Course Title

Day 1 — Leadership Identity, Self-Awareness, and Emotional Intelligence

1. Introduction to Management and Leadership

1.1 Management versus Leadership

• Management — planning, organizing, directing, and controlling resources to achieve defined objectives

• Leadership — influencing people to commit to a direction beyond what authority alone can produce

• The integrated leader-manager — both disciplines are required; neither alone is sufficient

• Leadership theories evolution — Trait Theory, Behavioural Theory, Contingency Theory, and Transformational Theory

• ISO 9001:2015 Clause 5 — leadership and commitment as a formal quality management obligation

• ISO 45001:2018 Clause 5 — leadership and worker participation as a formal HSE management obligation

1.2 Leadership Identity and Style

• Leadership identity — understanding the values, beliefs, and assumptions that shape leadership behavior

• Autocratic versus democratic versus laissez-faire leadership — and when each is appropriate

• Transformational Leadership — inspiring performance beyond expectation through vision, values, and individual consideration

• Servant Leadership — the leader's primary role is to remove obstacles and enable team success

• Leadership self-assessment — identifying personal leadership strengths and development priorities

• Leadership brand — the reputation a leader builds through consistent behavior over time

2. Emotional Intelligence in Leadership

2.1 EI Framework

• Emotional Intelligence — EI developed by Daniel Goleman — the ability to recognize, understand, and manage emotions in self and others

• Self-awareness — recognizing one's own emotions, triggers, and their impact on others

• Self-regulation — managing emotional reactions before they damage leadership credibility

• Motivation — intrinsic drive to achieve that sustains performance beyond external rewards

• Empathy — understanding the emotional state of others and responding appropriately

• Social skills — building relationships, influencing others, and managing conflict constructively

2.2 Applying EI in Leadership Practice

• Emotional triggers — identifying personal triggers that produce unconstructive leadership behavior

• Emotional regulation techniques — pause, reframe, and respond rather than react

• Empathetic listening — giving full attention, suspending judgment, and reflecting understanding

• EI and psychological safety — leaders with high EI create environments where people raise concerns without fear

• EI under pressure — maintaining leadership composure during crisis, conflict, and organizational change

3. Situational Leadership®

3.1 Development Level Diagnosis

• Situational Leadership® Model developed by Hersey and Blanchard — no single leadership style is effective in all situations

• Development Level — D1: Enthusiastic Beginner — high commitment, low competence

• Development Level — D2: Disillusioned Learner — low commitment, some competence

• Development Level — D3: Capable but Cautious — variable commitment, high competence

• Development Level — D4: Self-Reliant Achiever — high commitment, high competence

• Development level assessment — diagnosing each team member's level for each specific task

3.2 Leadership Style Matching

• S1: Directing — high directive, low supportive — for D1 team members needing structure and instruction

• S2: Coaching — high directive, high supportive — for D2 team members needing both guidance and encouragement

• S3: Supporting — low directive, high supportive — for D3 team members needing confidence and autonomy

• S4: Delegating — low directive, low supportive — for D4 team members ready for full ownership

• Style mismatch — applying S4 to a D1 team member or S1 to a D4 team member are the most damaging leadership errors

• Situational Leadership in practice — adjusting style as team members develop within the same role

Day 2 — Team Development, Communication, and Delegation

4. Team Development and Dynamics

4.1 Tuckman's Model

• Tuckman's Model of Team Development — Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, and Adjourning

• Forming — team members are polite, uncertain, and dependent on the leader for direction

• Storming — conflict emerges as team members challenge roles, authority, and working methods

• Norming — team establishes shared norms, roles clarify, and collaboration improves

• Performing — team operates with high autonomy, mutual trust, and consistent high performance

• Adjourning — team disbands after project completion — requires acknowledgment and transition support

• Leadership role by stage — Directing at Forming, Coaching through Storming, Supporting at Norming, Delegating at Performing

4.2 Building High-Performance Teams

• Psychological safety — team members must feel safe to speak up, take risks, and admit mistakes

• Google Project Aristotle findings — psychological safety is the single strongest predictor of team performance

• Diversity and inclusion — diverse teams outperform homogeneous teams when inclusion enables full contribution

• Team roles — Belbin's Team Role model — identifying complementary roles that build team balance

• Trust building — consistent behavior, follow-through on commitments, and transparency in decision-making

• Managing multicultural teams — adapting leadership communication to cultural norms in GCC environments

5. Leadership Communication

• Communication model — sender, message, channel, receiver, and feedback loop

• Active listening — full attention, clarifying questions, and paraphrasing to confirm understanding

• Non-verbal communication — body language, eye contact, and tone account for the majority of message impact

• Assertive communication — expressing needs and positions clearly without aggression or passivity

• Upward communication — briefing senior leadership on performance, risks, and resource needs

• Downward communication — cascading organizational direction to the team clearly and consistently

• Difficult conversations — addressing underperformance, conflict, and sensitive issues constructively

