Leadership Development Training
ERC’s leadership development training builds leaders at every level of your organization, from high-potential employees ready for their first leadership role to managers, directors, and senior leadership teams.
Leadership Training for Managers
Managers sit between senior leadership and the frontline. They manage up and down, lead other leaders, and solve problems across departments. Our leadership training for managers covers strategic thinking, coaching direct reports, emotional intelligence, accountability, and keeping good people. Organizations build their own series from six courses, including Strategic Leadership, Developmental Coaching, and Basics of Financial Acumen.
Manager TrainingDirectors & Senior Leaders
Our Leading Leaders program develops directors and senior leaders through a custom blend of training, one-on-one coaching, assessments, and peer learning. We build each program around your goals, competencies, and culture, then deliver it over several months so new skills take hold between sessions. You end with senior leaders who take decisions off your desk and grow the managers under them.
Leading LeadersLeadership Teams
Building an Effective Leadership Team works with your intact senior team as one unit. Built on The Five Behaviors® of a Cohesive Team, it measures how the team works together today, gives everyone a common language for trust, conflict, and accountability, and measures again near the end of the program so you can see what changed.
Leadership Team TrainingEmerging Leaders / High Potentials
Your high-potential employees can start building leadership skills before they manage anyone. Our three-part Emerging Leaders series covers communicating across personalities and generations, professional presence in and out of the workplace, and presenting ideas with confidence, so they’re ready when their first leadership role opens up.
Emerging Leaders TrainingCoaching
Coaching gives a manager or leader focused, one-on-one time to work through the situations in front of them, from leading former peers to preparing for a bigger role. At ERC, we build each program around the participant’s goals and your organization’s goals, and we deliver it in person or virtually.
CoachingAll Training Courses
Thousands of organizations turn to ERC for customized learning and development solutions. We offer engaging, instructor-led training programs on over 100 topics that can be delivered in-person at ERC, at your organization or location of choice, and virtually.
See CoursesLeadership Training for Managers
Managers sit between senior leadership and the frontline. They manage up and down, lead other leaders, and solve problems across departments. Our leadership training for managers covers strategic thinking, coaching direct reports, emotional intelligence, accountability, and keeping good people. Organizations build their own series from six courses, including Strategic Leadership, Developmental Coaching, and Basics of Financial Acumen.
Manager TrainingDirectors & Senior Leaders
Our Leading Leaders program develops directors and senior leaders through a custom blend of training, one-on-one coaching, assessments, and peer learning. We build each program around your goals, competencies, and culture, then deliver it over several months so new skills take hold between sessions. You end with senior leaders who take decisions off your desk and grow the managers under them.
Leading LeadersLeadership Teams
Building an Effective Leadership Team works with your intact senior team as one unit. Built on The Five Behaviors® of a Cohesive Team, it measures how the team works together today, gives everyone a common language for trust, conflict, and accountability, and measures again near the end of the program so you can see what changed.
Leadership Team TrainingEmerging Leaders / High Potentials
Your high-potential employees can start building leadership skills before they manage anyone. Our three-part Emerging Leaders series covers communicating across personalities and generations, professional presence in and out of the workplace, and presenting ideas with confidence, so they’re ready when their first leadership role opens up.
Emerging Leaders TrainingCoaching
Coaching gives a manager or leader focused, one-on-one time to work through the situations in front of them, from leading former peers to preparing for a bigger role. At ERC, we build each program around the participant’s goals and your organization’s goals, and we deliver it in person or virtually.
CoachingAll Training Courses
Thousands of organizations turn to ERC for customized learning and development solutions. We offer engaging, instructor-led training programs on over 100 topics that can be delivered in-person at ERC, at your organization or location of choice, and virtually.
See CoursesOnsite, In-Person, and Virtual Leadership Training
Choose the format that fits your people and your schedule, whether you're developing two high-potential employees, adding a session to your leadership retreat, or rolling out leadership development across your organization.
Onsite Training
Best for whole teams or cohorts you want trained together, in your environment, around your specific challenges
5+ employees
At your location (or another site you choose)
Live In-Person or Virtual Training
Best for one person, a few people, or geographically distributed teams
5 or fewer employees per session
Live online, instructor-led
On-Demand Training Library
Best for early-career employees, foundational skill-building, reinforcement after live training
100+ short videos covering communication, teamwork, time management, critical thinking
Why Employers Choose ERC for Leadership Training
Practitioner-led trainers. Our instructors are practitioners who have managed teams, run departments, and led organizations. They have sat in the seat your leaders are sitting in now. That experience shows up in how they teach.
Built around your organization. Every program is tailored to your culture, your industry, and the challenges your leaders face. Before delivery, your trainer meets with your team to build your own situations into the sessions.
Rooted in Northeast Ohio, accessible nationwide. ERC's NorthCoast 99 program measures the region's best places to work. We know what works in Northeast Ohio workplaces and beyond because we measure it every year.
Skills that keep getting used. We can measure each leader before and after the program and check in with their managers along the way. Follow-up through the Leadership Application Lab and coaching keeps the new skills in use after the last session.
Contact Us
Tell us about the people you want to develop and the outcomes you're looking to achieve. We'll come back with answers and pricing.
Leadership training for every level of your team
Emerging Leaders
For high-potential employees before they manage anyone. Our three-part series builds communication, professional presence, and presentation skills ahead of their first leadership role.
