Leadership for Managers Series, Online Training, 2001, EDT Learning, $245 - $700.
Review by Deanne Bryce

Effective managers are busy people. They tend to focus on short-term performance, managing budgets and resources. How can organizations help them become more visionary, focused more on the long term? Many organizations elect to implement a leadership development program. But how can organizations get managers up to speed on essential leadership skills without spending large amounts of time in the classroom?

Web-based content is a choice to consider for all types of content. In fact, in the 2002 State of the Industry Report compiled by ASTD, 54.8% of the organizations surveyed were looking to the web for some aspect of their training delivery. The web is an excellent choice in terms of access. Learners can use any computer with a browser and Internet access to receive the content.

When the goal is to develop managers into leaders, is the web a viable option? I am a consultant who has studied leadership and specializes in leadership development. I firmly believe the web is a viable option for one specific aspect of learning to lead. As with any new learning, people need basic knowledge before they can move on to new skills and behaviors. Yet, the ultimate objective for leadership and management training is to transfer knowledge from the training event to workplace results. So you need to supplement online training with coaching and/or practice sessions.

EDT Learning and The Tuck School at Dartmouth offer an online Leadership for Managers Series that provides basic knowledge about the transition from a management to a leadership perspective. The series includes six courses of two to three hours per course for a total seat time of 12 to 18 hours. The courses are on the following topics:

• Building a Foundation for Leadership

• Communicating Effectively as a Leader

• Leading High Performance Teams

• Coaching to Drive Performance

• Leading Change Successfully

• Leading a Diversity Initiative

The courses are broken down into units that last from 25 to 45 minutes. Each includes a pre-assessment, instruction, and a post-assessment. When working on the actual unit, you can expect it to begin with a scenario that introduces a main character. The introduction is only one or two screens; the next five to 10 screens move away from the scenario to directly teach a few concepts.

After the concepts are explained, you see how the character applies the concepts in a scenario. The scenarios and characters are realistic because the characters struggle with a leadership concept and find out about their the leadership performance in a very real way: feedback from rumors, personal reflections, and interpretations of the way people behave after an interaction with them. Without directly stating it, these scenarios model the need to reflect and try again when things don’t go well in leading others.

The characters in the scenarios don’t always get it right the second time either; in some cases they make several attempts to finally connect with their teams. Again, portraying leadership in this way is very realistic, and I commend the designers for presenting their concepts in such an authentic fashion.

The designers of this series planned well, providing several types of interaction. For example, on one screen the learner has a table with buttons to click, and then more information is revealed in a drop-down format. The next screen could include a self-assessment with customized feedback based on the choices selected. Another interactive method provides a place to record personal experiences. These various methods show that the designers have an understanding of important learning principles such as tapping into learner emotions and past experiences.

I was able to access the courseware from both my home and office computer. It was easy to start where I left off and easily orient myself to the course. This allowed for flexibility. I did not have to bring anything but a password to continue learning at home. My home computer has a dial-up Internet access, and I was still able to take the course. However, the ease and speed of learning increased when I used the faster office connection. I also went to the local library, and again I was able to easily connect and start learning right where I left off.

The courseware is simple to navigate. The only challenge was an occasional screen that failed to load completely. Clicking back one screen and then clicking forward solved the problem. The courseware works with and without sound. When the recorded voices are being played, text is provided for computers not equipped with sound.

The pre-assessments prepare learners for what they will want to pay attention to in the unit. Learners can use them to tailor their study, but it would be a great feature to have the tailoring built into the courseware instead. Now it takes users time to figure out on their own what units to study closely.

My complaint with the series is the learning requires too much time. In one particular pre-assessment, you must read three different scenarios to get comfortable enough to answer the questions. There are too many scenarios and too much reading. I would have preferred to have one character facing a variety of situations or one situation with a variety of characters throughout the training so I could more quickly learn the concepts and move through the material.

Recommendation
The Leadership for Managers Series is an option for achieving the knowledge objectives of a leadership development program. The realistic scenarios and easy access are strong points. The weaknesses include lengthy units and too much learner time spent getting comfortable with the many characters and scenarios.