Training Talk - Management training
Gabriella Jozwiak
Monday, April 2, 2018
Taking a leadership qualification helped Niruthiga Yogarajah learn successful delegation skills and how to tailor her management approach. By Gabriella Jozwiak
When Niruthiga Yogarajah attended her first staff meeting as a newly appointed London Early Years Foundation (LEYF) nursery deputy manager, she asked colleagues to complete a questionnaire about themselves. ‘Everyone learns differently – some are practical, some learn from instructions, others need one-to-one help,’ she says. ‘They really liked it – they found out how they learned themselves, and how we could help each other’.
Ms Yogarajah learned the technique on an Institute of Leadership and Management Level 3 course. A tutor delivered the training in-house as part of LEYF’s Inspiring Leaders Programme. It runs the course twice a year.
Last year she joined about 20 other trainees on the course, which was delivered over six day-long sessions held every fortnight at LEYF’s head office.
The course covered topics including how to perform management tasks, how to lead teams, communications skills, and managing people and relationships. The tutor worked with trainees to explore the areas by presenting them with real workplace problems and asking them to work in smaller groups, or as a whole group, to find solutions.
‘We would have to go into nursery after each training session and see how we could perform what we’d learnt,’ explains Ms Yogarajah. ‘The next week, we would come and talk about it, how it went, or if we didn’t do it, why that was.’
As well as the questionnaire technique, Ms Yogarajah says the course taught her to understand the value of delegation. ‘I was usually the person to take things on and do it myself,’ she describes. ‘The tutor taught me delegating is the best way to move forward. I took that to my new role and it really helped.’
At the end of the training, the trainees were asked to produce a written assignment, in which they explained how they would implement the skills the course covered in their daily work, and make reference to theories of leadership and management.
As a result, Ms Yogarajah received a certificate at the end of the course. ‘It’s nationally recognised, which is really good if I ever want to change jobs,’ she adds.
