17 Leadership Training Topics

Published
January 23, 2022
Author
Jeanellie Avelino and Ojobo S.
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In this article, you’ll find 15 leadership training topics that can
help new, existing, and aspiring leaders in your business develop
competencies and improve their leadership skills, qualities, and
potential.
This way, they can become the kind of great leaders that their
team truly respects and genuinely wants to follow.
Read on to learn more about leadership development examples
and effective leadership topics that can help your organization’s
management flourish in their leadership roles.

What are leadership training topics and why are they

important?
Leadership training topics teach your learners the different skills
and tactics that'll help them become effective and successful
leaders. These training topics can also help them understand
their job as a leader and look at problems as challenges and
opportunities to grow.
Participating in leadership training trains them on what their
team expects from them, as well as the critical aspects that drive
your company's productivity and efficiency. Finally, excellent
management training helps them gain confidence to do their best
work and find areas of leadership that need improvement and
growth.
EdApp offers the best leadership training courses available
today. Everything from leadership strategy, emerging leadership
styles, and future-ready leadership are all covered.
Examples of leadership training topics

1. Communication skills
The ability to communicate effectively is a key skill and one of
the competencies that marks a good leader, which is why this
leadership training topic should be a priority for your leadership
training or workshop. Playing the role of someone who is
followed by others, leaders must know how to present their
ideas with clarity, share new knowledge with a broad set of
audience, and give direction to their team. To be a good
communicator, it is also integral for them to master the art of
listening. Whether it’s about the problem-solving for team
members’ concerns, feedback, or new ideas, effectively listening
to them can help leaders open their minds and fully understand
their perspectives. Leaders who can communicate and listen
well to their followers show effective sports leadership and
breed relationships of trust and loyalty, which is a critical
component of any business’s success.
EdApp has a range of free microlearning courses that can help
leaders in your organization strengthen their communication
skills. Their course on Effective Communication taps into
different strategies to improve communication skills when
speaking with someone directly, whether in public or virtually.
They also offer this course about Speaking with Confidence,
which highlights the communication skills needed by leaders in
order to speak as fluently and confidently as possible. As a key
hallmark of all EdApp courses, all lessons are delivered in bite
sizes, which makes them easier to comprehend and follow. Plus,
it will only take leaders a few minutes to complete them, which
is perfect for their busy schedules.
2. Leading under pressure
Leaders have a lot of responsibilities resting on their shoulders.
From problem-solving, making decisions, and motivating their
team, they face a great amount of stress and pressure. Before
they break down and fall into a panic mess, it would be highly
beneficial that you teach them the ropes on how to lead
effectively under pressure. Help them develop the mental and
emotional strength they’ll need to overcome crises and any other
high-pressure situations that may come their way.

You can make use of EdApp’s Leading Under Pressure as a

resource for your leadership training. This course was developed
in collaboration with award-winning rescue diver John
Volanthen. Here, he shares his experience in lifetime planning
and executing some of the world’s most complex rescue dives to
show the leaders and aspiring ones on how to effectively lead in
high-pressure environments and make it a practiced skill. Each
lesson in this course only takes a few minutes to complete, so
it’s perfect for leaders who are often jam-packed with busy
schedules.

3. Time management
Another essential leadership training topic that training
managers should focus on is time management. Leaders,
whether we like it or not, usually have too many things to deal
with or worry about. By initiating this training topic, you can
encourage them to work smarter, and not harder. The idea is to
help them work on their management skills to produce more
sustainable and high-quality work in less time for maximum
effectiveness. After all, overworking is not and should never be
a standard of good work. Bear in mind that great leaders who
know how to effectively manage their time, both personally and
professionally, are more likely to make better decisions, perform
consistently, and positively impact their team members.
EdApp’s The Ultimate Guide to Personal Productivity can be
used by leaders to learn how to manage their overcrowded
schedules and get more things done on time. This training
course contains a combination of bite-sized lessons and gamified
quizzes, which makes it more fun and motivating to take than
leaving them with a thick pile of modules to read.
Online learning platform Coursera also offers a great time
management course on Work Smarter, Not Harder: Time
Management for Personal & Professional Productivity. This
online course aims to help professionals, such as team leaders,
overcome hindrances to effective time management and
influence them to maintain a balance between their work and life
schedules. This course will take learners about 10 hours to
finish, which is not exactly ideal for those with short attention
spans.
4. Conflict resolution
Workplace conflict is something that even great leaders can
never escape from. When handling a team with varying
perspectives, beliefs, and priorities, there will always be days of
disagreement and opposition of interests or ideas, and some
might even lead to some heated arguments. But rather than
fearing them, learning how to resolve conflicts can transform
such catastrophic situations into growth opportunities and even
foster stronger relationships among team members. These
interpersonal skills don’t come easily to others, but they can be
learned and mastered through consistent training and learning.

