Course overview
Technical professionals are often promoted because they solve difficult problems, make sound decisions and deliver reliable work. Leadership requires a different set of behaviours: setting direction when requirements are incomplete, gaining commitment without relying on hierarchy, communicating risk to non-specialists, and developing people with different levels of technical confidence. Without these skills, capable specialists can become bottlenecks, teams can wait for decisions, and stakeholders can misunderstand technical trade-offs.
This course develops the practical leadership skills needed to lead technical teams, projects and cross-functional work. Participants examine the shift from expert contributor to leader, diagnose leadership approaches using Situational Leadership II, establish team roles through RACI, and communicate decisions through concise stakeholder messages. They practise structured feedback using the SBI model, coaching with GROW, delegation based on task readiness, conflict resolution, decision framing and change communication. The course addresses common technical leadership situations, including incident response, system implementation, regulatory remediation, engineering delivery and data-driven transformation.
Instruction combines short faculty briefings with sector-relevant cases, facilitated group work, role simulations and individual application planning. Participants work with realistic technical scenarios involving competing priorities, uncertain evidence, operational risk and diverse stakeholder interests. They leave with a personal leadership action plan, stakeholder communication tools, delegation and coaching templates, and a practical approach for applying course methods to a current team or project.
The course suits technical specialists moving into leadership, established supervisors of technical staff, project leads and managers who must coordinate experts across business, operational and control functions.
