How to Run a Leadership Training: A Step-by-Step Guide

How to build the day

A convenient format for managers is two days of 6.5 hours of net time each, from 10:00 to 18:00, with lunch and two breaks. A group of 10–16 people works best: fewer, and there is not enough variety of opinion; more, and you cannot give everyone feedback.

Run each topic as a cycle of short theory, practice and debrief. Keep theory to no more than an hour and a half a day; the rest of the time participants work in pairs, threes and teams. Put the most demanding practice sessions before lunch and right after it, and at the end of the day — whatever links the material to the participant's own work.

How to lead exercises

Give instructions briefly and step by step, with the time on screen: what we do, how many minutes, what result is needed at the end. Before starting, ask what is unclear — not "Is that clear?", because everyone answers "yes".

While groups work, walk between them but do not suggest the solution: getting stuck is material for the debrief. Write down participants' good phrases word for word — they are worth reading out at the end.

Keep strict time: announce the time every five minutes. If a group has not finished, do not extend — ask in the debrief who was responsible for time.

How to run a debrief

The debrief is the main part of an exercise: this is where experience turns into a conclusion. Move from experience to conclusions to work: what happened → what you noticed → what it resembles in your work → what you will do differently.

First let those who played the employee or the observer speak, then the "manager". Feedback is given as observations only: "I noticed that… and the other person…", without judgments like "good" or "bad".

Difficult situations

A sceptic ("we've been trained before", "this doesn't work in our industry") — do not argue; give them the role of expert or observer: their remarks are often the most valuable in the debrief.

A participant drifts into personal matters — thank them and gently bring them back to the work situation. An argument becomes personal — stop it at once and remind the group of the rule: argue with the argument, not with the person. The group is silent — turn the question into a two-minute pair discussion, then collect the answers.

What to do after the training

Without follow-up, most skills fade within a few weeks. At the end of the second day each participant writes a 30-day application plan: with whom, which tool, when.

Run the same test at the start and at the end of the training, calculate the average score before and after, and attach it to the report for the client together with a summary of the feedback forms. A month later it is worth holding a short meeting: what worked, what did not.