Leadership & Management

Your practical management toolkit

It’s said ‘you manage things, you lead people’. And in order to ‘get things done in an organisation through other people’, you’ll need to stay good at both skillsets: managing and leading. You’ll need to be good at the ‘managing’ tasks: organising, planning, prioritising, controlling, measuring, reporting. You’ll also need to maintain your technical knowledge enough to communicate with the experts in your team.

On the ‘leading people’ side, there are a set of core skills that managers at all levels are wise to develop. You need to deal with a lot of information, make decisions, set a course, delegate tasks and make sure those tasks are done to the right standard and on time. You need to create a culture in your team where staff feel engaged, energised, motivated, moving forward. You’ll want to create a sense of team and maintain that despite all the pressures that pile on you and the team.

You’ll need to keep upping your communication game. Partly that’s learning to navigate difficult conversations with clients, peers, superiors and with your team. You’ll be challenged by certain behaviours and have to deal with underperformance. You’ll have to keep your high performers engaged without disengaging the others. You'll want to deepen your skills in setting boundaries, influencing, assertiveness, networking, negotiating, building coalitions and relationships.

It's a lot to master. Management is an accelerated personal development programme. Fortunately, lots of this territory has been mapped out.

Feedback for the Essentials of Management

I deeply enjoyed the training with you Laurence. You were capable to transmit in a passionate way concepts that I am sure will be useful for my career. It opened my eyes, not only on what my management style could be, but also how to better relate with more senior managers, peers or my team.

EU Head of Unit

Great course. Good to have so many interactive exercises. Laurence, I’ve greatly appreciated your expertise but also your “coaching approach” (i.e. not imposing all your knowledge on us but letting us figure things out on our own)!

EU Head of Unit

For further Feedback, please go to the Recommendations section at the bottom of my LinkedIn page

Practical Toolbox for Managers - Price Waterhouse Coopers

Very dynamic subject-matter expert. Thank you for your energy and passion shared with the team. Laurence knows the subject very well & shares his expertise.

Excellent knowledge of the subject. Excellent ability to transmit that knowledge.

What a fantastic lecturer. Laurence is very professional and with high knowledge of what he is teaching. He is very experienced on the course, professional, charismatic. I would say this is the best course ever in PwC so far for me.

Practical Management Toolbox Participant

Practical Management Toolbox Participants

Lead Your Team - First Time Managers

Thanks Laurence. I liked the exchange, the safe space created to share thoughts, ideas and sometimes disagreement. I also liked the topics and again your humor. 100% recommended.

Level Up - a CLS Corporate Programme for 1st-time managers

Enjoyed a lot the easy-going/feel free to express yourself atmosphere. Excellent trainer; very open-minded, giving the possibility to disagree, discussing all opinions.

Lead Your Team - EU (EuSA)

Very interesting training. Lots of takeaways, even after 20 years in the Institutions! Right pace, right atmosphere. The main outcome for me is the boosting effect of such a training!

Lead Your Team - EU (EuSA)

Insightful training that helped to put a structure in looking to leading a team. The concepts were interesting and the modules by practicing in breakaway sessions useful. Wish I had done it earlier!

I have had the chance to work with some excellent managers who combine the human, the technical and the organisational. At the beginning of my career, I got to work with a couple of humane and technically excellent partners at Richards Butler, a top-twenty London law firm. When I switched to software, my break was to work with Henry Stewart, a visionary, energetic boss at a multi-award-winning IT training company. At Unica, an IBM company, I had the chance to work for a manager who was able to keep a stable of ambitious consultants happy and motivated. He was a very good role model for me of good management, and in EU terms, a Head of Unit. At Unica, the leader was Yuchun Lee, the founder of the company, with vision, drive, and the ability to rally large groups of people.

My break into management training came in Dubai in 2013 working for Spearhead, one of the most established and successful training companies in the Gulf. I delivered the 5-day, 250-page, flagship ‘Developing Management Skills’ programme around the Gulf to very international managers, as well as a range of communications courses. It was high pressure because of evaluations, but I learnt a lot. Back in Europe, I delivered the Price Waterhouse Cooper’s Academy’s ‘Practical Toolbox for Managers’. Since then, I’ve been working a lot for the EU Institutions on programmes for middle managers and team leaders. I also work in the corporate sector as part of a team of leadership trainers for CLS.

I've lead teams and high-pressure projects during all of the above. But my main ability is that of the coach, trainer, facilitator. It's where I believe I can help most to create a thriving, competitive and humane work culture.

Leadership & Management

Feedback for the Essentials of Management

Practical Toolbox for Managers - Price Waterhouse Coopers

Lead Your Team - First Time Managers

Laurence Whelehan - Leadership Trainer & Coach

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train@laurence-whelehan.eu

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