Live virtual or classroom delivery

Effective leadership

Bespoke training programmes for managers

Our Effective Leadership modular programmes draw on the best and latest thinking and research to provide training designed to meet the many challenges of managing in our fast-evolving times.

Whether your managers lead remote, hybrid or on-site teams, the training is adapted to your circumstances. Eight core modules build into a comprehensive leadership programme, but also work as stand-alone sessions, allowing you to pick the best combination of topics for your delegates.

Your bespoke programme can be delivered either in-person at your offices or as live ‘virtual training’, providing an engaging group learning experience that fits around your needs.

About the sessions

For every manager and leader, the central challenge is to harness the skills and energy of others to the aims of the organisation. So at every level, effective management is key to an organisation’s long-term success – particularly during times of uncertainty and change.

Whether managing a single-site, remote or hybrid team, the best managers can get the maximum possible effort from every team member whilst maintaining happy working relationships, wellbeing and a sense of shared purpose. Here, providing structure and feedback, and maintaining excellent communications are vital.

Our Effective Leadership programmes helps delegates develop the confidence, knowledge and skills to become more successful managers. All eight modules blend traditional leadership skills with tips, tools and technologies to help improve teamwork in traditional and dispersed teams, and build an understanding of the challenges faced by team members working in different contexts.

Sessions focus on building team cohesion, maintaining focus and structure, keeping all team members engaged, visible and motivated, and maintaining wellbeing and a sense of shared identity. Every delegate also gets access to additional post-course resources and email coaching support if needed.

Module content

We know that your requirements will depend on your sector, the roles, experience levels and seniority of the delegates, as well as any previous training undertaken. So we work with you to design a programme that meets your needs head-on, whether that be a single session or a complete leadership programme spanning a range of topics. 

Below are outlines of the content of the eight core modules. Each can be further adapted to meet your group’s needs, and additional modules covering other topics can be included on request. 

Session 1:
The principles of flexible leadership

  • Our current challenges
  • Adaptability and the role of today’s leader / manager
  • Using action-centred leadership to manage the task, build the team and support the individual
  • Maintaining communication, collaboration, information parity and relationships across on-site, hybrid and remote teams
  • Ensuring inclusion
    Using short-term goals to motivate your team and monitor productivity
  • Building competence and confidence across your team
  • Developing a flexible leadership style
  • Delegating to develop rather than dumping through despair
  • Skills to develop team members’ ability to make better decisions and use their initiative

Session 2:
Managing performance and engagement

  • Understanding the business benefits of increasing employee engagement
  • 12 practical ways to boost engagement and retention in your team
  • Understanding the value of psychological safety and how to build it
  • Ensuring trust, inclusion and a sense of belonging across the team
  • Understanding the links between emotional intelligence, effective leadership and organisational performance
  • Managing by outcomes
  • Holding effective 1:1s that are ‘check-ins’ rather than ‘checking-up’
  • Providing effective and performance-boosting feedback
  • Increasing ownership and accountability across the team

Session 3:
Meetings, Collaboration & Social Capital

  • Addressing digital exclusion and ensuring a level playing field for all team members, wherever they are based
  • Ensuring clear purpose, structure, and roles during meetings
  • Using meetings to drive things forward
  • Achieving engagement and holding productive discussions during meetings (in-person, hybrid or virtual)
  • Collaborating, disagreeing and brainstorming during meetings – tools and techniques
  • Building relationships with other teams across the organisation
  • Identifying problems by listening to what’s not being said
  • Understanding the value and sources of social capital
  • Maximising your social capital inside and outside of your organisation

Session 4:
Promoting adaptability and wellbeing

  • Understanding and noticing wellbeing challenges
  • Spotting warning signs of poor wellbeing / mental health in individual team members
  • Feeling confident raising concerns with an employee about their wellbeing or mental health
  • Building adaptability and agility across the team
  • Coping with uncertainty
  • Techniques to support emotional wellbeing and mental health in yourself and your team
  • Managing thought patterns, perception and beliefs positively
  • Helping your team’s sense of perspective and pragmatism
  • Understanding the importance of control to wellbeing, and discovering ways to support your team’s sense of control at work and beyond
  • Building effective, supportive team relationships