Feel free to roll out EdApp’s course on Managing Difficult

Conversations to show leaders in your organization the benefits
of embracing difficult conversations and arguments with their
team members. This course will walk them through some tips on
problem-solving, yielding negative feedback, and delivering an
authentic apology. E learning platform Compliance Training
Group also offers Conflict Resolution Training, which is
designed to help supervisors and employees resolve conflict in a
timely and effective manner. It also discusses how to control
anger in the workplace and initiate open, honest dialogue during
conflict resolutions. Unfortunately, this course is not free and
each single user enrollment costs 9.99 USD

5. Employee engagement
Needless to say, discussing employee engagement must also be
prioritized in your leadership training programs. Leaders are
responsible to ensure that their teams remain passionate and
committed to their jobs so that they can give their very best all
the time. Other than that, keeping their team members engaged
can also lead to work satisfaction and increased interpersonal
skills. As we all know, employees who are genuinely happy and
well pleased in their team tend to stay longer and actively
participate in advancing organizational goals.
However, ensuring consistent employee engagement is easier
said than done. Lend your team leaders a helping hand by
introducing them to different strategies they can adapt to
stimulate engagement with their employees. Apart from
discussing this training topic with them, it is also a good idea to
recommend employee engagement tools that they can use to
engage their teams. Like EdApp’s gamification tools, which can
transform their team assessments in the form of smartphone
games, like jeopardy game, elevator game, letter jumble,
memory game, and more.
6. Motivating and influencing your teams
Hiring the best talent in the industry is only the tip of the
iceberg. To get the best results for your organization, teams need
guidance and support from good leaders who can motivate and
influence them to give their best performance on a daily basis.
With this in mind, you might want to consider sharing manager
soft skills with your company’s team leaders and managers on
how they can better play the role of motivating and influencing
their team.

Introduce your leaders to different types of motivations and

walk them through some tips and strategies on how they can
influence their people to have a positive and “can-do” attitude at
work. You can also deploy EdApp’s microlearning course
on Rewarding Achievements, which can be used as a guide on
selecting the right kinds of rewards to drive employee
performance. They also recommend a 6-part course on True
Influence – Developing Enduring Impact, expounding the true
concept and practice of true influence as a facet of effective
leadership. It can help your leaders improve their interpersonal
skills, which they can use to collaborate effectively with their
team and motivate them to go above and beyond their limits.
Everything comes editable, so feel free to tweak and enhance the
content or even add your company’s logo and branding style.

7. Effective feedback
Effective feedback is an essential part of competent leadership.
While it’s not an easy thing to do, giving feedback shines a light
on the company’s significant performance issues and directs
employees in the right direction. Without it, everyone will be
left guessing about their performance, which can stall the
success of the entire organization. Feedback is also a
cornerstone of a healthy team relationship. If done correctly, it
can motivate employees to follow their leaders and improve
their performance without a hint of doubt.
Although it is impossible to control how others respond to
feedback, leaders can raise the likelihood that their critiques will
be heard and followed rather than ignored and rejected. This
skill can be learned and perfected over time through training.
EdApp has put together a microlearning course on Giving
Effective Feedback, designed to help leaders grow and improve
their feedback abilities and grow trusting relationships with their
team members. In this module, your learners will discover the
what, why, and how of giving effective and impactful feedback,
backed by some examples that they can use as a guide when
talking with their underperforming employees.

8. Delegation
Delegation is another core function of leadership and a
management skill to have, which is why it is also integral to
include this leadership training topic in your training or
workshop. Leaders, in particular, should know how to properly
assign tasks to the right people and then trust them to deliver
quality results. The effectiveness of this skill is significantly
linked to proper time management, as it will allow them to
accomplish more things in less time. It also fosters engagement,
effectively influencing the rest of their team members to put
more effort and commitment into their work. As per John C.
Maxwell in his book Developing the Leaders Around You, “If
you want to do a few small things right, do them yourself. If you
want to do great things and make a big impact, learn to
delegate.”

Skillsoft’s course on Delegation can be used to teach your

leaders how to delegate like a pro. It taps on topics like
effectively directing and delegating tasks as a manager,
providing the right level of supervision, feedback, and
encouragement to achieve better results, and taking the team to
the next level with delegation. You can also enroll your leaders
in Universal Class’ Delegation Skills online class to help them
further understand the advantage of delegation and find out
appropriate and effective methods for carrying it out. This
course costs 0.00 USD per learner.

9. Different Leadership Styles

This leadership training topic is more suitable if you are
organizing a leadership training or workshop for new and
aspiring leaders of your organization. While often overlooked,
having a clear grasp of different leadership styles can help
leaders determine different ways they can lead their team,
develop their own approach, and identify key steps to further
improve it. It will also create an opportunity for them to discover
the qualities and effectiveness of other leadership styles that
they’re not yet aware of and combine them for more effective
and impactful leadership.
EdApp’s Leadership and Coaching/Management Styles outlines
the 6 most common leadership styles that will help learners
identify in which category they fall in as a leader. It also
contains a helpful guide on how a good leader can use each
leadership style and develop their skills as a coach or manager.
Lessons are presented via modules and gamified quizzes to
ensure a more effective learning experience for your learners.

