Are you an aspiring manager? Do you feel the pull towards leadership? In this article, Petia Tzanova, =mc Learning and Development Consultant draws on her extensive career to outline key considerations when taking your first step into management.  If you’re undecided whether a management role is the right move for you, then use this guide to help you work out your options. In the non-profit sector we often consider management as the inevitable next step if we want to grow and progress in our career. And although becoming a manager can be incredibly rewarding, it’s not for everyone and isn ..read more

Chris Chadford, Learning and Development Manager at the Calico Group In this interview Chris Chadford, Learning and Development Manager at the Calico Group, shares his experience of developing managers so they have commercial, financial and innovation skills. The Calico Group is a collection of social profit-for-purpose businesses, charities and services, that exist to make a difference to people’s lives. Whilst each area of the group has its own expertise and specialism, they work collaboratively and in doing so have even greater impact. With around 1,000 dedicated employees, Calico strives ..read more

Welcome to the Safe Space – where managers can share their issues, and gain advice from top learning & development consultants. Here at =mc we encourage every participant we meet on our programmes to get in touch if they have specific issues they want to follow up on. From this we hear some common problems, issues, challenges, and worries. In this regular feature, we share some of those challenges, and our advice, for dealing with them. This month we respond to a very busy HR manager, who is being pulled in different directions. What’s the issue Hello =mc team, I hope this email finds you ..read more

=mc Director Laura Slater blogs on a the benefits of using the ‘coach approach’ with your teams. Here at =mc we know that stepping into leadership is a big deal. As you become more senior in an organisation, an exciting aspect of moving up is being able to actually set the direction for your team or department – and the organisation. However, this is not easy to do. A big challenge experienced by participants on our leadership courses is that they continue to find themselves getting sucked into day to day operational tasks, rather than focussing on the more strategic elements of thei ..read more

Being assertive at work can be really hard, and this is something many people struggle with. Our insecurities, perceived weaknesses, motivations and goals can all stop us from being assertive when we need to be. In this article, Charlotte Scott explains why we need assertiveness, what it actually is, and how to be assertive. Why we need assertiveness Assertiveness is a communication skill, and displaying assertiveness is essential to working with others. Being assertive enables you to put forward your ideas, thoughts and opinions by expressing yourself effectively. It also helps to earn others ..read more

In this interview, Rebecca Cooper, Head of People and Development at ACT Training shares her experience of what effective leadership development looks like in action. ACT Training provides a wide range of fully-funded training programmes for individuals and employers in Wales. Their mission to improve lives through learning stands side by side with our own at =mc, so of course we were thrilled when they got in touch about working together. =mc: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us Rebecca, and for sharing your feedback. Tell us about what prompted you to commission training for you ..read more

Online learning was pushed into the spotlight a few years ago out of necessity. Since then, many of our customers still choose to develop their teams via a virtual classroom. Where face to face training has all the known benefits of physically being in the same learning environment, online opens up access to those in different locations, as well as offering many accessibility options. So which is best for your people – online or face to face training?   The answer to which training format is best is… it depends! It depends on what you are looking to achieve with your training – the ..read more

Being a manager means taking on more responsibilities and also letting go of others. However, as much as we know delegation is a good thing – we still struggle to do it well. Delegation provides your team with learning opportunities, development projects, balances workload and gives room for new insights. As a manager though you may be reluctant to overload people, to let go of tasks that you enjoy, or to invest the time in showing someone the ropes. The price of deciding to do everything yourself because it’s ‘quicker than explaining what’s needed to someone else’ can cause delays in processe ..read more

John Adair’s Action-Centred Leadership is a classic leadership model, first shared in 1973[i]. It’s used widely in management development to help managers get to grips with the multiple responsibilities that they need. A lot has changed over the last fifty years, and the situations we face as managers feel increasingly complex. Is this model still relevant? What the model says Adair was one of the first to say that leadership is what you do (the actions you take) rather than a trait or personality quirk. Therefore, anyone, in any role, can learn how to be a great leader. For managers, this is ..read more

Welcome to the Safe Space – where managers can share their issues, and gain advice from top learning & development consultants. Here at =mc we encourage every participant we meet on our programmes to get in touch if they have specific issues they want to follow up on. From this we hear some common problems, issues, challenges, and worries. In this regular feature, we share some of those challenges, and our advice, for dealing with them. This month we respond to a very busy manager, in need of some encouragement and techniques to deal with both a marathon and a mountain simultaneously. What ..read more