Education for managers: programs: questions, topics. Executive courses

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

The success of any business (be it a large company or a small one) depends on who runs it. Professional managers are able to achieve good results and indicators in the shortest possible time. But people who do not have the necessary knowledge base in the field of management will spend precious time building the right working system.

This article will tell you what kind of training a leader should undergo. And also how to organize it, who to turn to for help and what is needed for this.

Why does a leader need to learn?

As a rule, leadership positions go to people who have the proper level of professional training behind them (university, life experience, etc.). Therefore, many believe that this is enough.

It is important to understand that from year to year the management system is being improved, new technologies and ways to reduce resource costs (financial, human, time) appear. If the leader has the opportunity to learn about them in a timely manner, then thanks to such knowledge, he is able to regularlyimprove the business he manages.

Even if we are talking about a manager who has a great experience, this does not mean that he cannot improve his skills. On the contrary, thanks to this privilege, he has the opportunity to improve his work, effectively manage people and himself.

In general, leadership training can address the following objectives:

1. To teach how to make correct and effective managerial decisions.
2. To help shape the strategic goals of the business.
3. To teach how to cope with urgent tasks and apply modern technologies for the benefit of business.
4. To teach how to transfer your knowledge to people below them.

Why do some leaders not want to upgrade their skills?

Most often in practice, you may encounter the fact that a person holding a high-ranking position does not want to spend time on training. As a rule, the reason for this can be:

1. Lack of time, energy or opportunity.
2. Irreproachable confidence of the leader himself that he does not need training.

As a rule, in the first case, having an objective reason not to receive additional knowledge, the issue can be resolved through self-development. Such a boss can turn to his assistant for help and ask him to find modern literature or video courses in the public domain. In his free time, he will always have the opportunity to refresh his knowledge or get new information.

Second casesays that a person is confident in his professionalism and does not want to develop. In practice, such people are not able to benefit the company. Omniscient and proud individuals are more likely to fixate on themselves than on the common cause.

Professional training of a leader is a process that will help develop not only an individual, but, subsequently, the entire company.

How are senior officers trained?

As a rule, the training of leaders takes place by attending their various courses, trainings and group sessions. All of them are designed to convey useful information to a person in a short period of time. As a rule, training can last from 3 to 14 days. In some cases, longer courses for managers are also provided.

Curators or educators build this process based on the andragogical model. Its essence lies in the education of adults, formed people with established views.

Andragogy is designed to find the easiest ways for adults to master information. As a rule, a formed personality is more difficult to learn. And if the driving force of the pedagogical process in a school or university is the teacher himself, then in advanced training courses or trainings, the teacher acts as a curator or consultant. How effective the training of leaders will be will depend only on themselves.

Topics and areas of study

Training and development of leaders should be aimed at replenishing the knowledge thatrelevant and necessary for a concert person. There is no need to improve qualifications in a direction that does not cause particular difficulties for a person.

Worth considering what management training programs might be. So, the most popular and in demand are the following:

• advertising and marketing;
• sales and distribution;
• project management:
• financial management;
• personal development;
• accounting and law;
• purchasing and logistics;
• internal control and personnel security.

Each of these categories can contain thousands of different topics. It is worth considering what knowledge can be obtained from each of them.

Advertising and Marketing Executive Courses

Without knowing how to promote and position your products or services in the market, it is very difficult to succeed in business. Today's fierce competition conditions force us to find new solutions to win our target audience. The boss simply has to know what leverage to use to break into the sales leaders in their segment.

Questions on training leaders in this direction can be considered:

• basics of marketing;
• marketing effectiveness evaluation;
• sales marketing;
• B2B marketing;
• marketing and advertising tools;
• Internet marketing;
• retail marketing;
• market research;
• marketing management;
• PR technologies;
• anti-crisis marketing.

Sales and marketing

Managers who are directly involved in the supply and sale of products need courses on this topic the most. As a rule, they help to delve into such topics:

• sales department management;
• business communications;
• retail secrets;
• service and customer service;
• sales by phone;
• distributor, dealer and branch networks;
• business communications;
• selling in B2B markets;
• receivables management;
• sales management;
• sales marketing.

Project management

It is absolutely unrealistic to organize and direct all business processes in an organization in the right direction without proper skills. Therefore, the leader must understand how to make decisions that benefit the company.

Project management training for project managers can stem from consideration of these important questions:

• crisis management;
• key leadership skills;
• staff motivation and corporate culture;
• managerial decision making;
• industrial management;
• strategic management;
• business process management;
• team management;
• charisma and leadership leadership.

Financial management

If the duties of a certain leader include resolving issues related tofinancial support for management decisions, he needs to understand the whole complex of corporate management financial accounting. In this case, it will be extremely useful for the mu to improve his skills on the following issues:

• taxes and checks;
• strategic financial management;
• pricing;
• management accounting and budgeting;
• financial analysis and control.

If a senior manager has professional financiers under his command, he needs a common understanding of these issues. Then it is better to focus on the following topics:

• tax planning;
• strategic financial management;
• budgeting.

