Empowering Managers Certificate

Offered by the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce in partnership with Bentley University

Prepare to Lead

The Empowering Managers Certificate offers a four-part professional development series that addresses common leadership challenges that often hinder managers, especially first-time managers, as they grow in their roles.

The jump from individual contributor to leader or manager of direct reports can be challenging and derails many talented, aspiring leaders. We work to move participants into a leadership mindset, explore methods to influence employee motivation and address poor performance, learn how to coach employees through development opportunities, and improve participant’s ability to manage up and across organizations. Throughout these sessions, emphasis is placed on employing practices that foster an inclusive work culture.

A digital certificate will be awarded upon completion of three of the four sessions within one year.

Upcoming Sessions

Shaping Your Role as a Leader

Elaine Walker, Senior Lecturer, Bentley University

New leaders face new opportunities, as well as new challenges. In order to succeed in their new roles, leaders must move away from the mindset that has made them effective as individual contributors and focus on harnessing the talents of others. During this session, we will explore different leadership models that help to ensure that followers are focused on organizational change, including results-focused leadership, servant leadership, whole-brain leadership, and situational leadership. We will also focus on key questions, such as when supervisors should adopt different methods, given unique team and cultural compositions. Through exercises and discussions, participants will begin to shape their personal leadership approach in order to create an inclusive, authentic and effective leadership style.

Date: Tuesday, April 7, 2020
Time: 1:00-4:00PM
Location: Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston, MA

Optimizing Performance Through Others

Dr. Marcus M. Stewart, Associate Professor of Management, Bentley University and Yaro Fong-Olivares, Associate Director for Corporate Education, Bentley University

Marcus Stewart New leaders often enter their first management roles with the errant assumption that their followers share the same motivations and values as themselves. When confronted with the reality that they are managing people whom are different, new managers can struggle to find methods to motivate their direct reports to high performance, and even more so struggle to address employees who are not meeting expectations. In this session, participants will conduct analyses of their own and followers’ roles per the Job Characteristics Model, which identifies 5 elements of an employee’s role that support healthy intrinsic motivation.

Yaro Fong-Olivares With an understanding of motivation dynamics among a diverse group of employees, the session will turn to supporting employee motivation and development via effective feedback. This session will encourage development of an employee- centered approach to feedback in which feedback is exchanged on an ongoing basis and poor performance is addressed right away. Participants will read a case and role play the delivery of critical (aka, corrective, negative, constructive) feedback to the protagonist. Here, attention will be drawn to contrasting dynamics and effectiveness of our feedback styles among diverse employees.

Date: Tuesday, May 5, 2020
Time: 1:00-4:00PM
Location: Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston, MA

Coaching for Employee Development

Jim Pouliopoulos, Lecturer, Bentley University

Successful leaders manage to bring the best out of their employees and place great emphasis on their development. However, when stepping into a new leadership role, developing others is often a skill the new manager has honed. The coaching approach allows genuine conversations to occur where a direct report can get clarity about their goals, identify their blind-spots, become accountable for their actions, and increase their level of satisfaction and productivity. In this session, we will discuss the differences of managing vs. coaching and outline a framework that will help participants shape their coaching conversations, to help better develop the skills of their direct reports. Throughout this session, participants will be challenged to put these frameworks into practice, employing various coaching tools in multiple coaching scenarios, ensuring that they feel confident to apply these practices in their professional roles.

Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Time: 1:00-4:00PM
Location: Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston, MA

Leveraging Personal Power

Yaro Fong-Olivares, Associate Director for Corporate Education, Bentley University

In today’s matrixed environments, success in management often requires the ability to influence across an organization to ensure cooperation and coordination across departmental boundaries. In this session, participants learn how to assess organizational power and influence dynamics, assess their own reach and influencing potential, and explore effective ways to build personal power sources over their careers. Participants learn about a variety of influencing skills and strategic relationship building strategies that enhance personal power and influence, regardless of role or tenure. From here, we will explore how to then reframe their influencing skills specifically as it applies to managing up and managing key stakeholders. Participants will receive actionable tips to approach difficult conversations, make the most of meeting times and accept feedback.

Date: Tuesday, June 23, 2020
Time: 1:00-4:00PM
Location: Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston, MA