The Leadership Journey is also a supervisor training course for managers, supervisors, and team leaders. Rather than a one-off training event, provide a series of discrete, short, practical lessons focused on building 10 key leadership skills. Often, implementation techniques include e-learning, simulated, classroom, or an all-inclusive blended approach. During the course, you will be given the opportunity to work with current and former top leaders and employees. The training will also involve hands-on application of the latest leadership theories and tools as well as current best practice in the workplace. You will build leadership competencies through a combination of theory and practical instruction.

A leadership skills course can help you develop your management style, develop better decision-making and problem-solving skills, create a better work environment, encourage interpersonal communication, increase productivity, strengthen your interpersonal relationship with your team members and colleagues, and increase your ability to adapt to change. Most courses focus on leadership development opportunities at the intermediate and higher levels of management. Supervisors, however, are typically much more likely to take advantage of opportunities for these higher level courses. As a supervisor, you are probably faced with more immediate and often more dramatic leadership challenges than are your team members and colleagues. Hence, it is less important to focus on concepts that apply to upper management and more pressing issues facing your lower levels.

In supervisor training courses, you learn about five important core supervisory skills that need to be built upon in order to enhance the effectiveness of your work team. These include emotional intelligence, vision, values alignment, understanding and prioritizing needs, and presence. These core competencies form the basis of your professional actions and behaviors. Supervisors must know how to identify and manage employees' needs and wants. They must also demonstrate an understanding of the value that these needs and wants to add to the organization and how they impact others.

The emotional intelligence competency is particularly important because human behavior is based largely on how you feel. If you feel good about yourself and your abilities, other people will too. As a consequence, your work performance and organizational growth will improve when supervisors develop and uphold positive working relationships with their employees. This is particularly relevant for supervisors who have new or more difficult managerial duties. Supervisory training teaches managers how to build and maintain positive relationships with employees. In addition, your supervisors' emotional intelligence allows you to anticipate employees' needs and effectively respond to them.

Another important competency taught in supervisor training is learning how to prioritize tasks. Supervisors have many different responsibilities and are expected to perform many different functions within the business. Learning to prioritize tasks effectively, however, can help you improve the quality of the work that you do and help you stay on top of the priorities that are most important to you.

Most leadership and management training programs focus primarily on skills and characteristics that lead to success rather than on processes. Most training programs do not include any mention of leadership or management effectiveness. Such programs only briefly touch on these concepts and explain why it is important to develop them in employees. In contrast, leadership and management effectiveness training programs provide clear strategies and examples of successful practices that employees use to create and maintain positive behavioral change.

Another important topic covered by most supervisor training programs is learning about effective communication. Effective communication involves taking the time to clearly define expectations, explaining behaviors, helping employees understand various leadership styles, communicating plans and goals, and more. A strong understanding of communication allows you to guide employees through the different approaches you may need to take to accomplish your goals. It also helps you communicate effectively so that you can accomplish more with fewer people or resources. Developing effective communication skills in employees is an essential part of every manager's development program.

Finally, most supervisor training programs do not cover topics related to motivation and recognition. Motivation is often the last thing to come up when managers are discussing training and development strategies. Yet motivation is critical for keeping employees motivated and excited about working for a common cause. Recognition, though, is often easier to teach and learn if the material is presented in a fun and interactive environment. For this reason, many management and coaching courses include an area where managers can learn about appreciation.