• Cross-cultural communication — adjusting directness, formality, and feedback style in GCC multicultural teams

6. Delegation and Accountability

• Delegation definition — assigning authority and responsibility to another person to complete a defined task

• Delegation barrier — leaders who do not delegate create bottlenecks and limit team development

• RACI Matrix — Responsible, Accountable, Consulted, and Informed — clarifying roles for each task or decision

• Responsible — the person who does the work

• Accountable — the single person who owns the outcome and cannot be delegated

• Consulted — those whose input is needed before the decision or action

• Informed — those who need to know the outcome but are not involved in the decision

• Delegation process — brief, resource, authorize, monitor, and acknowledge

• Delegation follow-up — checking progress without micromanaging — the S3 supporting style applied

Day 3 — Performance Management, Coaching, and Feedback

7. Performance Management

7.1 Goal Setting and Expectations

• Performance management cycle — plan, support, review, and develop

• SMART Goal Setting — Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound

• Goal cascade — organizational objectives cascade to department KPIs to individual SMART goals

• Expectations clarity — ambiguous expectations are the most common cause of underperformance

• KPI selection — choosing the two to three measures that most directly reflect individual contribution

• Performance contract — a documented and agreed record of expectations, KPIs, and support commitments

7.2 Performance Review and Underperformance

• Regular one-to-one meetings — the primary performance management mechanism between formal reviews

• Performance appraisal — structured annual or semi-annual review of achievement against goals and competencies

• 360-degree feedback — gathering performance input from peers, subordinates, and stakeholders

• Underperformance root cause — most underperformance traces to unclear expectations, inadequate support, or wrong role fit

• Performance Improvement Plan — PIP — structured intervention with clear targets, support, and timeline

• Documentation discipline — recording all performance conversations per ISO 9001 competency record requirements

8. Coaching and Mentoring

8.1 GROW Coaching Model

• GROW Coaching Model — Goal, Reality, Options, Will — the most widely applied coaching framework

• Goal — what the coachee wants to achieve from this conversation and in the longer term

• Reality — current situation, obstacles, and what has already been tried

• Options — all possible actions available to the coachee without the coach directing the solution

• Will — the specific action the coachee commits to, with timeline and accountability

• Coaching versus directing — the coach asks, the director tells — both have a place depending on development level

• GROW in practice — a skilled coach spends most time in Options and Will, not Goal and Reality

8.2 Mentoring and Development

• Mentoring distinction — a mentor shares experience and perspective; a coach draws out the coachee's own solutions

• Mentoring relationship structure — defined objectives, meeting frequency, and development focus agreed upfront

• 70-20-10 Development Model — 70% on-the-job experience, 20% coaching and feedback, and 10% formal training

• Individual Development Plan — IDP — documenting development objectives, activities, timeline, and progress

• Leader as developer — the most impactful leadership behavior is developing the capability of each team member

9. Feedback and Difficult Conversations

• SBI Feedback Framework — Situation, Behavior, Impact — the most effective structured feedback model

• Situation — the specific context in which the behavior occurred

• Behavior — the observable action — not the inferred intention or character

• Impact — the effect of the behavior on the team, the work, or the relationship

• Positive SBI — reinforcing effective behavior with the same specificity as corrective feedback

• Feedback frequency — feedback given immediately after the behavior is significantly more effective than delayed feedback

• Receiving feedback — modeling openness to feedback as a leader creates a team culture that welcomes it

• Difficult conversation structure — prepare, state purpose, present SBI, invite response, agree action, and close

Day 4 — Decision Making, Conflict, and Change Leadership

10. Decision Making and Problem Solving

10.1 Decision-Making Frameworks

• Rational decision-making model — define the problem, gather information, generate options, evaluate, and decide

• Bounded rationality — managers make satisfactory decisions with limited information, not optimal decisions with perfect information

• Decision-making biases — confirmation bias, anchoring, availability heuristic, and groupthink

• Risk-based decision making — weighing probability and consequence before committing to a course of action

• Consensus versus directive decision — knowing when to involve the team and when to decide independently

• Decision documentation — recording the rationale for significant decisions per ISO 9001 Clause 7.5

10.2 Problem Solving in Leadership

• Applying RCA — Root Cause Analysis to leadership and team performance problems

• Five Whys — drilling from the presenting problem to the systemic or cultural root cause

• Fishbone — Ishikawa — diagram for team performance problems involving multiple contributing factors

• Creative problem solving — suspending judgment during idea generation before evaluating options

• Applying PDCA — Plan-Do-Check-Act to leadership improvement initiatives

11. Conflict Management and Negotiation

• Conflict sources — competing priorities, scarce resources, unclear roles, and communication breakdown

• Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument — five conflict styles: Competing, Collaborating, Compromising, Avoiding, and Accommodating

• Collaborating style — the highest-value conflict resolution approach for complex interpersonal disputes

• When to avoid — low-stakes conflicts where the relationship cost of engagement exceeds the benefit

• Mediation process — the leader as neutral facilitator when two team members are in conflict

