Leadership Development

Training to Address Recurring Management Challenges

Purdue MEP can help first-time managers and experienced supervisors develop the communication, management, and leadership skills needed to direct the performance of individuals and teams. Our leadership and supervisory training addresses the recurring management challenges that every leader confronts on a daily basis. These half-day workshops can be offered onsite or as public workshops.

Leadership Offerings include:

SERIES - Leadership Skills for Success for Frontline Leaders
Turn successful employees into homegrown leaders! To ensure success, these employees will need new tools and skills to succeed within your organization. In this six-month, intensive course led by Purdue MEP experts, you will learn and practice key skills every employee needs to succeed. 

SERIES - Leadership Skills for Success for Managers
Striving for the next level in leadership! As leaders grow within their organization, so must their skills. In this six-month, intensive course led by Purdue MEP experts, participants will learn and practice key skills every leader needs to be successful as they excel in their current leadership role or move to the next level within their company. In this ten-part, intensive course led by Purdue MEP experts, you will learn and practice key skills every supervisor needs.

Becoming a Leader 
Effective leadership is a key component to organizational success. But what does it mean to lead effectively? In this workshop, you will learn the keys to effective leadership and assess your own leadership strengths and weaknesses. 

Building Self-Confidence and Trust
It has been said that a true leader has no fear. Self-confidence is a critical trait for every leader to possess in the right balance. Trust is the glue that holds every relationship together. While trust is a simple thing, it is not always easy to accomplish. In this course, you will learn reliable principles and methods for building trust that every leader can use. You will have the opportunity to select the key skills that they can practice to gain the ease of genuine self-confidence and use reliable methods for building trust with others. 

Culture Building: Vision, Mission, Values, and Strategic Alignment
Building the right culture is a key to achieving organizational success. Strategic alignment of organizational vision, mission, and values within every level of the organization is a must for us to achieve this success. This course shows the way. Participants learn how to take overall vision, mission and, values and break them down to each level within the organization to align them with our day-to-day activities and decision-making.

Customer Service Skills for Success
In today’s competitive environment, it is imperative to differentiate yourself. An often-overlooked area is capitalizing on your customer service staff to improve your customers’ experience. In order to ensure your client-facing representatives’ success, invest in their development while improving customer satisfaction. In this series, participants will discover new tools and practice key skills to build happy and long-lasting customers.

Effective Coaching, Communicating, and Listening
Effective Coaching, Communicating, and Listening are key elements toward building an intentional culture. This is a thoroughly interactive course with multiple scenarios, which allows participants to practice utilizing Emotional Intelligence and Productive Conflict Resolution with active listening, communicating, and coaching. Participants learn how to take real-world situations and apply best practices and techniques in day-to-day activities and communications.

Effective Communication and Listening
Have you ever expressed frustration around perceived poor communication? Effective communication is all about the transfer of information and the accurate understanding of that information. This workshop will explore the reason why communication efforts fail and then discover techniques to help improve your communication personal communication skills. 

Effective Time Management
The manufacturing workplace is complex and demanding, which can make it difficult for managers, leaders, and others to get things done. However, as a leader in manufacturing, how you spend your time directly affects the business. In this workshop, you'll learn tools and techniques you can implement immediately that will help you get things done, making you a more valuable resource to your organization.

Ethics in Leadership
Ethical leaders are concerned for the greater good, are honest and straightforward, strive for fairness, show respect for the individual, and take responsibility for their decisions. They also serve as role models in their organization. Evidence also suggests that over time, "ethical" organizations outperform those that do not operate ethically. In this workshop, you'll learn why ethics are important in organizations and how ethical leaders behave on a daily basis. You'll also evaluate real-world workplace situations from an ethical standpoint.

Finance for Non-Financial Managers
Finance for Non-Financial Managers walks through financial information on income statements, balance sheets and cash flow statements, and discusses common types of budgeting, so that non-financial managers will have a better understanding of what drives their organization’s bottom line.

HR is for Everyone
All leaders within an organization have some human resources (HR) responsibilities. Many, however, do not have any formal training on Human Resource Management (HRM). This course is designed to help non-HR leaders or those new to their HR role have a better understanding of HRM and their role in helping the HR team to achieve the overall vision, mission, and goals of the organization. Participants will review different approaches and functions of HR including areas of improvement within their own responsibility they can implement to help create a stronger organizational culture.

