This article is the third of a series all about middle managers, where we explore the impact of middle managers on organizations, the pain points they face, and the kinds of training to support them in managing effectively.
3- What Types of Trainings Do Middle Managers Need? [you are here]
Middle managers oversee a variety of activities across the organization. They are on the frontline with employees and daily processes, and need to communicate with different layers and levels of management as well as with the teams they are leading. Because of this, they need to acquire a number of new skills. In this article, we explore some of the most important topics and themes for middle management training.
Strategic Thinking
This skill is crucial in today's changing business landscape, helping managers anticipate change, create opportunities, and lead with confidence. Middle managers need to master the essential tools of strategic thinking, from data analysis, to decision making to navigate complex business challenges and make sound decisions.
Stakeholder engagement.
Effective stakeholder engagement is key in today's collaborative, distributed, and global work environments. Middle managers need to build productive relationships, manage expectations, and align stakeholder interests with their project and team goals.
Leading through Change
Training managers to lead through change allows them to grasp the best practices and skills to implement successful change across an organization. In those trainings, they learn how to communicate the change to employees, and how to keep them involved and engaged at all times. This results in overcoming employees’ resistance to change.
Mastering Agility and Resilience
It is important for managers to learn how to view challenges and changes in a way where they seem conquerable. This can be done through cognitive reframing techniques. In those trainings, managers learn how to adapt to change and challenges, upskill and reskill more rapidly, stay motivated, and learn to form habits more easily.
Effective Communication
Since managers handle upward, downward, and external communication, this is a critical skill for them. Communication trainings help them learn how to do it effectively, clearly, and compassionately, while taking into account different situations.
Leading Distributed Teams
Training for leading distributed teams helps managers learn about different hybrid team models, and manage their teams efficiently to sustain their productivity. In those trainings, they discover methods to preserve a sense of shared purpose and community among employees. They also learn how to manage remote and in-person employees fairly to ensure a healthy hybrid culture.
Designing New Work Models
New circumstances require new ways of work, and managers can benefit from these trainings by learning how to adapt to change and create new ways of working that match their needs.
Remote Work Tools
Those trainings can provide managers with a set of tools that help them manage their work and teams effectively. These can include communication, collaboration, tracking and management tools, among others.
Time Management
Training managers for time management is critical when much of their time is spent delegating tasks, and making sure tasks are completed.
Conflict Resolution
Since managers are on the frontline with different people (employees, leaders, vendors…), they need to learn how to control their emotions in times of conflict. Training for conflict resolution helps them know how to influence others, and solve the problem swiftly.
Emotional Intelligence
This type of training can help managers achieve self-awareness and self-regulation, allowing them to be more mindful in their leadership, and to be more understanding of other’s thoughts and needs. This type of training is especially relevant in the context of distributed settings, where there is no implicit communication.
Being a middle manager is a challenging role, and promoting someone into this job without training them effectively can backfire both on the individual and organizational level.
At Cosmic Centaurs, we offer middle management training for all the types mentioned above. Book a training with us today, and let your middle managers excel at their role.
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