TMP Course Descriptions: Period 2

In this highly interactive class, you will develop actionable strategies for building your brand as an inclusive leader, learn effective approaches for addressing the dynamics that undermine engagement and inclusion in many STEM environments, and build the skills you’ll need to lead the cultural changes that foster retention and top team performance while enabling all employees to thrive.

Leading in the 21st century is characterized by several challenges that result from highly disruptive market conditions and a rapidly changing workforce. The days when managers primarily control output and resources are behind us; and a new leadership mandate is in place that requires leaders to be inclusive, adaptive, flexible, empathetic, and fair to attract and retain top talent. Achieving this mandate is particularly challenging in STEM industries, which have been observed to operate in ways that are non-inclusive and inhospitable to people in underrepresented groups.

But there is good news for leaders: those who develop the skills and cultures that foster inclusion and engagement will create more positive environments, stronger collaboration, and better performance and retention outcomes with less effort. In this course, you will learn how to achieve these outcomes through applying the principles of strengths-based leadership, positive organizational scholarship, and emotionally intelligent leadership in environments that are psychologically safe, all while discovering how to bring your most authentic leadership brand to life in ways that encourage high employee engagement and inclusion.

Topics include:

• What effective leadership looks like in the era of DEI, marketplace disruption, and workforce disengagement
• Learning your top strengths and how to channel them toward building an authentic leadership brand that engages your team(s)
• Developing skills for leading yourself and others using the principles of growth mindset and strengths-based leadership
• Understanding how to cultivate high emotional intelligence to create stronger connections with your team(s)
• Learning effective strategies for leveling the playing field for underrepresented groups
• Developing the skills and strategies needed to lead effective culture change.

This course provides an upbeat and supportive environment where you will learn to unlock your true potential and perform at new levels of personal and professional excellence. You’ll explore inner terrain that we don’t normally have the opportunity to travel. 

Learning Outcomes:

• Discover your true life mission and learn how to harness your inner resource toward achieving it
• Create a customized leadership identity and integrate that “prototype of excellence” into your nervous system
• Understand how your early heroes and role models imprinted your values
• Replace limiting paradigms with empowering beliefs and integrate new behaviors into your daily actions
• Apply emotional intelligence strategies to step into optimum states of motivation, action, and high performance
• Learn to confidently take action in uncomfortable situations despite fear or embarrassment

If you are considering becoming, have recently been assigned, or are already performing as a supervisor, team leader, or manager, this course provides you with the skills and knowledge to become a highly successful organizational leader.

Members of the technical staff who are promoted into leadership roles often feel that learning how to manage others is daunting. Many technically competent people feel that getting things done on their own is easier than accomplishing objectives through other people. But technical people already possess many of the skills needed to become excellent organizational leaders.

This unique, highly participative course makes a smooth transition to management simple and straightforward. It provides the opportunity to assess your leadership capabilities and “build on your strengths” to hone and focus your talents into powerful management skills. Learn how to set and clearly communicate goals for your organization, build strong self-directing teams, nurture collaboration, guide the efforts of individuals and groups to perform at the highest levels, and focus and motivate your employees and others to successfully achieve the organization’s goals. Every session employs case studies, interactive exercises, and powerful instruments to enhance the learning experience and ensure you can immediately take what you learn back to your workplace.

Topics Include:

Leadership and Management

• What skills are necessary for effective managers?
• What skills do you already possess?
• What skills must you develop or enhance?
• Modern directions of leadership and management
• Getting feedback on your leadership performance (a 360-degree instrument)

Organizational Management

• Organize
• Staff
• Delegate (unique instrument)
• Manage corporate politics and parochialism

Teams

• Current team practices
• Enhance collaboration
• Virtual teams
• Diversity

Motivation

• Modern motivation theories
• Influence decisions (SDI)
• Sources of power

Performance Management

• Monitoring performance
• Assess progress (metrics)
• Give feedback (performance appraisals)
• Correcting undesirable behavior
• Personal plan (unique instrument)

Psychology has traditionally studied individuals, couples, and organizations in difficulty. Most theories and therapies are based on the work with these groups. But this problem-oriented focus has limited the usefulness of psychology in helping people to create and sustain success. There is a body of research that has sought to understand the traits and behaviors of people and organizations that succeed in the areas of career; building healthy, productive work relationships; and maintaining good physical health. The studies reach surprisingly consistent conclusions regarding the skills that allow us to create, maintain, and enhance success. In this hands-on course, you learn the skills of creating and sustaining excellence in the workplace through a lively mix of lecture, film, live demonstrations, case studies, and role-play scenarios.

Topics include:

• The 4 Skills of Successful People and Organizations
• How Successful People Change
• Strategies for Coping with Adversity in the Workplace
• The Essential Skill to Look for in an Employee or Colleague
• Preventing Conflict and Maximizing Collaboration
• Dealing with the Emotional Challenges of Managing People