The guide to leadership training topics

Great leaders don’t fall out of the sky. Even an employee with all the traits of a natural leader has a lot to learn before he or she can effectively front a project or team.

Dynamic leadership comes from a combination of the right personal qualities and the right leadership training. Leadership training allows organisations to nurture and cultivate the managers, motivators and big thinkers who will carry the organisation into the future.

The importance of leadership training

Training in effective supervisory skills arms your current and future team leaders to:

Without leadership training, the loudest voices and flashiest personalities tend to get put in charge. These people tend to talk a good game but ultimately lack leadership and management skills.

With leadership training, you can identify the people with leadership potential and prepare them for the kind of success that lifts up everyone including the team, the customer and your organisation as a whole.

10 leadership training topics

Leadership training is an ongoing process, with enough leadership meeting topics to keep employees busy for months or even years. A list of leadership topics for discussion might include:

Leadership topics for new managers

1. Delegation & empowerment: No leader can do everything themselves. Understanding when to delegate, and then standing by your delegation, is one of the most critical executive leadership training topics.
   Sub-topics: Defining and clearly communicating tasks, selecting the right employee or team, agreeing on objectives and resources, setting deadlines and supporting the assignee’s work.
2. Conflict resolution: Organisations are made of people, and people come into conflict. Learning to resolve conflict in a way that respects both sides belongs to every management training topics list.
   Sub-topics: Clarify disagreements, establish common goals, identify and circumvent barriers to teamwork and build consensus around a resolution.
3. Change management. An organisation’s staying power depends on its managers’ ability to cope with and communicate change.
   Sub-topics: Lead with the culture, starting at the top and involving every layer, make the emotional and rational case for change, employ formal and informal solutions, and engage, adapt and assess.
4. Influence. Why do some people command respect without ever giving commands?
   Sub-topics: Belief in your team, servant leadership, giving and earning trust, investing in others, autonomy and leading with character.
5. Motivation and engagement. People aren’t machines. Understand what motivates them and they can exceed your wildest expectations.
   Sub-topics: Fostering a pleasant working environment, encouraging happiness, setting clear goals, micromanaging, collaboration and self-development.

Leadership training for every employee

1. Interpersonal relationships: Businesses are not built on technology; they are built on relationships. Train leaders to cultivate relationships with others on their team and across departments.
   Sub-topics: Cultivating a positive outlook, managing emotions, active listening and empathy.
2. Decision skills: Employees’ ability to make the right decision and stand by it nurtures confidence and streamlines the whole organisation.
   Sub-topics: Understanding reactions and tolerances, first principles, risk-taking and utilising the perspective of others.
3. Time and energy management: Many distractions vie for managers’ time and tend to sap the energy that fuels productivity in the time they have. So, effective leadership training includes tips for time and energy management.
   Sub-topics: Distractions, Organisation and open-mindedness.
4. Self-awareness: Before leaders can manage others, they must effectively manage themselves. Self-awareness training asks leaders to self-reflect on their emotions, strengths and weaknesses.
   Sub-topics: Feelings, giving and receiving feedback, keeping an open mind and mindfulness.
5. Communication skills: Mistrust springs from misunderstanding. Effective communication is critical to effective leadership.
   Sub-topics: Establishing trust, speaking with precision and clarity, using body language and tone, avoiding assumptions, and how to have difficult conversations.

Ideas for leadership training

Leadership training is its own skill. Building a programme from the ground up can feel like a daunting task and even a leadership challenge all on its own! Here are some supervisor training ideas to consider when designing your leadership training modules:

Create a learning culture

Training is easier when everyone in the organisation understands they aren’t there just to work, but also to learn. Education is a lifelong process with opportunities to learn and grow at every turn. Support this culture within your organisation by:

• Offering formal training and development plans.
• Acknowledging learning as an accomplishment.
• Promoting from within.
• Developing a formal process for knowledge sharing.

Encourage peer-to-peer training sessions

Who better than current supervisors to teach up-and-coming staff how to develop supervisory skills? Managers may not feel qualified to teach ‘leadership’. The point is not to be an all-knowing ‘guru’. Sharing the little successes and course corrections that come with experience can help leadership trainees:

• Fill knowledge gaps.
• Make better decisions.
• Increase efficiency and confidence.
• Create an internal knowledge base.
• Foster institutional memory.

Use online training for self-directed learning

Developing or purchasing online self-directed learning programmes can free up managers’ valuable time. Leveraging technology for some of the nuts and bolts of training enables trainees to:

• Develop self-confidence, initiative, and perseverance.
• Learn at their own pace.
• Assess their own work for ways to improve.
• Take ownership of their training.

Build a mentorship programme for new and emerging leaders

Mentorship is a time-honoured method of nurturing talent. Nothing supercharges a young career like a more advanced career taking an interest and showing the ropes. To build a successful mentorship programme:

• Build a bank of mentors
• Set programme goals with a clear ‘why’.
• Train managers as mentors.
• Set up a mentor-mentee pairing process.

Roleplay for leadership development

Nothing builds confidence in your ability to perform a task like having done it before. Role-playing allows new leaders to immerse themselves in a scenario and become acclimated to the lesson live on their feet. Practicing in a controlled setting builds confidence and ensures leaders are more likely to execute successfully in real life. To build a role-play scenario::

• Identify the situation.
• Add detail and nuance.
• Assign roles.
• Act out the scenario.
• Debrief for lessons and takeaways.

How we can help you tackle leadership training

Powerful leadership training starts with Seismic Learning (formerly Lessonly). Our online training platform empowers managers to capture priceless knowledge and skills into easy-to-follow leadership training materials. These personalised leadership training lessons can be distributed to any employee at any time. Employees can then absorb leadership training topics at their own pace or in a classroom setting. Lessons delivered information in bite-sized, manageable chunks, enabling employees to hone their leadership skills. Interested in finding out more? Schedule a demo and chat with one of our teammates!