Managers Trainings

Manager training in Geneva: developing posture, leadership and team performance

Under the managers audience, ITTA brings together all training courses designed for profiles who lead a team day-to-day: team leaders, department heads, project managers with direct reports, line managers, new managers and cross-functional managers without hierarchical authority. The scope covers management fundamentals, cross-functional leadership, change management, conflict resolution, meeting facilitation, delegation, feedback, performance reviews, and all the relational skills that set effective managers apart from those who simply endure the role.

Why design a dedicated managerial path?

The move from technical expert to manager is one of the trickiest transitions in a career. The skills that made someone successful as a contributor (autonomy, technical rigour, individual output) are no longer enough as a manager: now the priority is delegating rather than executing, communicating rather than analysing alone, giving meaning rather than applying instructions, facilitating rather than producing. Without explicit training, many managers intuitively replicate the style of their former bosses, with the biases and bruises that come with it. A structured managerial path helps build a personal posture, tested reflexes, and a toolbox adapted to common situations: yearly review, meeting facilitation, internal conflict, mission refusal, organisational change, hiring.

Fundamentals of team management

The first blocks are aimed at new managers or those who want to consolidate their foundation: understanding management styles and adapting posture, setting clear goals (SMART, OKR), leading a team day-to-day, running effective meetings, structuring a weekly one-on-one, delegating with the right level of control, giving constructive feedback and receiving it, making decisions under pressure. ITTA offers short courses (1 to 3 days) focused on these fundamentals, with role-plays and real cases brought in by participants.

Cross-functional leadership and hybrid management

Current organisational reality is amplifying two models: cross-functional leadership (leading stakeholders without a direct reporting line) and hybrid management (mixed in-office / remote teams). Both situations call for specific skills: getting buy-in without authority, creating rituals and connection from a distance, balancing presence and autonomy, monitoring workload without micro-managing, reading weak signals through a screen. Dedicated courses in this catalogue work in depth on posture, adapted communication, and digital collaboration tools (Teams, shared workspaces, document management).

Conflict handling, difficult conversations and change management

A manager spends a significant share of time managing tensions: between team members, between departments, between leadership and the field, or in front of unpopular decisions. Learning to anticipate conflicts, to defuse them early, to lead a tough conversation without destroying the relationship, to reframe without humiliating, to announce a change without demotivating, are all skills built in training through practice. The ITTA managers catalogue covers all these critical situations with a pragmatic approach: analytical grids, conversation scripts, filmed simulations, collective debriefs. Change management modules round out the arsenal for managers supporting their teams through changes in scope, processes or tools.

Hiring, reviews and behavioural assessments

Hiring, onboarding and evaluating people are core managerial skills. Dedicated courses address preparing a structured interview, building a candidate assessment grid, onboarding through the first weeks, conducting a yearly review, setting objectives and tracking performance. ITTA also offers certified modules on behavioural assessment tools (Belbin, Insights) which help understand team composition and the complementarities to activate.

How to build a coherent managerial path?

For a new manager, ITTA recommends starting with the fundamentals (team management, meeting facilitation, feedback, delegation) before adding advanced relational bricks over the months that follow (tough conversations, conflicts, cross-functional leadership). For an experienced manager, the focus shifts to strengthening posture: emotional intelligence, executive leadership, intergenerational management, change management, negotiation and influence. For a leadership team or a full management line, a tailored in-company programme aligns practices and vocabulary across all leaders.

Available training catalogue for managers

To explore the detailed offer for managers, several entry points are available in the ITTA catalogue:

• ITTA – Management: ITTA catalogue dedicated to management and leadership.
• Team and people management: domain covering team leadership and change management.
• Personal efficiency and organisation: negotiation, time management, decision-making.

Featured courses for managers

• The fundamentals of team management
• Anticipate, manage and overcome conflicts
• Delegate to gain efficiency
• Supporting your team in change
• Master transversal leadership
• Manage effectively by emotional intelligence

Learning formats

Manager training sessions take place in Geneva and Lausanne, on-site or in synchronous remote mode. The format favours role-plays, simulations and personalised feedback throughout the sessions. Inter-company sessions bring together managers from varied backgrounds, broadening perspectives and breaking routines. In-company sessions fit within a wider managerial transformation, often with upstream work (interviews, framing) and downstream work (anchoring, communities of practice). Course materials remain accessible after the training to support transfer into each manager’s real context.

Frequently asked questions on manager training

How long does it take to train a new manager? A solid onboarding journey for a new manager typically spans 6 to 12 months, with an initial foundation block (3 to 5 days on team management, meeting facilitation, feedback and delegation), followed by complementary modules spaced every 2 to 3 months to anchor the learnings (conflicts, cross-functional leadership, change management). ITTA builds the path according to each company’s context.

Should you favour inter-company or in-company training? Both formats have their strengths: inter-company broadens perspectives by exposing participants to managerial practices from diverse backgrounds; in-company enables work on concrete cases from the organisation and aligns the managerial community around shared vocabulary. Many programmes blend both: in-company for shared foundations, inter-company for individual fine-tuning.

Do managers also need training on technical tools? Partly yes: mastering Teams to lead a hybrid team, Excel to track indicators, Project or Planner to steer initiatives, and now Copilot to save time on administrative tasks. But the main investment for a manager remains on the human and relational dimension.

Combining manager training with recognised certifications

Beyond soft skills training, some managers aim for a structuring certification: PRINCE2 for project management, PMI/PMP for portfolio management, ITIL for IT service management, SAFe or Scrum for agile approaches, or behavioural assessments such as Belbin and Insights to better understand themselves and adapt their management. ITTA combines these certifications with soft skills training to build a complete path, particularly relevant for IT managers, programme leads and senior project managers who want to strengthen both posture and methods at the same time.