Executive programme · Leadership
The job you have not been offered yet
Preparing to lead is not waiting for the appointment. It is building, while you are still an individual professional, what the post will demand from its first week.
- Duration
- 16 hours
- Delivery
- On site · Virtual
- Participants
- From 6 to 14 participants
- Investment
- Request a quote
Investment depends on scope, number of participants and delivery mode. We prepare a proposal at no obligation.
The problem it solves
Most of the preparation people actually do for leading consists of working harder at the job they already hold. More volume, more hours, more visible willingness. It is reasonable preparation for remaining an excellent individual professional and it prepares for none of what comes next, because the craft practised afterwards is not an enlarged version of the current one. It is a different craft, measured by other people's work.
What happens in the first weeks of someone unprepared repeats with little variation. They keep doing the technical work, which is what they know how to do and the only work whose result they can see, while decisions pile up and the team waits for instructions that do not arrive. They work longer hours than before and produce less that can be attributed to them. And because technical work pays off immediately, every day reinforces the behaviour that has to be abandoned.
By the time the person understands this, the reputation of the first months has already formed and the options have narrowed. Some ask to return to their previous post, which is rarely still available on the same terms. Others stay, held up by effort, leading at half strength. In neither case was capability the thing missing. What was missing was preparation the individual assumed would be provided and the company assumed would happen by itself.
What it covers
The programme is built for the person, not for their employer. It does not assess participants, it produces no reports about them, and it takes no part in any organisation's promotion decisions. It works on what a professional can build on their own account before the appointment conversation happens, and it runs across several sessions, because part of the work consists of trying things between one and the next.
The first block establishes what the change of craft consists of. Through self-assessment and case discussion, each participant examines where their time goes today, which part of that constitutes their current value, and which part would stop counting from day one in a management post. The uncomfortable conversation is about loss: which work, of the kind they do well and enjoy, will no longer be theirs.
The second block deals with what gets built beforehand. Documenting and handing over the work only that person knows how to do, because nobody can be promoted out of a post nobody can fill. Making judgement visible instead of effort. Building relationships with the areas they will later have to negotiate with holding no authority. And practising giving and receiving feedback, which is the daily instrument of the next post.
The third block covers the transition itself. What to find out before accepting, with specific questions about scope, decisions, resources and expectations; how to hold that conversation with whoever offers the post without appearing to distrust them; and how to enter. A management simulation works through the first weeks: the colleague who becomes a direct report, the technical work that has to be released on a date, what to ask the team at the start and what to promise. The programme closes with a personal preparation plan written by each participant.
What participants learn
- Analyse what changes between producing work yourself and producing through other people.
- Identify which part of your current value stops counting in a management post.
- Design the handover of the work only you currently know how to do.
- Develop the questions you will ask before accepting a management position.
- Apply a first-weeks plan naming the technical work you will release and the date you release it.
Agenda
- The change of craft: producing through other people
- What distinguishes you today and stops counting tomorrow
- Building a replacement for the work only you do
- Visible judgement against visible effort
- Relationships with the areas you will later negotiate with
- What to find out before accepting the post
- The colleague who becomes a direct report
- Releasing the technical work on a date
What the organisation leaves with
- A written personal preparation plan covering what gets built before any appointment, and in what order.
- A documented handover of the work only the participant currently knows how to do.
- The list of questions they will ask before accepting a post, with what each one needs to establish.
- A first-weeks plan naming the technical work they will stop doing and the date they stop.
Programme details
- Format
- Executive programme
- Also available as
- Corporate training day · Intensive workshop
- Languages
- Español · English
- Includes
- Participant workbook
- Action plan
- Post-training resources
- Facilitation
- ALUD Consulting LLC — Global Business Transformation.
Who it is for
- Individual professionals working towards a first management position.
- Technical specialists their company points to as possible supervisors.
- People already coordinating work without a formal team who want to prepare before any appointment.
- Professionals who turned down a post for lack of preparation and are weighing a second opportunity.
Frequently asked questions
- Does the programme guarantee a promotion?
- It guarantees nothing and can influence nothing. Promotions are decided by each organisation on its own criteria, and ALUD takes no part in those decisions. What the programme produces is preparation: a person ready for a conversation whose date they do not control.
- Is this the programme a company uses to decide whom to promote?
- It is not, and the distinction matters. Nobody is assessed here and no reports go to an employer. A company that needs a promotion criterion is looking for something else, which is work done with leadership rather than with candidates.
- Is it useful if I was appointed a few months ago?
- Partly. The transition and first-weeks blocks still apply, but someone months into the post has a more specific problem, which is their decision perimeter, and that is better addressed in a session dedicated to it.
- What if during the programme I conclude that I do not want to lead?
- That is a legitimate result and it happens. Discovering before the appointment that the craft does not interest you saves the person and a future team several difficult years. The programme does not push anyone towards management; it helps decide with information about what the post actually asks.
Request this programme
Tell us the context and we will prepare a proposal tailored to your organisation. No obligation.
Working this inside the organisation
If this challenge will not be settled in one session, ALUD Consulting LLC works it as consulting: management consulting, human resources, strategy, organisational design, leadership development and business transformation.