Abstract
Supervisors at a software company are often promoted with little or no previous management experience. Senior management sees a need to provide leadership training to fill in some gaps and provide consistency across the company. Specific needs include:
- Providing positive feedback
- Resolving conflicts
- Presentation skills, and
- Time management skills
Learners
The learners are entry-level through senior managers at a software company; they are not potential managers. Most of the learners have already attended a time management course and been given written instructions on how to write SMART goals for their employees. They are all very busy and therefore unlikely to make the time to complete self-paced instruction so they prefer to attend short classroom instructor-led courses where they cannot be interrupted by phone calls or e-mail.
Course Topics
The main instructional goal is to emphasize the importance of effective communication at all times and to provide tools to achieve good communication with all audiences. After completing the course, the learner will be able to:
General Communication (90 minutes)
- Demonstrate active listening
- Provide positive feedback
- Praise staff effectively
Conflict Resolution (60 minutes)
- Explain the other person’s perspective in a disagreement
- Prevent (or mitigate) conflict escalation
- List when and where to address conflict
Delivering Presentations (60 minutes)
- Design and deliver a 3-minute PowerPoint presentation following given rules
Organization (30 minutes)
- Create a prioritization list
- Utilize key Outlook Calendar functions
Course Delivery
The half-day course will be delivered in a classroom that has a PC at each station, which can accommodate up to 12 students, though a typical class will only have about half that attending. The course will be offered quarterly to eventually cover about 70 supervisors and managers.