Great managers are trained, not promoted
“I am a good Project Manager. It may seem strange to start off a recommendation with a self-congratulatory statement, but I am a good Project Manager and I am because of Claudia.”
This is a recommendation on my LinkedIn profile. It's one of my favorite recommendations I’ve ever received.
I am an excellent manager. I was not always a good manager. I first became a manager about six years into my career. I was good at being a project manager so I was promoted into managing other project managers. While I’d been trained as a project manager, and had years of experience managing projects, I’d never been trained as a manager, and had no experience managing others. I struggled at first. I made mistakes. I discovered that I loved helping others succeed in their careers, and got better over time. I had some great role models, and some great examples of what not to do as a manager. I eventually became a really good manager.
Being a really good manager is like being a really good project manager, or engineer, or chef, or athlete. It takes practice, mentorship and often formal training.
That’s why I’ve partnered with Heather Corallo of The Canoe Project to create our 10-week Mindful Manager Training Program. This virtual, interactive program is designed to teach those skills that top-tier individual practitioners may not have developed that can take them from struggling new manager to difference-making, best-manager-I-ever-had.
Grounded in an emotional intelligence framework, our cohort-based learning experience helps new or experienced managers in your organization understand how to balance being an individual contributor with accelerating growth in others, how to advance diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging in your organizations as a manager, and how to model productive feedback practices. We talk about goal setting, communication preferences and leading with vulnerability. The weekly sessions are a combination of large and small group discussions and activities and are augmented by reading and reflection assignments.
A recent participant said “I've really appreciated having this as both an opportunity to learn and as a framework for collaborating and ideating with the other managers in the cohort. The homework and conversations have driven a lot of collaboration that has made me a lot more confident about being a new manager.”
We offer this training in two ways:
Customized for your company. We’ll take a group of your managers through the curriculum, tailoring it to what being a manager means in your organization, using real examples that your folks face, and anchoring in your policies and practices. By learning together your managers will develop a shared vocabulary and tool kit, and be able to support each other as they grow as practicing managers.
Tailored to individual participants. If you are a founder managing your employees, are a manager in a small company, or just want to send one or two of your company’s managers to this program, we’ll create a cohort of others in similar situations. You’ll grow your network while learning important skills to bring back to your organization.
To learn more, schedule a cohort at your company, or sign up for our next individual cohort, click here.