Last week I promised to send you what I teach in our six-month Certified LEADER training program.

First, do you qualify to learn these skills and new habits on your own, or for me?

Most participants in our Certified LEADER program are self-taught leaders.  Some have just been promoted after being a team lead and/or superstar employee.  Others have been in management for decades.  Some are owners.  

So far, everyone in the program is a leader in an IT managed services provider.

Darren German, Service Manager at NUMA Networks in Southern California recently graduated as a Certified LEADER.  He had this to say about the program:

Dave, his employees, and his Certified LEADER program are the best.  Period. Dave communicates extremely well and he doesn't leave any wiggle or assumption room in letting you know exactly what to expect from his course.  He provides SO much extra assistance outside of the classroom and his staff respond professionally and timely.

I feel so much more prepared as a leader in my organization now, my time is mine again, and I've been able to pass on many of the wonderful lessons I've learned.

The secret is each student in the program, along with their boss, defines specifically what they will learn in the program.  This varies per person, but there are some common themes.

Here is a sample of what a student's objectives might look like at the beginning of the program:

#1 Leadership

• Develop better delegating skills
• Learn how to define and work an employee through a performance improvement plan
• Learn how to complete annual reviews with direct reports
• Learn how to hire better people instead of good actors

#2 Team Management

• Develop the soft skills of my team
• Improve communication between engineers and account managers
• Update employee strategic plans for each team member
• Devise a plan to work with my team to recognize their triggers and respond more intentionally to them

#3 Prioritizing / time management

• Update my own employee strategic plan
• Sanctuary
• Weekly W.I.N.
• Stealth mode

#4 Other people's communication preferences

• Develop my ability to fully discern other people's core behaviors and motivators/driving forces
• Adapt my communication style to the other person's preferences
• How to recognize people in ways they prefer

#5 Establishing clear, measurable goals

• Revise my goals to be more clear and measurable
• Ideas to reinforce our self-motivating environment for my team to achieve their goals
• How to deliver negative news encouragingly, and with next steps people want to support
• How to meet or exceed the expectations of others more consistently.

#6 Be a near-perfect yet real role model

• Consider ways to build upon my strengths in listening and questioning
• Response to negativity from a direct report, peer, owner, or client
• Implement systems to have everyone live out our Company culture cornerstones.

Some students have a shorter list.

You may want to try to learn these things on your own, or this list may inspire you to create a self improvement plan for yourself.

However, I encourage you to learn with other leaders. We have the only Certified LEADER training program for managed service providers and another technology entrepreneurs.

If not our program, then another proven training program that is at least six months long.  Why six months?  Because the real value is not knowledge transfer, it is developing the skills, learning new habits, and implementing proven leadership systems.

Our learning process has three components AFTER you define clear, measurable objectives you want to learn in our Certified LEADER program:

#1 - Live, online group training with your peers, led by me.

#2 - 1:1 Coaching with me.

#3 - You can reach out to me anytime you have a specific employee issue and want my advice.

Our next Certified LEADER class is filling-up.  Sign-up to work on specific weaknesses you have in your leadership, and to further build upon your strengths.