Leadership Skills for New and First-Time Managers Training Course

Course overview

New and first-time managers often inherit responsibility before they have a reliable management system. They must set direction, delegate work, handle performance issues, run meetings, and communicate upward while still being judged on the team’s results. Without practical leadership methods, new managers can become the bottleneck: retaining too much work, giving vague instructions, avoiding difficult conversations, or responding inconsistently to different team members.

This five-day course builds the core leadership practices needed in a first management role. Participants learn to clarify their management remit, establish team expectations, set SMART objectives, delegate using a task-and-authority matrix, conduct purposeful one-to-ones, give behavioural feedback using the SBI model, and address underperformance fairly. They practise adapting their leadership approach to capability and confidence, using RACI to clarify accountability, planning meetings that result in decisions, and communicating team priorities to senior stakeholders.

Instruction combines short expert-led sessions with manager scenarios, observation checklists, role-play, peer feedback, and practical planning workshops. Participants work with realistic cases involving missed deadlines, conflicting priorities, disengaged employees, and difficult feedback conversations. They leave with a personal First 90 Days Management Plan, a team communication cadence, delegation and RACI templates, a one-to-one structure, and scripts for feedback and performance conversations that can be applied immediately at work.

The course is designed for professionals moving from individual contributor to people manager, as well as recently appointed supervisors who need a disciplined approach to leading a small team. It is equally valuable for employers seeking consistent management habits before avoidable people, performance, and retention issues become established.

Course objectives

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

• Define a first-line manager remit using a role, responsibility and decision-rights map
• Set SMART team objectives and translate them into clear individual expectations
• Delegate work using a task-and-authority matrix with agreed checkpoints and escalation routes
• Apply the Situational Leadership model to match direction and support to employee capability
• Conduct structured one-to-one meetings using an agenda, coaching questions and action log
• Deliver corrective and reinforcing feedback using the Situation-Behaviour-Impact model
• Clarify cross-team accountability by creating a RACI matrix for a live work process
• Produce a 90-day leadership action plan with priorities, stakeholder actions and review measures

Benefits of attending

Target competencies

Who should attend

• Newly Appointed Managers — who need practical methods for leading former peers and delivering through a team
• First-Time Line Managers — who must establish expectations, delegate work and manage performance consistently
• Team Leaders — who supervise day-to-day delivery but have had limited formal leadership development
• Supervisors — who coordinate frontline staff and need to handle feedback, absence and work allocation
• Technical Specialists Moving into Management — who must shift from personal expertise to developing others
• Aspiring Managers — who are preparing for an imminent first people-management appointment

Requirements and prerequisites

This is a foundation-to-intermediate course and does not require previous formal management training. Participants should ideally be managing people already, or expect to take responsibility for a team within the next six months, so they can apply the methods to real work situations. Familiarity with their organisation’s job roles, objectives, reporting lines and basic HR policies is helpful. Participants should be comfortable discussing workplace scenarios and completing simple planning templates. No prior knowledge of leadership theory, coaching models, performance-management systems or specialist software is required.

Training methodology

The course is delivered through instructor-led explanation, facilitated discussion and repeated practice with first-manager scenarios. Participants diagnose cases, prepare delegation briefs, run simulated one-to-ones, give SBI feedback and receive observation-based peer and instructor feedback. Small-group workshops use RACI, SMART objectives and stakeholder maps to solve realistic team-delivery problems. Each day closes with an applied exercise linked to the participant’s own role. On the final day, participants consolidate the week’s tools into a practical 90-day leadership action plan for review with their manager.

Course outline

Day 1: Making the transition from contributor to manager

• The shift from personal output to team accountability
• First-line manager responsibilities and decision rights
• Managing former peers and resetting working relationships
• Leadership credibility through consistency and follow-through
• Values, behaviours and the manager’s role-model effect
• Stakeholder mapping for managers and team leaders
• The First 90 Days leadership transition framework

Workshop: Participants create a role-and-stakeholder map and identify the three management habits they must establish during their first 90 days.

Day 2: Setting direction and delegating work

• Translating organisational priorities into team objectives
• SMART objectives and measurable success criteria
• Clarifying expectations through outcomes, standards and deadlines
• Delegation levels and task-authority matching
• Delegation briefing using context, boundaries and checkpoints
• RACI matrices for shared work and cross-team handoffs
• Escalation routes and decision-making boundaries

Workshop: Participants build a RACI matrix and delegation brief for a live team activity, including authority limits, milestones and escalation points.

Day 3: Leading individuals through one-to-ones and coaching

• Structured one-to-one meeting agendas and action logs
• Active listening and question types for managers
• GROW coaching conversations for work-based development
• Situational Leadership and employee readiness assessment
• Adapting direction, support and autonomy to the individual
• Motivation drivers, recognition and meaningful development
• Managing workload, wellbeing and early signs of disengagement

Workshop: Participants conduct a simulated one-to-one using GROW and a readiness assessment, then produce an agreed action and development record.

Day 4: Feedback, performance and difficult conversations

• Reinforcing effective performance through specific recognition
• SBI feedback: Situation, Behaviour and Impact
• Preparing evidence for corrective performance conversations
• Distinguishing capability, conduct and resource problems
• Setting performance improvement actions and review dates
• Handling defensiveness, emotion and disagreement constructively
• Documenting actions and using HR escalation appropriately

Workshop: Participants prepare and role-play a corrective feedback conversation for a missed-delivery case, producing a documented action and review plan.

Day 5: Running the team and embedding leadership practice

• Meeting design: purpose, agenda, decisions and actions
• Team communication cadences and information flow
• Managing priorities when deadlines and resources conflict
• Problem-solving with root-cause questions and action ownership
• Communicating risks, progress and decisions to senior managers
• Building a team operating rhythm with review checkpoints
• Personal leadership commitments and 90-day implementation planning

Workshop: Participants assemble and present a First 90 Days Management Plan containing objectives, communication routines, delegation actions, stakeholder commitments and success measures.

Tools & standards covered

Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Excel, Miro, RACI matrix

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