Effective and impactful leadership development and manager training programs can offer long-term benefits for organizations. At Orange Grove Consulting, we formulate our programs to offer a collaborative learning environment, where participants grow and challenge themselves in a highly engaging and adaptable format. Whether you are looking to implement a leadership development program and manager training for the first time, or updating your current approach, we suggest you include these three key principles that we use when we are creating programs for our clients.

Adaptability

It’s essential to tailor each leadership development program to the needs of the participants, since different organizations, departments, and teams have unique needs. Whether you’re addressing skills gaps of the entire organization or a specific cohort of participants, each group will be at different starting points and have different goals. For example, some organizations may want to increase management skills, while others seek to focus on personal growth of leaders or foster communication amongst team members. You want your program to meet the participants where they’re at, which is why we place such importance in the adaptability of programs.

At Orange Grove, we adapt our programs by curating a series of workshop topics to align with skills gaps. Workshops are based on a leadership taxonomy so participants are building their skillset along a continuum. 

Skillsets Beyond Management

It’s important to remember that management is a subset of leadership skills and someone can be a leader without having direct reports and management responsibilities. In general, leadership includes a broad spectrum of skills beyond management that involve influencing others. Because of this, you will want to target topics that are appropriate for all leaders, such as reflecting on their personal growth or identifying their leadership style. From there, you can facilitate a plan to help leaders develop skill sets such as building better relationships across teams or more effective communication depending on the needs of the cohort.

Engagement

To engage participants and cultivate strong involvement, we utilize discussion-based programs designed around adult learning theory. Facilitators pose a range of questions to participants during the program, which also allows the program to be curated and adapted to address concerns or issues that participants are facing at the time. For example, a participant may ask a facilitator during a segment on difficult conversations: “We’re struggling with how we communicate across departments. Do you have recommendations for how to tackle this?”

This opportunity for questions and feedback from participants gives facilitators the awareness to spend more time focusing on those specific issues in subsequent discussions and workshops. Even when facilitators don’t have the perfect answer to a question that is asked, they can workshop it in the session. After all, it’s a collaborative learning environment, so the focus is on continuous learning together with participants so that they instill a growth-mindset to tackle challenges in between sessions.

By designing a program that features adaptability, skillsets beyond management tactics, and a high-level of learner engagement, you’ll find that your program will inspire people in leadership positions to approach challenges in a new way. Ultimately, you’ll find that success in facilitating leadership programs is all about having participants leave each session feeling like they’ve really learned something new which they can apply in the workplace – both in immediate day-to-day situations as well as future challenges that may arise. Reach out to us to learn more about Orange Grove’s leadership and manager training programs.