Excellence in Leadership Series

The Excellence in Leadership series is comprised of intensive one-day and two-day skills building courses for managers at all levels. Each course contains a variety of learning experiences and discussions to embrace leadership and management skills.

Building Effective Teams

What makes a high performing team? What is the difference between a true team and a work group? In this program, participants will learn what makes both an effective team leader as well as the stages of developing an effective team to achieve an organization's missions and goals. Through discussions and exercises, participants will also explore how to manage the most common dysfunctions of a team and how to reinforce a team's strengths while learning their own leadership and preferred team styles.

Emotional Intelligence and Leadership

Effective Leaders typically have high IQ's, extensive education, years of experience, and deep knowledge in their fields.  As valuable as these skills and abilities are, none of these factors predict who will be successful as leader and who won't.  What more is needed? The answer is emotional intelligence, or EQ as it's commonly called.  Research in the EQ field has found that it is the single biggest predictor of performance in the workplace and the strongest driver of leadership and personal excellence. This interactive class will help you understand what emotional intelligence is, learn specific strategies for enhancing and managing your EQ, and offer practical applications for leveraging EQ in a leadership role.

Facilitation Strategies

Managers are realizing the value of keeping a group energized, focused on task, and producing effective results. Whether you lead a problem-solving team, work with executives in strategic planning, or just want to assist in moving your own group through the collaborative process more effectively, facilitation is a critical skill. This session teaches the fundamentals of facilitation and provides opportunities for participants to practice the techniques they learn.

Managing Personal and Organizational Change

The only thing that is truly constant in today’s world is change.  In this program, we will go over the various phases of changes and how they affect an organization.  What are some strategies to help facilitate change and deal with resistance within a team or a structure?  How can you measure an organizational change to ensure it is carried through fully? Through a series of discussions an exercises, we will explore different approaches and strategies to both facilitating and personally reacting to changes in the professional environment.

Problem Solving and Decision Making

Solving problems and making decisions have always been two tough functions of management. In this session you will learn how to handle the tough issues effectively by developing your ability to utilize a variety of decision-making styles. You will also learn and have an opportunity to practice a systematic process to help you identify and successfully implement solutions to complex problems you experience in the rapidly changing environment of organizations.

Project Management

Effective project management is a core competency for managers. For those responsible for organizing projects of all sizes, this course provides the knowledge, skills, and tools that lead to successful project results.

Strategic Planning and Performance Measures

Using a case study, this session provides an opportunity for hands-on application of the strategic planning and performance measurement process that is required of Texas state agencies.

Strategies for High Impact Presentations

Today's managers and leaders frequently find themselves in forums where they must formally present information clearly, accurately, and often in a limited time frame. This session will provide strategies for planning, preparing, and delivering effective presentations. Participants will identify their personal presentation challenges and participate in practice sessions which will include giving and receiving feedback.

Working It Out

No organization is immune to internal conflict. There will always be personality clashes, misunderstandings, petty irritations and turf battles. People may battle openly over an issue or refuse to communicate at all. This session will not attempt to help managers avoid conflict, but will provide a toolbox for working out differences and using conflict as an opportunity for personal and organizational growth and change.