Training for Management

Create more confident and effective company leaders through training for management

By Lea Terry, Freelance Journalist / Copywriter
Managing a company requires mastering a diverse set of skills: interpersonal relations, conflict management, delegation, finance, customer satisfaction...the list can feel overwhelming. Whether the members of your executive management team are beginning or veteran leaders, they can always learn something new about business management.

Providing training to company management can help make managing a business easier for them, and help them be more productive and effective leaders. Options for management training include:
  1. Hiring a management consulting firm or coach to conduct on-site assessment and training.
  2. Sending upper management to seminars, workshops and classes.
  3. Using videos, online courses and other "do-it-yourself" training tools.

 

Seek business management information from business management consulting firms

Management consulting firms can evaluate your company's current management style and make recommendations for improvement and modification. Business management services from these firms also offer an intensive and personalized approach to training your managers to be more effective leaders.
Try: Find a management coach--and receive a free consultation--through The Coach Connection. Roundhouse Advisors offers management consulting for everything from growth strategies to establishing infrastructure to responding to market influences. And, the company emphasizes the role of the management team in bringing about these changes.

Send your executive management to workshops or seminars

There are management training seminars and workshops that cover everything from general principles to more specific topics like employee involvement, embracing diversity and guiding a company through change. These highly specific programs are ideal if there's a narrow area that needs improvement, rather than a major overhaul of management style.
Try: The American Management Association offers management seminars covering everything from delegating to high-impact decision making. The AMA holds seminars across the country, in locations including Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas and other major cities. National Seminars offers management training seminars focusing on everything from leadership skills for women to assertiveness skill for first-time managers.

Conduct your own management training with videos or online business management solutions

Maybe your management staff just needs to brush up on basic principles, or could use an introduction to new ideas. By purchasing training videos or kits, or using online courses, you can train your entire management team in-house, without trying to budget for expensive tuition or consulting fees, and without using work hours to meet with a coach or send employees to a two- or three-day class.
Try: Employee University offers instructional videos on essential management skills like employee coaching and evaluation, group dynamics and managing change. The Richardson Company offers training videos for managers, on topics ranging from project management to guiding your employees to excellence.

 

  • Ask your management staff for input before and after any training program. Before a training, they can tell you what areas they'd most like to learn about, helping you more efficiently invest your time and financial resources. After a training, they can offer feedback to help strengthen further training programs.