Essential Leadership Skills Fundamentals Training Course

Course overview

New and developing managers are often promoted because of technical performance, then expected to set direction, coordinate work, address poor performance and keep people engaged without a practical leadership operating system. This course addresses the gap between being responsible for results and knowing how to lead others through competing priorities, changing expectations and everyday people issues. Participants learn to move beyond task allocation and use deliberate methods for establishing accountability, building trust and making sound leadership decisions.

The course covers core leadership models and the routines that make them usable at work: diagnosing team needs, adapting leadership style, setting SMART expectations, delegating with decision boundaries, conducting one-to-one meetings, giving SBI feedback, coaching with the GROW model, resolving conflict and managing team performance. Participants practise translating organisational goals into team priorities, defining ownership through RACI, and holding constructive conversations when standards, behaviours or delivery dates slip.

Instruction combines facilitated teaching, leadership cases, peer discussion, role-play and practical planning workshops. Participants work on realistic management situations, including a missed deadline, an underperforming employee, a disagreement between colleagues and a team facing unclear priorities. They leave with a completed Leadership Action Plan containing stakeholder priorities, communication routines, delegation decisions, feedback scripts, coaching questions and a 90-day plan for applying the methods with their own team. A certificate is issued on successful completion.

The course is suited to supervisors, team leaders, first-line managers and technical professionals who already coordinate people or are preparing to take formal management responsibility. It gives managers approving attendance a structured way to build consistent leadership practices across teams rather than relying on individual style or informal trial and error.

Course objectives

By the end of this course, participants will be able to:

• Diagnose team capability and commitment using the Situational Leadership II model
• Translate business objectives into SMART team goals, measures and priorities
• Delegate work using decision boundaries, authority levels and follow-up checkpoints
• Create a RACI matrix that clarifies ownership, consultation and escalation routes
• Conduct structured one-to-one meetings using an agenda, evidence and agreed actions
• Deliver corrective and developmental feedback using the SBI feedback method
• Coach employees through performance and development issues using the GROW model
• Produce a 90-day Leadership Action Plan for applying leadership routines in the workplace

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• New Managers — who need a repeatable approach to leading former peers and delivering team results
• Team Leaders — who allocate work, monitor delivery and need stronger accountability conversations
• Supervisors — who manage day-to-day performance, attendance, standards and employee engagement
• Technical Leads — who coordinate specialists and need to influence without relying solely on expertise
• Project Managers — who lead cross-functional contributors and need clearer roles, decisions and follow-up
• High-Potential Professionals — who are preparing for their first formal people-management role

Requirements and prerequisites

Participants should have workplace experience in a role that involves coordinating tasks, contributing to team delivery or working with internal stakeholders. Familiarity with basic organisational structures, performance objectives and routine workplace communication is assumed. Participants should be prepared to use examples from their own work, such as a current team challenge, project handover or difficult conversation. No prior management qualification, formal HR training, personality assessment certification or coaching accreditation is required. A complete beginner to leadership can attend, but should expect an intensive week focused on practising management conversations and applying structured leadership tools.

Training methodology

This instructor-led five-day programme uses short teaching inputs followed by application to management scenarios. Participants analyse cases, map roles with RACI, prepare one-to-one agendas, practise SBI feedback and GROW coaching in paired role-plays, and receive facilitator and peer feedback on their approach. Small-group work focuses on realistic leadership decisions: what to delegate, when to intervene, how to handle competing priorities and how to document agreed actions. Each day adds material to an individual Leadership Action Plan, which is reviewed and refined in the final application workshop.

Course outline

Day 1: Leading self, teams and results

• The transition from individual contributor to accountable leader
• Leadership, management and supervision responsibilities
• Leadership values and behavioural credibility
• The Situational Leadership II diagnostic model
• Capability and commitment assessment
• Matching directing, coaching, supporting and delegating styles
• Psychological safety and trust-building behaviours

Workshop: Participants assess two team-member scenarios with the Situational Leadership II model and produce a style-selection rationale for each.

Day 2: Setting direction and organising work

• Converting organisational priorities into team outcomes
• SMART goals and measurable success criteria
• Leading indicators, lagging indicators and performance measures
• Priority setting using urgent-important analysis
• RACI responsibility mapping
• Delegation levels and decision boundaries
• Escalation routes and follow-up checkpoints

Workshop: Participants build a RACI matrix and delegation plan for a cross-functional delivery problem, including decision rights and review dates.

Day 3: Communication, feedback and one-to-ones

• Structured one-to-one meeting agendas
• Active listening and diagnostic questioning
• SBI feedback: situation, behaviour and impact
• Balancing reinforcing and corrective feedback
• Feedforward and future-focused requests
• Documenting commitments and agreed actions
• Managing defensiveness in difficult conversations

Workshop: Participants conduct a role-played performance conversation and produce an SBI feedback script with documented follow-up actions.

Day 4: Coaching performance and resolving conflict

• The GROW coaching model
• Coaching versus directing, mentoring and advising
• Root-cause analysis for performance gaps
• Development planning and capability building
• Conflict styles and interests-based resolution
• Preparing for a mediation conversation
• Fairness, consistency and HR escalation considerations

Workshop: Participants run a GROW coaching conversation for an underperforming employee and create a performance support plan with review measures.

Day 5: Sustaining leadership routines

• Team communication cadences and meeting rhythms
• Motivation drivers and recognition practices
• Leading through change and uncertainty
• Stakeholder mapping for leadership influence
• Decision-making under incomplete information
• Personal leadership strengths and development gaps
• 90-day leadership implementation planning

Workshop: Participants present a 90-day Leadership Action Plan containing team priorities, communication routines, coaching actions and measures of progress.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Teams, Miro, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint

A typical training day

Live online deliveries follow the same structure in the East Africa Time zone, with shorter screen blocks and longer breaks.

What the fee includes

How you can take this course

Certification

Participants who complete the full five days receive the Skillset Development Certificate of Completion, stating the course title, course code, dates and delivery format — suitable for professional-development records and employer reimbursement.

Frequently asked questions