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Management Skills for New Managers, Team Leaders & Supervisors

Management Skills for New Managers, Team Leaders & Supervisors

Do you ever feel like you were just thrown into the deep end of management?

Most new managers and supervisors are literally thrown in the deep end, but managing people require a completely different skill set than managing tasks. The transition from being an individual contributor to someone responsible for the work of others and the team’s performance, results in a steep learning curve.

Learn how to motivate, delegate, communicate and lead. Play to your strengths and improve on key weakness areas. With an emphasis on building high achieving teams, dealing with an increased workload, and developing the influence, assertiveness and confidence necessary to be an effective manager or supervisor – this course will ensure you hit the ground running.

Key Learning Outcomes

  • How to grow successfully into becoming a manager or supervisor
  • Defining your new role and responsibilities so that you have clarity of purpose
  • Keys to motivating and engaging your team
  • Tips & tricks to communicating effectively with different personalities in your team
  • How to assert yourself as a new manager
  • Handling difficult situations with success
  • The fundamentals of managing & motivating people for improved performance
  • Set team goals, roles and expectations
  • Plan and manage your new and greater workload
  • Know what success is as a manager

Your new role and responsibilities

  • What makes a great manager?
  • The transition to your new role
  • Building on your current strengths
  • Establishing your credibility from the start
  • What you should no longer be doing

Managing and motivating people for improved performance

  • Developing an effective people management style that works for you
  • Setting team goals and roles, and allocating tasks
  • Setting expectations for your direct reports
  • Understanding what motivates different personalities
  • Leading by example to gain commitment
  • Developing people to realise their individual potential
  • Engaging your team and recognising achievements
  • The benefits and challenges of delegation
  • Turning around poor performers

Time Management

  • Prioritising – why this is important if you want to be an effective leader
  • How to manage the negative impact of interruptions, so that we get more proactive work done & find time for coaching our team members
  • How to confidently say “no”/ “not now” without offending people

Managing other people

  • Identify & address specific ‘challenges’ you face when managing your team
  • Leader as coach – an analogy for what good leadership looks like, in your role
  • Setting expectations of performance & behaviour: Helping people understand what ‘good looks like’ in their role, so they can confidently deliver results
  • Recap: Leader as coach analogy from module 3 & link to today’s session
  • How do we define feedback?
  • How to prepare for feedback: collecting and articulating the correct information so that our team members remain engaged in the conversation
  • Giving effective feedback:
    • Praise – ‘catching people doing things right’ to continue to motivate them
    • Developmental feedback & coaching – how to support people who are below your expectation, so they can ‘get back on track’
    • Practise the above conversations, using real-life scenarios

Developing your communication style

  • Opening the lines of communication with and amongst your team
  • Matching your communication style to the needs of individual team members
  • Staying connected with your team
  • What to tell your team and what not
  • The importance of face-to-face communication
  • Tackling those difficult conversations
  • The art of giving constructive feedback in a positive manner
  • Developing your listening skills
  • Understanding what can cause misunderstandings and disengagement

Using assertiveness to manage difficult situations

  • Projecting confidence and assertiveness in your role
  • Handling conflict within the team
  • Dealing with resistance from previous peers
  • Protecting your team from unreasonable external pressure
  • Dealing with disciplinary issues – some key rules to get you started
  • Picking your battles – knowing when to take action

Managing your growing workload

  • What to do when you are being pulled in multiple directions?
  • Techniques for coping with a large and growing workload
  • How to prioritise and focus on your core KPIs
  • Setting time aside for people management
  • Using meetings effectively to achieve progress
  • How to delegate and still achieve results
  • Minimising disruptions and reducing time spent reacting

How to avoid committing common management mistakes

  • What are the main causes of management failure?
  • Common pitfalls to avoid as a new manager
  • Understanding what works for you and your team
  • Building up your team’s abilities rather than trying to do everything yourself
  • Letting go of tasks

Continuing to grow as a manager

  • Defining success as a manager: group discussion
  • Taking a proactive approach to your own professional development
  • Core management skills to focus on next
  • Spotting opportunities for growth in your role
  • What could hold you back?

Before moving to New Zealand, Elaine started her career in training, HR and recruitment roles in South Africa. For the last six years she has worked as a management and training consultant for a number of large organisations, focusing on the areas of personal efficiency, performance management and appraisal, presentation, facilitation, sales and customer service.

Elaine’s enviable academic achievements and international experience as a management training specialist is complimented by her friendly and open style. With an obvious talent for facilitation, her well known professionalism and her knowledge and understanding of the topic, you can count on a practical and results oriented course.

Elaine McMeeking

Training Consultant - People & Team

Register for this Event

This is a 2-day course.
Courses start 9am (coffee & registration from 8.30am) and run until 4.30pm / 5.00 pm each day.
Expand dates below for more details.

2 day course: Register $2399+gst by midnight, 31 January.
2 day course: Register $2399 by midnight, 10 February.
2 day course. Register $2399+gst by midnight, 11 August.
2 day course. Register $2399+gst by midnight, 27 October.
2 day course. Register $2399+gst by midnight, 23 February, 2026.