IDEA - Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access
Companies are focusing more on the critical role and value the workforce plays in the success of their organizations. Leaders and employees need to recognize that they all have to work together as a diverse, cohesive team to achieve top-level organizational performance. Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access (IDEA) plays a role in helping us work more effectively as a team and thus as an organization. This course helps you understand how our brains work when it comes to unconscious biases and how to overcome those biases to be a more productive team.

Leadership Through Change
As the saying goes, "change is the only constant in life." This is especially true in today's competitive business environment, where organizations must constantly adapt and improve to maintain a competitive edge. In this course, you'll learn about how change affects both our personal and organizational lives and the organizational issues that impact change. We'll also examine the techniques for driving organizational change and how to make that change meaningful for both the supervisor and the employee. The overall goal is to better equip you to successfully navigate the changes you face every day at work. 

Leading Gen Y & Z
Estimates show the workforce now has more Gen Y and Gen Z than any other generation. On a daily basis, Baby Boomers are retiring by the thousands, which makes this statement even more so. As with each generation before them, Generations Y & Z have their own way of looking at things. What interests them, what motivates them, what drives them is different than Boomers and Gen X. This course helps leaders to understand those differences and how to best lead teams with Gen Y and Gen Z in them.

Leading & Coaching for Superior Performance
Modern manufacturing practices have required leaders to transition from a traditional style of top-down supervision into leaders who can lead and coach individuals and teams for improved performance. The essence of a successful leader is the person who can make sure that the work gets done while developing individuals and teams at the same time. In this course, you will learn effective processes for leading and coaching individuals and teams. You will have the opportunity to select the key skills that they can practice on the job to get the best performance possible from the individuals and teams they lead. 

Managing Across Generations
In the next 10 years, half of the workforce will be made up of those identified as the millennial generation. Retiring Baby Boomers will be leaving the leadership ranks with more spaces than the Gen-Xers can fill and the workload will fall on the Gen-Y’s. This workshop explores the general perceived differences between the employees from the different generations in communication, workplace improvement, and employee effectiveness 

Managing Stress
Today's managers typically have too much to do and too little time to do it, a situation that commonly leads to stress. In this workshop, you'll learn about how stress affects the body and assess your own stress level. You'll also learn tools for identifying sources of stress and learn proven techniques for managing stress.

Productive Conflict Resolution
Conflict is a common problem in any organization that has people. Often, leaders are uncomfortable dealing with conflict because they do not have a process that keeps emotions under control. The good news is that an understanding of conflict, why it occurs, and how to manage it can help you turn a conflict situation into a positive opportunity for improvement. You will also have the opportunity to identify the key skills that they can practice to improve their ability to handle conflict in a productive way. 

Responding to Complaints
Part of being a supervisor or manager is dealing with employee complaints, and how complaints are handled in your workplace can have lasting effects, hopefully positive but possibly negative. In this workshop, you'll learn why people complain but techniques for effectively dealing with complaints. 

Team Building in Manufacturing
Teamwork is recognized as an important aspect of modern manufacturing. It is well known that people working together can accomplish more than individuals working in isolation. This session will provide practical methods to help teams become more effective and successful. Once an understanding of basic team dynamics is provided, you will be able to recognize specific areas where teams need help and will also have sound methods to help teams improve. You will have the opportunity to select the key skills that they can practice to improve the performance of their teams. 

Writing and Processing Emails
Billions of emails are sent each day around the world, and employees of most organizations spend a good portion of their days processing email. The ability to write clear, concise, and effective emails that get the desired results is a key skill needed in all organizations. In this workshop, you’ll learn the keys to writing effective emails using multiple examples and hands-on activities.

Leadership Consulting
Not sure where to start? Contact us at mepsupport@purdue.edu and let us assess and help develop the skills necessary for your organization. 

Gary Morris, President/COO, Clabber Girl 

Click here to read the Clabber Girl success story 

The program has allowed us to create an atmosphere that fosters teamwork and empowers employees to take ownership for their projects that have optimized production flow and reduced inefficiencies. Management and even office staff have gained insightful leadership experiences and buy-in of the lean concept. Our collaboration with Purdue has allowed us to move forward with our strategic vision and to always strive for continuous improvement.