Leadership Training
Leadership Training & Development Consulting
Engaging, individualized leadership trainings supported by a data-centric, business-oriented approach to talent development offered to clients in Virginia.
Pulse Leadership Series 101
(For new leaders or anyone striving to lead better)
When you accepted the new title of “Leader”, you didn’t just wake up the next morning with as a transformed leader, equipped with all of the skills necessary to successfully manage people. The most successful leaders are in touch with the ‘pulse’ of their organizations. In order to move in to this space, you will need to establish your leadership presence, build trust with your team, and sharpen your management skills. This series is for anyone in a leadership position that wants to increase their effectiveness.
In this series, we will explore some of the best practices to recruit and retain great employees, increase employee engagement, and build a positive workplace culture. Topics include: new supervisor skills, managing performance, giving/receiving feedback, creating your workplace culture, and appreciating differences.
Lead BETTER From Where You Are
(This class is for everyone)
If you have been a leader for a while, you know that it is not an easy task. Like communication, there is always an aspect of leading that can use a little ‘spit and polish.’
In this session, we will share stories from real people to highlight the importance of real leadership. We believe through sharing stories we can learn what works and what doesn’t. Everyone has an opportunity to lead better from where they are: employees, shift leaders, managers, supervisors, directors, and executives. If we all strive to do a little better each day, we can make a HUGE difference in our work environments. We each have a story to tell, and we have so much to learn from each other.
Take this Job and Love It!
(Positive Workplace Culture | Employee Experience and Engagement)
Over the last few years, there has been an increased focus on employee engagement. How employee engagement is defined varies from organization to organization and employee to employee; but most organizations agree, if you’re not devoting time and energy to it…your best employees will look elsewhere to find it. After all, employees are internal customers.
This course focuses on the overall employee experience in an organization. Much like customer service: they may not remember exactly what you told them, but they will remember how you made them feel. In this session, we’ll explore how to create a culture where your team is engaged and thriving.
Welcome to the Team
(Recruiting | Hiring | Onboarding)
If you were to ‘walk a mile’ in a new hire’s shoes, what would your experience be? Making the decision to join a new team is one of the most important decisions an employee will make. Likewise, choosing a new team member is a crucial task for hiring managers.
In establishing your hiring processes, consider your organization’s mission, vision, values, and important value-added traits when searching for new team members. Even when you have decided this is ‘not your person’, every candidate should be treated with dignity and respect, because they may know your ‘next best hire’. And you can be sure they will share their interview experience in the community. The same is true for the hiring and onboarding experience. In this session, we will discuss best practices in recruiting, hiring, and onboarding to attract and retain top-notch candidates while enhancing and maintaining your company’s reputation.
In It To Win It
(Performance Management | Coaching | Feedback)
How often have you experienced the once-a-year evaluation where you leave feeling overwhelmed but not particularly motivated. A leader’s job is to ensure that those around them succeed. Research shows that most of us desire more feedback than what we currently receive. Providing feedback, positive or negative, can be a daunting task for many leaders. It doesn’t have to be.
If YOU wish to lead BETTER, providing ongoing coaching, counseling, and feedback is one of the best ways to improve performance, increase engagement, and provide your team with what they actually want. In this session, we’ll discuss best practices for leading successful conversations with feedback.
It Sucks to Work Here
(Harassment | Bullying | Gaslighting | Burnout)
A toxic work environment is like a vacuum – it sucks the positive energy from your team and decreases morale. Not only is repeated, offensive behavior detrimental to team spirit, but it can also be illegal.
To create positive work environments where employees enjoy coming to work (after all we generally spend more waking hours with our co-workers than we do with our family/friends), leaders need to be aware of the work environment and set a tone that promotes positive interaction and respect. In this session, we’ll discuss how to identify the signs of inappropriate workplace behavior, how leaders can model a positive tone in the workplace, and when actions and words cross the line of legality.
Implicit Bias: You Don't Know What You Don't Know
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Everyone has biases, whether we choose to acknowledge them or not. Our brains are naturally trained to establish patterns to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of our decision making. Most of the time, our implicit or unconscious biases are harmless, and a bias can even be positive. However, they’re not always accurate and can have negative consequences.
Once a bias has surfaced, you as the leader need to know what you can do on both a managerial and individual level to improve the equity and objectivity of your decision making. If left unchecked, unconscious biases have a compounding effect over time. In this session, we take a unique approach to exploring our own biases and discuss ways that each of us can make an impact.
It's Just Not Working Out
(Terminations | Resignations)
Attrition is natural. We may be happy to see some employees move on to bigger and better opportunities; we may be sad to see some employees leave our company; and we may be glad to see some employees exit because it was just not a good fit. In other situations, leaders may be faced with the difficult task of presenting an employee with the notice of termination.
In any of these situations, the goal is to part ways with mutual respect. In today’s world of social media, it is easy to display keyboard courage and tell the world of a bad experience. We rarely share the best experiences, although it does happen. In this session, we’ll learn the best practices for handling exits respectfully and how to respond to negative social media.
Lead to Thrive, Not Just Survive
(Stories of teams and the journey to high-performance)
If you have ever been on a team, you know that you don’t just ‘get to work’ when you are first assigned a project. It takes time for everyone to get comfortable with others on the team and settle into roles. The foundation of trust must form.
Sometimes that trust gets put to the test. This session provides insights with stories of some of the most successful and challenging team lessons learned. We will discuss tools and techniques that have proven most useful in forming and working in teams.