Managers
Managers lead up, down, and across departments. Our manager training focuses on leading other leaders, coaching direct reports, navigating change, and keeping top talent.
Directors and Senior Leaders
For directors and executives who lead through other leaders. Leading Leaders combines training, one-on-one coaching, assessments, and peer learning over several months, built around the competencies your organization wants to grow.
Leadership Teams
For intact senior teams that need to make decisions and hold each other accountable as one team. Our program helps them build trust, work through conflict, and agree on what matters most.
Training Topics and Skills
Our programs are built around the skills today’s leaders need most. From managing performance and giving feedback to navigating change and building trust, we offer relevant, actionable training for every stage of a leader’s journey. Whether you're preparing a high-potential employee for a first leadership role or sharpening an executive's leadership presence, we're here to help your people thrive.
Effective communication
Strategies for coaching individual contributors
Conflict management and resolution strategies
Performance management, including evaluating performance and providing feedback
Problem-solving and decision-making skills
Dealing with different generations and personalities
Leadership during organizational change
Fostering diverse talent and perspectives using inclusive leadership
Working with and leading high-performing teams
Bridging the gap between senior leadership and management
Engaging and retaining talent
Understanding team dynamics and building team trust
Delegating, supporting, and directing
Identifying and applying leadership styles
Loop Learning™ Model
Our Loop Learning™ Model makes training stick by helping participants understand themselves, learn practical skills, practice in realistic situations, and then apply it on the job. Our approach is built to change how people lead on the job and keep that change in place.
1
Assess: Participants learn their unique style, strengths, and areas for improvement.
2
Learn: Participants gain behaviors, skills, and tools that can be applied in real workplace situations.
3
Practice: Participants apply new skills through realistic scenarios, role-playing, and peer discussions.
4
Apply: Participants apply what they’ve learned on the job.
Leadership Application Lab
The Leadership Application Lab is an optional addition to training that helps participants practice and retain the skills they’re building during training. Participants meet with their ERC trainer and bring the situations they're facing right now. Every session works on their live problems, so the skills from training get used while they're still fresh.
Why Leadership Application Lab?
Most participants can’t retain everything they’ve learned during training. Without reinforcement, skill retention can drift during or after a session.
Research suggests that about 70% of development happens on the job, 20% from coaching and mentoring, and 10% from structured training.
The Application Lab is designed for the way that people actually learn. Spaced check-ins reinforce the skills right when your people are putting it to work, so more of it sticks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Supervisor training is for frontline supervisors stepping into their first leadership role: leading former peers, setting expectations, and holding people accountable. If that’s who you’re training, see our Supervisor Training.
Leadership development picks up where supervisor training ends. It prepares high-potential employees to lead, helps managers lead other leaders and work across departments, and develops directors, executives, and leadership teams. Many organizations run both, matched to where each person is in their career.
It depends on how many leaders you’re developing, the number and length of sessions, onsite or virtual delivery, and whether you add coaching, assessments, or the Application Lab. Tell us who you want to develop and what you want to change, and we’ll send pricing. If you need to take a recommendation to your leadership team, we’ll put the program and the cost in a one-page summary you can share.
It depends on the program. Single-topic courses run a few hours, and we offer 45-, 60-, and 90-minute sessions for busy managers and leaders. Emerging Leaders is a three-part series. Manager programs usually run as a series of sessions across several weeks. Leading Leaders runs over several months, so skills get used on the job between sessions.
Custom onsite programs can be a single session at your leadership retreat, a half-day workshop, a multi-day intensive, or a year-long curriculum delivered in cohorts. Tell us what you’re trying to accomplish and we’ll recommend a structure.
Either works. Our virtual open-enrollment courses are designed for individuals or small groups (typically 5 or fewer). If you only have one or two people to develop, virtual is usually the right fit.
Yes. Our onsite programs are built around your organization. We work with manufacturers, health care systems, nonprofits, professional services firms, and others, and we adjust scenarios, examples, and language to fit your environment.
We also build around who’s in the room. A mixed group of new and experienced managers learns one shared approach to feedback, accountability, and coaching. When levels differ a lot, such as managers and directors, we usually run separate tracks so each group works on the decisions it owns. Tell us about your industry and your team when you reach out.
For the skills managers use with people (giving feedback, handling conflict, delegating, coaching), live training works better, because managers practice those conversations with a trainer and get feedback in the moment. On-demand video works well for background knowledge and for refreshing a skill after training. Our programs are live and instructor-led, onsite or virtual, and our on-demand library of 100+ short videos reinforces them between sessions.
We run the same programs live online, in 45- to 90-minute sessions that fit around shifts, travel, and site schedules. Managers join from wherever they work, practice with peers from other locations, and use our on-demand library between sessions. The Leadership Application Lab runs virtually too, so remote managers get the same follow-up.
We can evaluate any program at all four Kirkpatrick levels, from participant reaction through on-the-job behavior and results, and the first level is included in standard pricing. Pre- and post-tests measure what each participant learned. For manager and senior leader programs, each leader and their manager can also rate the leader’s skills before the program and again after the last session, and we walk you through what changed.
Assessments give each participant a starting point too. Depending on the program, we use Everything DiSC®, 360-degree feedback, emotional intelligence assessments, and The Five Behaviors® assessment for leadership teams, which the team retakes near the end of the program.