• Interest-based negotiation — focusing on underlying needs rather than fixed positions

• BATNA — Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement — knowing the walk-away position before negotiating

• Conflict escalation prevention — intervening early before positions harden and relationship damage accumulates

12. Change Leadership

12.1 Kotter's 8-Step Change Model

• Kotter's 8-Step Change Model — the most widely applied organizational change management framework

• Step 1 — Create Urgency: building the compelling case for why change is necessary now

• Step 2 — Build a Guiding Coalition: assembling a team with credibility, authority, and commitment to lead the change

• Step 3 — Form a Strategic Vision: defining what the change will achieve and what success looks like

• Step 4 — Communicate the Vision: consistent, multi-channel communication by credible leaders

• Step 5 — Remove Obstacles: identifying and eliminating structural, procedural, and cultural barriers to change

• Step 6 — Generate Short-Term Wins: creating early visible results that build momentum and credibility

• Step 7 — Sustain Acceleration: using early wins to drive further change rather than declaring premature victory

• Step 8 — Anchor in Culture: embedding the change in organizational norms, systems, and leadership behavior

12.2 Leading People Through Change

• Kübler-Ross Change Curve — Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance — as a people transition model

• Leader's role at each curve stage — informing at Denial, listening at Anger, exploring at Bargaining, supporting at Depression, and reinforcing at Acceptance

• Resistance as information — resistance reveals concerns that must be addressed, not overcome by authority

• Stakeholder analysis for change — mapping supporters, neutrals, and resisters before launching the change

• Communication frequency during change — people need to hear the change message seven times before they begin to internalize it

Day 5 — Strategic Leadership, Culture, HSE Integration, and Case Studies

13. Strategic Thinking and Organizational Alignment

• Strategic thinking — looking beyond the immediate operational horizon to anticipate threats and opportunities

• Translating organizational strategy into team priorities — the manager's primary strategic contribution

• OKR — Objectives and Key Results — cascading organizational goals to individual level

• Balanced Scorecard — BSC — understanding the four performance perspectives as a management framework

• Resource prioritization — allocating team time and budget to highest-strategic-impact activities

• Innovation culture — creating space for team members to propose and test improvements

• Long-term talent development — identifying and developing future leaders within the team

14. Organizational Culture and Leadership

• Culture definition — the shared values, beliefs, and behaviors that govern how people actually work

• Culture versus stated values — culture is what happens when the leader is not in the room

• Leader behavior as the primary culture driver — what the leader tolerates, rewards, and models defines the culture

• Psychological safety culture — creating an environment where challenge, experimentation, and error are safe

• Accountability culture — clear expectations, consistent consequences, and transparent performance dialogue

• Learning culture — treating mistakes as system improvement data rather than individual failure events

• Cultural change levers — hiring decisions, promotion decisions, recognition, and symbolic leadership behavior

15. HSE Leadership and Quality Management Integration

• Leadership commitment to HSE per ISO 45001:2018 Clause 5.1 — top management sets the safety culture

• Worker consultation and participation per ISO 45001:2018 Clause 5.4 — leaders must actively involve teams in safety decisions

• Leadership commitment to quality per ISO 9001:2015 Clause 5.1 — quality starts with leadership behavior, not procedures

• Customer focus per ISO 9001:2015 Clause 5.1.2 — leaders ensure team understanding of customer requirements

• Applying PDCA to team and individual performance improvement

• Applying RCA to recurring team performance failures — addressing root causes rather than symptoms

• Safety leadership behaviors — visible felt leadership, stop-the-job authority, and safety conversation discipline

16. Leadership Development Planning

• Leadership competency framework — the defined set of behaviors expected at each leadership level

• Personal leadership development plan — identifying the two to three leadership behaviors to develop in the next 90 days

• 70-20-10 application — identifying the on-the-job opportunities, coaching relationships, and formal learning for each development priority

• Accountability partner — nominating a peer who will review development plan progress monthly

• Leadership journal — daily reflection habit for accelerating leadership self-awareness development

• Sustaining development after the course — the specific commitments each participant makes before leaving

17. Case Studies and Group Discussions

• Case studies from management and leadership failures and successes in Middle East oil and gas, construction, industrial, and service environments including leaders who applied the wrong Situational Leadership style to experienced team members, managers who avoided performance conversations until team performance collapsed, and organizations that failed to anchor change in culture and regressed to previous behaviors — and the importance of structured management and leadership competency development in sustained organizational performance

• Group discussion on leadership challenges in regional GCC environments including applying EI in high-power-distance organizational cultures, managing performance conversations with team members from cultures where direct feedback is experienced as disrespectful, navigating change leadership in organizations where hierarchy constrains the guiding coalition, and building psychological safety in multicultural teams across Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar

• Integrated leadership simulation — participants lead a presented team scenario through a performance challenge applying Situational Leadership diagnosis, GROW coaching conversation, SBI feedback delivery, and Kotter's change model planning — assessed by facilitator and peer review against the leadership competency framework