You'll learn how to:

• Project a flexible, sensitive leadership style that acknowledges people as individuals
• Coach others to peak performance
• Mold a diverse workforce into a cohesive, productive team
• Empower and motivate employees to peak performance by responding to human needs sensitively and flexibly
• Manage change in a positive, proactive way by clearly communicating your expectations, objectives, and goals for your group and its individuals
• Lead a diverse workforce with a leadership style that works for you and your company

Course Objective:

Develop leadership skills using empowerment and coaching relationships. Learn to manage change and diversity to create a productive group.

About This Course:

As one course among many offered in the American Management Association's curriculum, Leadership Skills for Managers has been designed specifically for the manager whose time is at a premium. It provides private, self-paced, individualized study; learning and self-evaluation through in-text exercises. Paralleling a business school course of study, AMA's curriculum provides practical information to working professionals who, on their own time and at their own pace, want to continue their education.

Dr. Warren Blank is president of The Leadership Group, an organization and human development firm with offices in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Austin, Texas, and Santa Barbara, California. Dr. Blank's clients include a mix of large and small business corporations and government agencies. Among his industrial clients are Shell Oil, AMOCO, Dow Chemical, Enron, Hines Interests, McDonnell Douglas, Houston Lighting & Power, Motorola, and Kroger. His government clients include the Bureau of Land Management, Department of Transportation, Department of Veterans Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Federal Executive Institute, Internal Revenue Service, Panama Canal Commission, United States Air Force, and the Department of the Navy.

Dr. Blank is the author of the book, The Natural Laws of Leadership: The Quantum Leader Paradigm. He has also authored numerous articles that have been published in leading management journals, including the journal of Applied Psychology, Group and Organizational Studies, Personnel Psychology, and Supervisory Management. Dr. Blank has worked as a manager in private industry and as a university administrator, and he has been a professor at the University of Tulsa. Dr. Blank received his doctoral degree in organizational behavior from the University of Cincinnati. He also holds a master's degree in business administration from the University of Cincinnati and a master of science degree in education from Indiana University.

Isabel Werner, the author of the previous edition, is a freelance consultant with many years of experience in human resources development. She has worked as a trainer, consultant, educator, program developer, supervisor, lecturer, and adjunct faculty member. She has a bachelor of arts degree from Michigan State University and a master of sciences in organizational development from George Williams College.

The publisher wishes to thank Charles M. Cadwell of Training Systems +, Harold L. Gilmore of the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and Daun Anderson of Bentley College for their help in reviewing the manuscript of this course.