Session 5:
Communication and coaching skills

  • Choosing the most appropriate way of communicating
  • The difference between efficient and effective communication
  • Harnessing the power of great questions to enable the team to make independent decisions
  • Using the GROW model to coach and develop your team
  • Empowering the team to build their problem-solving capacity
  • Building competence and confidence across the team
  • An extended skills practice session using the GROW model

Session 6:
Handling challenging conversations

  • Identifying the key types of challenging conversation
  • Setting expectations and providing evidence
  • Managing tricky attitudes and behaviours
  • Identifying what presses your buttons during challenging conversations and how it shows
  • Understanding the amygdala hijack and why it is harder to think clearly under pressure
  • Tips to manage your communication under pressure
  • Preparing for your own difficult conversation

Session 7:
Managing change

  • Using the change curve and other change models to understand the process of change
  • Identifying what is required of a leader during change
  • Understanding different people’s responses to change
  • Supporting your team and employees going through change
  • Avoiding common pitfalls
  • Taking your team with you
  • Applying a range of change management models to your own change situation

Session 8:
Strategic thinking and planning

  • What do we mean by strategy
  • Understanding the strategic management process
  • Using PESTLE and SWOT to identify areas where change may be required
  • Planning where you / your team would like to be in a defined period
  • Involving your team in setting strategy
  • Setting strategic goals, tactics and objectives to achieve your strategy

Additional learning support

As well as the training itself, delegates’ learning is supported by access to an online portal that includes additional curated resources such as videos, articles, book suggestions and recaps that help cement and build on their training.

We also offer individual email coaching support to anyone who needs help applying their learning for up to six months after completing the programme. Optional follow-up training sessions can also be organised to maintain momentum. 

 

Our trainers

Our trainers are expert practitioners and consultants, with many years of experience delivering impactful training across a broad range of organisations and sectors. All are experienced in virtual as well as classroom delivery.

Sally Prescott

Sally has years of experience supporting organisations to deliver exceptional service, leadership and communications. She is a qualified coach and is licensed to deliver a wide range of training programmes. Whether through classroom or virtual training, Sally's energy, knowledge and experience have a lasting impact on those she teaches.

Kate Jennings - Cambridge Executive Development

Kate Jennings

A highly experienced trainer, coach and consultant with a commercial background in product development, Kate has worked with clients in the UK, Europe and US to develop and deliver classroom and virtual professional skills programmes.

Joanna Markham - Cambridge Executive Development

Joanna Markham

Joanna developed her vast knowledge over a long career as an academic and senior leader in industry. As a consultant she has worked with some of the world’s biggest companies, helping develop the professional and leadership skills of people ranging from new starters to CEOs.

If you have a group of managers who could benefit from our Effective Leadership training we can work with you to adapt the content to your needs and can deliver the programme to a schedule that suits you.

Participants can join a virtual training session from the office or from home, and can take part in their own teams or departments, or with a mixture of colleagues from across your organisation. Classroom deliveries can be arranged at a venue of your choice.

Fees depend on the number of participants, the number of modules you want to include, and the extent of any design work required. Generally, group sizes can go up to 12 for highly interactive sessions, and up to 50 for a more trainer-led approach.

Please contact us to find out more and to obtain a quote. 

About us

Cambridge Exec is a boutique learning consultancy made up of a select team of specialists in workplace wellbeing, communications and people-oriented leadership and management. We deliver training and coaching, and conduct research and analysis that supports your people-centred workplace culture.

For twenty years we’ve been helping organisations ranging from small startups to international brands to build their people’s capacities, enhance wellbeing and boost engagement and productivity at work.

Cambridge Exec clients - leadership