the training that your sessions won't finish until you're confident you know what you're doing (at no extra charge).

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He's now far more aware of his impact on others

Will this course meet your needs?

Might this London UK management training course be useful for your leadership development?

YES, if you want leadership skills that'll make you more successful at ...

  • using emotional intelligence to calm people down when you're handling tense situations,
  • being assertive in saying what you want, so that people know exactly what's expected of them and what their responsibility is - and speaking with authority but without being authoritarian,
  • saying no when you need to, firmly but without antagonizing people,
  • listening to people with empathy, even when people are resisting what you want, so that they feel respected and understood,
  • persuading people, overcoming their resistance, delegating to them and coaching them to do what you want them to do,
  • giving effective feedback without making people feel attacked, by being generous when praising and tough and clear when criticising.

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Assertiveness, Listening Skills & Emotional Intelligence Training

Encourage Collaboration and Communication

Collaboration and communication are critical to the success of any organisation, and they are especially important for leaders. Leaders who are able to collaborate and communicate effectively are able to build strong relationships with their team, and they are able to work together to achieve their goals. Encouraging collaboration and communication among leaders helps to build a strong, united front that drives success.

You'll receive lots of specific and practical feedback about the effectiveness of your behaviour and style as a leader. You'll be encouraged to experiment with different approaches to handling situations so that you can find out in the safe environment of the course what emotional effect you're having on others, that is, when your approach is winning their cooperation and when it's losing it.

The leadership skills this course will help you develop are the skills of emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is a powerful and universal set of communication skills that are crucial for successful leadership. You'll have sufficient practice and coaching to be able master these leadership skills so that you can retain them after the course. This will increase your confidence and success in managing the most difficult and challenging situations you have to face back at work in your organisation in your leadership role.

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People who feel understood are more receptive

Good quality feedback makes you a strong leader

This leadership development training course is an opportunity to experiment with different ways of handling situations and to receive honest feedback about the effect of your leadership skills on people.

Is it the effect you intend? If it isn't, you need to know how to change your approach - adapt your leadership skills - in order to get the result you want. You then need to go round the trial and feedback cycle again and again until you are confident in your ability to provide the leadership you want to provide. In addition to teaching you new leadership skills and techniques, it's this trial and feedback cycle that lies at the heart of this leadership development training course.

It's a highly practical leadership development process. You practise, in a small group, handling the kinds of situations you have to manage at work. You'll see video recordings of yourself in action. You get helpful feedback from other participants. You receive coaching and suggestions from the trainers. You carry on practising and receiving feedback until you've developed your leadership skills as much as you want. You take charge of your own leadership development by this trial and feedback process.

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Learn how to be both firm and fair

Become a more confident leader - saying what you want as leader

The people you're leading need you to make it very clear what you want from them, and they're likely to feel uncomfortable if you don't. The trouble is that many of us learn very early in life that it's unfair, rude, and perhaps punishable to say what we want, because it might clash with or deprive someone else of what they want.

This may have been part of the necessary and well-meant social training provided by our carers when we were little, but it has resulted in many of us learning that it's safer to keep quiet about what we want. So this has become one of the underlying beliefs or mental habits that have shaped our personality and relationships and that can de-skill us as leaders. Through fear of conflict we've acquired the habit of suppressing one of the most vital and empowering questions we can ever ask: “What do I really want?”

That's why one of the key leadership skills you'll practise and master on this leadership development training course is speaking assertively. You can't say what you want if you don't know how to speak assertively. We'll help you find the right words for saying what you want, and we'll get you practising it until you lose your discomfort in doing it.

HOW to say what you want

  • Deep down you probably know what you want. But this quiet inner clarity may be drowned out by the surface noise in your mind. Sometimes it helps to spend time stilling the mind and reflecting quietly on the question, What is it I really want? Your feelings can guide you to the answer if you allow them.
  • When you've connected with it you can say it with the quiet confidence and authority that comes from saying what you know to be true. This is about listening to your own feelings and your own inner voice. It plays a big part in leadership development.

Saying what you DON'T want - saying NO

  • Just as crucial to leadership development as saying what you DO want is the leadership skill of saying what you DON'T want – saying NO. The reason why saying no is difficult is that it admits a clash of wills and risks confrontation. When it's a relationship you care about the fear of conflict is always hard to handle. But if you can bring those feelings into the conversation they will help find find the courage and integrity you need for saying 'no'.

HOW to say "No!"

Here's how we'll get you to practise saying no on this leadership development course:-

  • First, say something positive or appreciative about what you are being asked to do. And show empathy if you can for person who is asking you and the need that prompts them to ask.
  • Next, take time to register privately how you feel about doing it. You might say, “I need moment to think about it.” or, “I need a few days to consider it”, or “I need to discuss it with my colleague/ family/ wife/ husband/ partner”.
  • Say honestly how you feel and why, e.g., “I don't feel right about saying yes, because …”.
  • Wait for their response.
  • If they press you, be firmly assertive but courteous in saying no, e.g., “My decision is no, for the reason I have said. But thank you for asking.”

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Now he listens before jumping to conclusions

How to build mutual respect and understanding at a leader

On this leadership development training course you'll learn how to treat people with respect and understanding even when you disagree with them

Another key leadership skill you'll practise and master on this leadership development training course is listening with empathy. Empathy is paying full attention to what is going on in someone else's mind. The difficulty we all have with this is that we are usually distracted by what is going on in our own mind.

