We get many managers on our train the trainer courses.  I am always impressed with people in management positions who attend such a course. I think that all managers should be able to train, the reasons I would consider are essential to be an effective manager.

1. It’s your responsibility to teach – if your helping new starters or supporting individuals you have delegated work to you have to have the skills to be able to do this in the best way possible.  This includes the ability to engage with reasoning questions, something you are going to learn by being a great trainer.

2. You will get the best out of staff – knowing how to engage and deliver effective training using skills and techniques associated with great trainers will ensure you train staff effectively.  Remember just telling isn’t training and you will learn skills and techniques to check understanding and engage individuals effectively.

3.  You will learn the reading PowerPoint is poor – managers that just read PowerPoint are not very good trainers. The staff that undertake this know it’s boring and doesn’t promote active learning.

4.  You will learn how to structure learning – effective trainers know that learning has to have a structure with an understanding of learning outcomes and how to document this so that we are delivering a consistent message.

5.  It will provide you with confidence – all managers have to deliver public speaking at some point in their career.  Knowing how to do this effectively will improve confidence which will ensure staff have faith in you as a manager.

I would go as far as to say there is a commonality with all the best managers I have ever worked with. They have all learnt the skills to deliver training effectively and they all using skills and techniques associated with great trainers.

Unfortunately, many managers believe they are great trainers, this can be delusional and they may not even realise that lack the skills required to do the job effectively.  If you’re one of these managers, then I suggest you attend one of our courses and we will teach you the skills you need.

Ralph Moody is the founder of Target Training and specialises in trainer and management development.  You can read more about him here.  To see courses where Ralph delivers see our website here.