Strategy & Leadership
Leadership Essentials for Managers
A two-day applied leadership course for managers, team leads, project leaders, and emerging leaders who need stronger trust, communication, influence, decision-making, conflict, change, and team-performance practices.
- Format
- Live virtual, in-person, or private on-site
- Duration
- 2 days
- Level
- Introductory
- From
- $1495.00
About this course
Course overview
Lead with clarity, credibility, and follow-through.
Leadership Essentials for Managers is a two-day course for managers, team leads, project leaders, and emerging leaders who need practical leadership behaviors beyond task assignment and supervision.
Learners build self-awareness, trust, communication, influence, decision-making, team performance, conflict navigation, change leadership, and execution rhythms that help teams deliver with clarity and commitment. The course complements People Manager Essentials by focusing on broader leadership presence, influence, team performance, and decision-making across formal and informal authority.
Learning outcomes
What you'll learn
Every module is tied to an outcome you can bring back to your team the next day.
- Explain how leadership differs from authority, management, expertise, and project coordination
- Use self-awareness, consistency, judgment, communication, and follow-through to strengthen credibility
- Listen actively, frame messages clearly, give feedback, and adapt communication to different stakeholders and situations
- Use practical decision methods, influence strategies, trade-off conversations, and escalation paths to move work forward
- Shape team norms, psychological safety, accountability, motivation, and operating rhythms that support healthy delivery
- Navigate conflict, ambiguity, resistance, and change while maintaining trust, clarity, and momentum
- Document 16.0 PMI education PDUs: 4 Ways of Working, 9 Power Skills, and 3 Business Acumen
Audience
Who it's for
- Managers, supervisors, team leads, project leaders, and emerging leaders responsible for team outcomes
- Experienced individual contributors preparing for more visible leadership responsibilities
- Functional leaders who need stronger communication, influence, decision-making, and change-leadership habits
- Organizations developing a consistent leadership baseline across frontline and mid-level leaders
Course structure
Syllabus
A structured path from core concepts to applied practice.
Day 1 - Leadership Foundations, Self-Awareness, and Communication
- Modern leadership role and expectations: leadership versus authority, management, expertise, informal influence, role boundaries, and current pressure points
- Self-awareness, trust, and credibility: values, strengths, blind spots, trust drivers, transparency, competence, care, accountability, and follow-through
- Communication, listening, and feedback: active listening, message framing, audience adaptation, clarity, candor, stakeholder communication, and communication recovery
- Influence, motivation, and decision-making: influence without relying on title, stakeholder interests, motivation, decision framing, trade-offs, escalation, and decision records
Day 2 - Team Performance, Conflict, Change, and Execution
- Team performance and psychological safety: team norms, working agreements, trust signals, accountability, inclusion, motivation, ownership, and performance routines
- Conflict, accountability, and difficult conversations: conflict sources, issue framing, interests, emotions, impacts, repair attempts, facilitation moves, escalation, and follow-up
- Leading through change and ambiguity: uncertainty, change narratives, stakeholder concerns, resistance, fatigue, sensemaking, feedback loops, local adaptation, and reinforcement
- Leadership action plan and operating rhythm: decision cadence, team check-ins, communication channels, metrics, learning loops, peer support, habit formation, and 30-day execution planning
Public cohorts
Upcoming sessions
Secure your seat in a live, instructor-led cohort. Private team deliveries available on request.
No public cohorts on the calendar yet.
We run this course as a private team cohort on demand, or you can be the first to know when the next public date drops.
Frequently asked questions
Still have questions?
Who should take Leadership Essentials for Managers?
How is this different from People Manager Essentials?
What do participants leave with?
How many PMI PDUs does this course provide?
Can this be tailored for private teams?
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Bring this training to your team
We deliver private cohorts in-person and online, tailored to your operating context.