To pay attention to someone else we must first find a way to flick the switch – to divert our attention from the noise in our own minds, to give ourselves permission to set aside for a while our own sensations, memories, opinions, prejudices, thoughts and feelings, so that we can tune in to what is going on in their mind.

Flicking this switch is a deliberate choice. But many of us never make it. We're so engrossed in our own private world that we assume it is the only world there is. If we are interested in others at all it's only in so far as their thoughts and attitudes relate to our own. We're not interested in their inner world in its own right. We rarely take the trouble to step with an open mind into their shoes and try to imagine what their experience of life is like, what things look like from their point of view, what matters most to them. We hardly ever do empathy. But if as a leader you want to be trusted, you can't afford not to listen with empathy.

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People used to be scared of him - no longer

Calm people down so you can handling tense and emotional situations more easily

A central feature of this leadership development training is that it focuses on helping you develop the leadership skills of emotional intelligence. You'll find much more information on how the course achieves this on the emotional intelligence page.

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Learn how to be soft on the person yet tough on the issue

Give strong and successful feedback without making people feel attacked

One of the most powerful leadership skills you'll practice on this leadership development course is the art of giving constructive feedback or criticism. You'll learn how to be more generous when praising and tougher and clearer when criticising. For more on this see our page on feedback training. It's another crucial part of a successful leader's toolkit, and has a central place in our leadership development training course.

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Are you helping them think for themselves?

Delegating with confidence

You can't delegate unless know how to develop people and enable them to overcome their difficulties doing what you need them to do. Here is a simple idea you could put to immediate use, and it could give a significant boost to your leadership development.

Do you get extremely frustrated when someone who's undertaken to get something done simply doesn't do it? Do have to chivvy them again and again? And because you've no other way do you sometimes get angry and shout?

If so, you probably feel bad about it and wish there was another way to get what you want with less noise and friction. There is. There's much quieter and more effective way using the leadership skills of assertiveness and empathy. We call it obstacle analysis. Obstacle analysis is a simple but powerful idea for leaders. It's a very successful way of motivating people, by quietly understanding and removing what's getting in the way. It's a powerful coaching tool. You can practise it on this leadership development training course.

When you're driving down the road and encounter an obstacle you don't try to ram your way through. You get out, examine the obstacle, and then remove it or find a way round it. If people are failing to do what's expected of them, shouting at them and putting them under pressure is likely to be as successful as trying to force the car through an obstacle in the road. It's far more effective, intelligent, elegant, quicker and causes less friction simply to switch into obstacle analysis mode.

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Now by involving people he takes them with him

The obstacle analysis method of coaching people to fulfil their responsibility

On this communication skills course, you'll learn how to deal more successfully with challenging behaviour. We'll help you learn an obstacle analysis method of promblem-solving. What might the obstacle be that's preventing them from doing what they've said they'll do? It is very easy to make wrong assumptions, and it's likely, when people fail to do what you're expecting of them, that you've been making wrong assumptions in one of more of the following areas:-

  • Do they understand clearly exactly what's expected of them, why it's necessary, and that they've been given the authority or discretion they need to do it? Confusion or misunderstanding about this is one of the commonest reasons why things don't get done.
  • Do they know how to do it? Perhaps not, and if not they need to be shown how. This is another very common obstacle.
  • Are they unwilling for some reason you haven't yet understood because you haven't yet listened well enough? Is someone or something they've no control over preventing them? If so, perhaps they need your help to remove the obstacle.

The beauty of obstacle analysis is that most obstacles are easy to remove once they've been identified. The hardest part of this is not dealing with the obstacle, but identifying it. Listening with empathy is the leadership skill you need for identifying obstacles. This is another reason why this particular leadership skill is so valuable a part of leadership development.

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She now feels more confident in tackling people

Speaking with authority without being authoritarian?

This leadership development and management training course will give you a powerful method of being strong and authoritative as a leader without being authoritarian. The authoritarian says, “Do what I say, or else!” (no reason given - a pretty hostile, aggressive and uncommunicative approach). In contrast, the authoritative manager says, "I want you to ... The reason why I need you to do it is ..." (firm and assertive - but not aggressive).

How can you talk authoritatively when you meet with resistance?

This is where he can continue to use the leadership skill of speaking assertively but without repeating himself:-

  • You can say frankly and openly, “What worries me, if you don't do what I want, is the risk to the business” (again - assertive without being aggressive).
  • Nine times out of ten this leadership skill will work. But if resistance continues, you can continue being assertive but without being hostile: "It surprises and alarms me that you don't seem to care about the risk to the business."
  • In the event of further resistance (which is very unlikely) you can say, "Now my concern is for YOU. I can't do my job without your cooperation, so if you refuse to do what I want you're putting your own job at risk. I don't want to lose you, because I value you as a member of my team. It's your choice." (again, frank and honest but neither hostile nor aggressive).

At the heart of this approach is a very effective leadership skill. It will enable you to be authoritative as opposed to authoritarian. It is, simply, saying honestly how you feel, what the feeling is about, and why you feel that way. This is how, on this leadership development training course, you'll be coached to speak assertively.

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Free exploratory coaching session

The first session is free so you're not committing yourself until you're sure this training is relevant for you. You will also learn something practical you can use right away that'll help you handle a difficult situation more successfully at work.

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