Personal development

Every person has their own idea of what an effective leader should be like. In general, he must have such qualities as objectivity, the ability to find the right solutions in difficult situations, have clear planning skills, etc. But to become such a boss for his subordinates, grandiose professional experience is needed. You can get it by attending a course of training for managers. Topics that will help every boss to reveal himself personally, highlight the following points:

• key leadership skills;
• business communications;
• building a corporate culture;
• ways to motivate staff;
• mentoring;
• presentations and publicperformances;
• managerial decision making;
• time management;
• negotiating;
• team management.

Accounting and law

Training in this area will be extremely useful for staff involved in tax audits, chief accountants, as well as heads of security and accounting services. The financial security of the company depends on the qualifications of these employees.

A clear understanding of the legal, financial and accounting aspects is the basis of protecting the company from illegal actions of regulatory authorities. Such useful knowledge will help to avoid mistakes leading to unnecessary waste. An effective leader simply has to understand such complex but important issues.

Procurement and logistics

Training managers in charge of procurement and procurement in this area will improve management skills and build relationships with suppliers. Managers will be able to gain additional knowledge in the field:

• foreign economic activity;
• product certification;
• traffic management in the transport logistics system;
• anti-crisis actions in the purchasing department;
• getting rid of illiquid assets;
• supply chain inventory management;
• increase product turnover;
• categorical management when working with suppliers;
• negotiation company.

Depending on the direction of the course, the training will provide an opportunity to learn about the basics of legal regulation of transport aspects of foreign economic activity, the basic terms of supply, risk management methods in foreign economic relations, as well as the requirements for the content of international contacts. In addition, courses in this direction will tell you how to choose suppliers, how to plan purchases, how to reduce costs and work with stocks of goods.

Internal control and personnel security

Seminars on internal control and business protection today can help managers protect the company from the risks associated with human oversight or unauthorized interference in the work of third parties. As a rule, training in this board provides an opportunity to gain knowledge on such topics:

• fraud protection;
• creation of a compliance control system;
• internal audits and financial investigations;
• human factor and safety;
• personnel risks, their forecast and prevention;
• work with personal data;
• conflict-free dismissal;
• relationship between law and personnel policy;
• enterprise security audit;
• compliance with the requirements of legislation on the security of critical information infrastructure;
• assessment of the reliability of counterparties and the security of commercial offers;
• ensuring enterprise security in anti-crisis management;
• carrying out an anti-corruption audit onenterprise.

Self-interest for executives

A person must learn throughout his life. This makes it possible to keep your brain in a "mobile" state, which is very important for any boss. Having gained new knowledge, he can:

• Learn to solve problems in a faster and more modern way. In the age of modern technology, there are many ways to speed up your work with the help of various technologies and smart gadgets. In addition, such training will help to be prepared for the fact that in the work you will have to face partners who already use such methods. Understanding them will help bridge the "chasm" between companies when establishing contacts.
• To improve his knowledge, which he managed to get earlier. Even if a person received knowledge in the field of management, he was given only the basic base - economics, marketing, human resource management. However, the world does not stand still, and in order to keep up with it, it is necessary to constantly improve knowledge in these areas.
• Rethink your experience. An analysis of one's work, as well as an assessment of one's own actions at various stages of life, allows the leader to understand whether he is developing as a person or vice versa. The acquisition of new knowledge gives impetus to such an analysis. This makes it possible to develop for oneself methods for assessing forces and capabilities, comparing them with external conditions.

Procedure for training managers and specialists

Each enterprise independently determines for itselfthe need to improve the skills of their specialists (in addition to cases provided for by law). However, the optimal failure will be considered in advance to schedule the referral to training and determine the topics and content of the knowledge gained. This approach will allow:

• prepare workers in advance for the fact that they go to training;
• calculate all financial expenses;
• choose the most necessary area of study for specific employees.

If it's hard to understand what classes a particular employee or manager needs to attend, then personnel officers can "go from the opposite". Based on their areas of human activity, identify several key topics that cover his professional occupation, and conduct testing. The answers in the direction that will be the most failed will show what a person needs to focus on in learning.

Conclusion

Experienced managers claim that the company's staff works the way they are managed by the management. In submission to a good boss who knows how his business works and how to organize his work, excellent subordinates will work. The inverse formula follows from this - "every boss deserves his subordinates." If there is a spirit of connivance on the part of the management personnel in the team, after a while the company's business will decline.

If the business is collapsing and the financial results do not live up to expectations, then the team is not giving its best. If athe manager will set a good example, his employees will follow him and will be able to achieve the goals. However, in order to choose the path of business, you need to understand where it will lead, and without proper knowledge, you can hardly hope for fantastic business success.

Having considered the basic principles, directions and methods of training leaders, we can conclude that starting with an elementary visit to short-term courses or trainings, you can radically turn your mind around and learn how to manage so that the effectiveness of actions is constantly increasing. Subsequently, the transfer of the acquired knowledge to the staff (in the process of solving problems in practice) will allow the manager to develop his employees and benefit from this in the form of cash income from their work.