10. Diversity and Inclusion

It’s no secret that most organizations today are now embracing a
more diverse workforce to strengthen their positioning in the
global market. With this in mind, a good leader should know
how to lead and collaborate with a diverse team, and bring all
their good qualities together to work in harmony regardless of
their cultures, races, genders, and sexual orientations. Raising
awareness about diversity and inclusion will help leaders combat
stereotypes, discrimination, and unconscious bias. This ensures
that all their team members are equally heard, seen, and
recognized for their work performance and other measurable
factors.

EdApp can help you educate your leaders to embrace this

leadership role with their 5-part course on Diversity and
Inclusion. This bite-sized module puts focus on the key concepts
surrounding diversity and inclusion, the harmful types and
examples of unconscious bias, and inclusive language to
communicate effectively with their diverse team members
without the likelihood of offending. There are also paid courses
that you can deploy, like Finding Common Ground – How to
Overcome Unconscious Bias by AMA, Optimizing Diversity on
Teams by the University of Pennsylvania, and Diversity training
101 by Universalclass.

11. Change Management

Whether big or small, change is something that every
organization goes through. Both seasoned leaders and new ones
alike can have a tough time navigating these situations. As
leaders, it’s important to know how to cope with change and
effectively communicate it with your team. This also includes
dealing with new challenges, workflow disruptions, and
feedback from your employees. With this leadership training
topic, you’ll be able to guide your team to overcome common
obstacles brought about by changes and still work efficiently
and productively.
12. Goal Setting
Setting goals helps leaders stay focused on what really matters
and gives them direction to fulfill their purpose. However, just
the mere act of setting your goals isn’t enough. To fully
maximize its potential and bring it to fruition, goals must be
well-defined and attainable within a certain span of time. When
setting goals, a good model to follow is George Doran, Arthur
Miller, and James Cunningham’s SMART goals which stands
for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, and Time-bound. Learn
how to set SMART goals for yourself and your team that are
realistic and watch them turn into a collective effort on your
path to success.
13. Leading vs. Managing
Leading and managing are two similar terms that are used
interchangeably but have distinct differences. Leading pertains
to one’s ability to drive, influence, and motivate others to
achieve a certain objective. On the other hand, managing is more
about ensuring that work is done and organizational goals are
achieved. An individual can be a good manager but not a good
leader and vice versa. So which one is better? To truly lead
people, one must be both a good manager and leader. Being a
leader shouldn’t be looked at as just a position in the
organization. At the end of the day, a true leader is one who can
not only deliver outcomes but also inspire people to work hard
towards a shared vision of success.
14. Project Planning
Managing projects can be tough. If they’re poorly planned, the
organization can run into delays, miss deadlines, go over budget,
or face disappointed clients. To mitigate these risks, it’s
important for businesses to equip their managers with good
project planning skills. This way, they’ll be able to align goals,
set reasonable deadlines, streamline processes, identify possible
problem areas, and clarify the roles and responsibilities of each
team member. This leadership training topic is also vital for
eliminating wasteful activities that might deplete important
resources like time and money.

EdApp’s Introduction to Project Management course is a great

resource material for leaders who want to learn how to execute a
project effectively. The course also provides a quick overview of
each of the five stages of project management, including
initiation, planning, execution, evaluation, and finalization.
15. Managing Effective Meetings
Meetings are an integral part of company communications,
allowing employees to exchange feedback and discuss goals,
ideas, challenges, and other topics related to the business.
Without proper structure, they can be unproductive and
inefficient but with a clear objective, they can be a highly
efficient way to foster teamwork, accomplish goals, and increase
overall productivity in the workplace. Through this leadership
training topic, managers will learn how to determine if a
meeting is necessary, set a proper agenda and schedule, consider
each team member’s strengths, and end with a set of action
items. They’ll also learn a few tips and tricks to keep their
employees motivated and engaged without losing focus on the
meeting objectives.

How to Attend and Host Meetings is an EdApp course that team

leaders can check out if they want to learn more about the
importance of effective meetings, as well as the steps to take
before sending out a meeting invitation. The bite-sized lessons
also provide learners with real-life examples of different
meeting challenges and ways to solve them.
16. Accountability
Another important leadership training topic to consider is
accountability, a skill that’s usually tied to good leadership.
Highly accountable leaders are known to accept responsibility
for their actions and own the outcomes of these actions, whether
good or bad. Employees often look up to these kinds of leaders.
They trust their choices and decisions, which leads to a more
productive work environment. By adding this topic to your
leadership training, you can help your leaders learn key
behaviors that will allow them to build and hone their
accountability skills and establish a workplace community
where everyone’s honest and accountable for their actions.
17. Collaboration and Teamwork
Good leaders should be able to encourage their team members to
collaborate and work together harmoniously so they can achieve
greater goals. But as ideal as it sounds, building a culture of
collaboration and teamwork is easier said than done. Leading a
group of people with different interests and points of view, it’s
often difficult for leaders to stand in the middle and make sure
everyone’s ideas are heard.
When organizing your training, it’s crucial that you touch on
this leadership training topic. Give your leaders the skills and
tools they need to communicate properly with their team and
increase the success of their teamwork. Guide them through the
process of making decisions and delegating tasks that will be
useful in helping their people work and collaborate better. And
most importantly, equip them with some tips and tricks to build
trust and rapport with everyone to promote greater team unity.