Building and sustaining a competitive advantage in today's organization requires leadership at all levels, not just at the top. And it is at the first management level-where the "big picture" vision is transformed into day-to-day meaning-that the most critical leadership needs must be met.

For the supervisor or manager who is suddenly expected to initiate action and guide employees, this course is the ideal resource. With easy-to-learn techniques and procedures, it shows you how to manage the new workforce, influence others, build strong teams, and manage change. You'll quickly develop and implement the attitudes, skills, and behaviors you need to lead and prosper in your organization. You'll learn how to view your job as one of "organizational stewardship" that will inspire others to achieve better quality, responsiveness, and commitment. And you'll see how your new role will ensure the resilience and accountability your organization needs to sustain competitiveness.

Assessments, activities, and case studies enable you to test and measure your progress as you work through the course.

You'll learn how to:

• Make a successful transition from first-line supervisor to first-level leader
• Work as an effective coach, mentor, and team leader
• Inspire your team to achieve better quality, responsiveness, and commitment
• Generate high quality, innovative ideas and select the best ones
• Resolve conflict and manage change
• Establish key performance criteria and performance measures
• Translate the organization's strategy into winning results.

About This Course

As one course among many in the American Management Association's curriculum, First-Level Leadership: Supervising in the New Organization has been designed for the first-level supervisor confronting the task of providing leadership in a dynamic business environment. As corporations restructure to position themselves for the twenty-first century, they face a host of challenges and opportunities. Building and sustaining a competitive advantage requires leadership at all levels of the organization, not just the top. First-level supervisors are in a unique position to provide this new leadership. This course teaches the concepts and skills needed to manage the "new" workforce, influence others, and create and foster organizational stewardship. In this course, you will learn the keys to building strong teams, understanding the basics of your business, and managing the change process. Assessments, activities, and case studies enable you to test and measure your progress as you work through the course. First-Level Leadership: Supervising in the New Organization gives you the tools you need to lead and prosper in your organization.

Vivette Payne is a consultant and writer who specializes in building effective cross-functional teams; facilitating the alignment of strategies, roles, and systems; and training managers in a variety of leadership and group process skills. She works with growing organizations to design the improvements to human resource systems that are critical to their next stage of growth. Her consulting expertise also includes facilitating the design of shared services organizations, identifying and strengthening core leadership competencies, and planning work process improvements.

Ms. Payne is President of the Avery Payne Group, a network of consultants that brings clients a depth and range of skill in organizational, team, and personal development. She has received the Boston Management Consortium's Corporate Consulting Excellence Award and was recently named one of the 2,000 Notable Women in the United States. Her clients have included organizations such as AnMed Health Resources, General Electric, Anderson Consulting, Health Effects Institute, Electronics for Imaging, AEGON, Chevron, and Minnesota Public Radio. Ms. Payne holds a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's degree in organizational development.

Wendi Gedzun, a technical consultant specializing in business process improvements and groupware technologies (including the Intranet and Internet), has worked for over nine years designing, developing, and implementing technical business solutions. She has served as an integral member of strategic change integration teams at Arthur Andersen & Co. and Price Waterhouse to identify the practices, key performance measures, and technologies needed to implement business process improvements. Her current and past clients include Abbott Laboratories, Andersen Consulting, and the National Association of Realtors. Ms. Gedzun has been a member of the Society of Technical Communication, the American Society for Training and Development (local and regional chapters), the Organizational Design Network, VALUE (an international technical forum for Lotus Notes users), and GRANITE (a regional group for Lotus Notes users, in which she currently serves as treasurer). She earned her bachelor of science degree from Northwestern University, and is a Lotus Notes Principal Application Developer, Certified Lotus Professional (CLP).

The publisher wishes to thank the following people for their help in reviewing the manuscript of this course: Charles M. Cadwell, President, Training Systems +, Mulvane, Kansas; Donna Deeprose, Principal, Deeprose Consulting, New York; and James Pantall, Training and Organization Development Consultant, Management Institute at Rowan University, Glassboro, New Jersey.

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