Essential Management Skills for Executive Assistants, Senior PAs and Administration Professionals

About

COURSE OBJECTIVE

To provide you with the knowledge to optimise your own productivity, increase the effectiveness of your team and to manage an increased workload.

Elaine holds an enviable track record of facilitating various Bright*Star courses with consistent success. Among some of the other popular and excellent courses she facilitates for Bright*Star are Managing Multiple Priorities, Business Management for Senior PAs & Executive Assistants and Management Skills for New Managers.

Elaine’s presentation and facilitation style is highly effective, practical and lessons learnt are easy to implement straightaway upon returning to work.

“Excellent course. Elaine is very easy to listen to and to understand. She is very clear in getting her information across and was happy to change some parts of the course to suit the audience.”
Sharon Christian, Personal Assistant, PricewaterhouseCoopers

“Fantastic course. I learned a lot more than anticipated. Elaine is a fantastic facilitator. I wouldn’t hesitate to attend another course run by her.”
Donna Stewart, Executive Secretary, Methanex NZ Ltd

Outline

Identifying the Critical Skills for Effective Management
• Defining the necessary skills for effective management
• What are the main causes of management failure?
• Understanding where you should be applying management skills in your role
• Applying management skills to improve your overall performance

Developing Effective Communication Skills
• Examining the barriers to effective communication
• Active listening to improve your comprehension
• Using body language to communicate
• Saying what you mean
• Using paraphrasing to reinforce your message and your understanding of messages
• Speaking so others will listen and respect your opinion and knowledge

Developing the Essential Assertiveness Necessary for Today’s Business Climate
• What is assertiveness and why is it crucial to success and growth in your role?
• Applying assertiveness techniques that will help you achieve your objectives
• Understanding the link between confidence and assertiveness and developing both
• Assertive communication and behaviour without becoming inflexible or aggressive

Effective Time Management in a Reactive Support Role
• Overcoming the time management challenges of a role dependent on the priorities of others
• Identifying and eliminating procrastination by understanding when and why you procrastinate
• Allowing time for people interaction and meetings while ensuring everything else gets done
• Working towards creating a more proactive environment to better juggle your routine and reactive duties
• Techniques for coping with a large and growing workload
• Ensuring your efforts are directed towards the most critical areas of your job
• Applying techniques which will help you prioritise effectively and focus on activities that add most value to the organisation
• Switching gears between managing and doing

The Fundamentals of Project Management
• What should you consider a ‘project’ requiring project management?
• How is project management different from key day-to-day management principles?
• Applying proven project management techniques to better manage and complete non-routine duties
• Setting project objectives
• Building a project plan which focuses on the objectives
• Setting a clearly defined and achievable schedule with deadlines and sufficient detail

Managing People for Increased Performance
• What makes a good people manager?
• Understanding the challenges of effective supervision and people management
• Developing an effective people management style that works for you
• Building flexibility into your people management skills to get the best from different types of people
• Coaching and teaching skills that can save time and frustration on both sides
• Effective, painless and fair delegation – assigning tasks to others
• Giving and receiving feedback to continually monitor and improve your people management
• Managing people when you are only responsible for the result, not the person
• How to get and keep control

Dealing With Difficult People, Difficult Behaviours and Workplace Conflict
• Avoiding clashes by dealing with situations immediately and effectively
• Diffusing difficult situations before they become critical
• Overcoming a natural fear of confrontation and conflict
• Developing a win/win approach for dealing with difficult people
• Objectively identifying the real issues in a conflict
• Managing emotions and personality conflicts
• Attacking the problem (not the person) with a workable solution
• Committing yourself to reaching a resolution with compromise

Dealing Effectively With Stress
• Examining the causes of stress and your vulnerability to decreased effectiveness
• Reducing the negative effects of stress and accentuating the positive
• Spotting the signs of stress in yourself and others
• Tips for better stress management

Spotting Opportunities for Growth in Your Role
• Knowing your time and skill limits
• Dealing with failure and success and accepting responsibility either way
• Removing the barriers: identifying the factors that hinder your progress and setting plans to eliminate or circumvent them
• Becoming proactive in your role for continuous growth and challenge
• Setting growth objectives for yourself and your role 

Facilitator

Elaine McMeeking, People Development Specialist, Retail Training

Elaine McMeeking has a reputation as one of New Zealand’s most effective management training professionals.

Before moving to New Zealand, Elaine started her career in training, HR and recruitment roles in South Africa. For the last six years she has worked as a management and training consultant for a number of large organisations, focusing on the areas of personal efficiency, performance management and appraisal, presentation, facilitation, sales and customer service.

Elaine’s enviable academic achievements and international experience as a management training specialist is complimented by her friendly and open style. With an obvious talent for facilitation, her well known professionalism and her knowledge and understanding of the topic, you can count on a practical and results oriented course.

Elaine McMeeking is also facilitating:

• Effective Interpersonal Skills and Business Communication
• Management Skills for New Managers
• Multiple Priorities and Time Management
• Outstanding Reception Manager

In-house Training

Prices and Registration

* Early bird price available when you register and pay before the dates listed.