Course Outline

The Role Of The Executive Secretary/PA

• Key functions of your role
• Self assessment

Leadership And Office Management

• Your leadership style
• Factors that influence leadership in the organisation and in the office
• Ways in which you can influence your team
• Leadership models – situational leadership, transformational leadership and results-based leadership
• Why networking is critical to your success

Communicating For Results

• Why are effective communication skills important?
• What is communication?
• The communication process
• Barriers to effective communication
• Skills for effective communication, persuasion and influence
• Listening – the key to communication success
• Feedback
• Assertion
• Building relations and trust

This session incorporates a fun and an effective questionnaire titled “What’s My Communication Style?” Understanding your communication style is an important first step in learning how to communicate effectively with others. This questionnaire will give you a new insight into how you communicate every day.

Interpersonal Relations And Motivation

• Motivating your team
• Motivation theories
• Motivating for performance
• The importance of goals and objectives
• Coaching your team

Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence (EI) is a combination of self-management and social skills that can transform and optimise individual and team performance. The construct of Emotional Intelligence defines how effectively you perceive, understand, reason with and manage your own and others’ feelings. When applied to your work, EI involves your capacity to think “intelligently” with your own and others’ emotions to intentionally and efficiently deliver individual and organisational outcomes.

• Understand the concept of “Emotional Intelligence”
• Understand why high self-awareness is the basic building block of EI, and how low selfawareness can handicap your actions
  • Explore critical research findings about EI
  • Appreciate how EI impacts your life generally, and your ability to support your boss and team
• Learn the five key domains of Emotional Intelligence
• Consider your own current level of EI across these domains
• Develop skills that help to build your emotional awareness of yourself and others
• Embed emotionally-intelligent behaviour in your roles
• Learn how to coach others to better understand EI

Managing Work

• Time management/self management
• Managing stress
• Goal setting
• Priority management
• Becoming a Quadrant II time manager
• Dealing with time wasters
• Maximise effectiveness by managing meetings
• Delegate for maximum effect

Problem Solving And Decision Making In The Modern Office

• Barriers to decision making
• The six-step problem solving process

Managing Change

• Change as a constant in today’s workplace
• Steps for successful change
• Managing loss
• Stages of change
• The change management checklist

Effective Selection And Recruitment Techniques

• How to collect information about a job and analyse a position?
• Writing a position description
• Writing a person specification
• Advertising for the job
• Reviewing applicants
• Skills for effective interviewing
• Bias-free selection procedures
• Induction and orientation of the new team member

Managing Conflict

• What is conflict?
• Finding an appropriate conflict management style
• Mapping and defining conflict
• Appropriate assertiveness and empathy
• Dealing with anger in yourself and others
• Pathways to influence
• Appropriate negotiation techniques

Summary, Review And Action Planning

Where to go from here? An opportunity to consolidate your learning and make concrete plans for your future success as an Executive Secretary, PA or Office Manager.