June 21, 2004

Supervisory training series to begin at Workforce Development Center

What is the recipe for an effective leader? How do people become leaders? How do they manage change?

These questions and many more will be answered during a 10-week supervisory training series to be held at the Cowley College Workforce Development Center at Strother Field. The series will be held from 1-4 p.m. each Monday for 10 weeks beginning July 12. Classes will meet each Monday, excluding Labor Day, and will conclude on Sept. 20.

The workshop is being presented by The Training Depot, Inc., a training and consulting company that specializes in leadership, management, and supervisory development. Jackie Galleano is the presenter. Cost of the series is $400 per person.

“We work with clients to identify what their greatest needs are for developing their supervisors,” said Galleano, who spent more than 20 years in training and organizational development, primarily in the hotel and casino industries. “We try to identify training topics to match those needs. It’s not too surprising that needs of newly appointed supervisors and leaders are somewhat universal, regardless of what field they’re in.”

The 10 courses that will be covered are Becoming a Leader; Relationship Strategies; Teambuilding; Effective Communications; Smart Hiring; Training Job Skills; Giving Recognition, Coaching and Feedback; Dealing with Performance Problems; Conflict Management; and Managing Change.

“Some of the content deals with leadership behaviors, and some deal with skill-based models,” Galleano said. “The courses are all very interactive in that they include many activities that engage the learners. It’s not a presentation style workshop.”

Supervisors, managers, leads and team leads, trainers, human resource managers and general managers are some of the supervisory positions this workshop targets. Galleano said the instruction would be practical and useful.

“It’s one thing to tell you how to handle an employee, it’s another to give you a case study and break you into groups to discuss it,” Galleano said. “Most of it is facilitation. We’ll give them models to follow, conduct some small-group exercises, case studies, large-group discussions, and exercises that replicate lots of the same pressures they experience as supervisors.” 

Galleano said participants would be given skill development models in which to practice.

“We allow them to either succeed or fail,” she said. “Some of the best lessons occur when they fail. What did you do that worked, and what did you do that didn’t work. The approach of learning is what we call the discovery method.”

Galleano said she would present real situations to participants, including how to conduct a job interview, train new employees on job skills, provide coaching and feedback, deal with performance problems, and so on.

“I’ll give them a step-by-step process and discuss why each step is critical,” she said. “There’s a difference in knowing about something and being able to do it. We’ll use real situations, and everyone will have a chance to practice. When they’re not practicing being a manager, they’ll practice being an employee.”

Galleano, the former Jackie Swaim, was born in Arkansas City, graduated from Oxford High School, and spent her first year of college at Cowley. After Cowley, she transferred to San Diego State University where she earned a teaching degree, and later continued her hotel management studies at New York’s Cornell University.

Galleano said she’s looking forward to conducting the workshop.

“This is such a practical approach,” she said. “They’re going to have fun, because I came from a fun industry.”

For more information or to enroll, contact Shannon Massey at the Cowley College Workforce Development Center at (620) 442-1494 or 221-1000.