Turn Your Best Performers Into Managers Who Hold a Team
The best salesperson becomes the sales head, and nobody tells them what a manager does differently. A one-day workshop does not fix that. This is a programme over several months: a track for first-time managers, a track for senior leaders, and an assessment before and after so you can see what changed.
What is leadership and manager development programme?
A manager development programme is a structured course of training, practice and assessment that runs over several months, rather than a one-off workshop. It teaches people the parts of management they were never shown: setting goals, giving feedback, running a review, handling conflict and delegating, and it measures where each manager started.
The starting point
When businesses ask us for this
- Your best performer was promoted to manager and is now doing their old job and a poor version of the new one.
- People leave their manager, not the company, and the same two managers keep losing people.
- Reviews are late, rushed or skipped because the managers were never shown how to run one.
- Managers avoid difficult conversations until they have become a resignation or a dispute.
- You sent managers to a one-day workshop last year and nothing changed in how they work.
- Senior leaders are still operating as the best individual contributor, doing the work instead of building the team that does it.
- You are about to promote a new batch of first-time managers and want to prepare them before, not after.
- Managers do not agree on what good management looks like, so each team is run differently.
What the work covers
GullyHR runs a multi-month programme for the people who manage people in your business. We start with a baseline assessment of each participant and a look at the team numbers: attrition, review completion and goal coverage. Then the programme runs in two tracks, a first-time manager track and a senior leader track, using our soft skills and management modules as the building blocks. Between sessions participants apply what they learned to a real team issue and bring it back. We assess again at the end and report against the baseline. This is a programme with a start, a plan and an end, not an open-ended training subscription.
The first-time manager track covers what the promotion did not.
Moving from doing the work to getting it done through others: setting expectations, delegating, running a one-to-one, giving feedback, running a fair review and handling the first hard conversation. It is built for people in their first year or two as a manager.
The senior leader track covers the shift to building a team.
Leading managers rather than individuals, decision rights and delegation, building a second line, handling conflict between functions and keeping a team aligned when the business changes. It is built for people who lead other managers.
Soft skills modules are used as building blocks, in sequence.
Communication, leadership and people management, emotional intelligence, conflict management, time and productivity and interviewing skills for managers already exist as GullyHR programmes. The development programme puts the ones your managers need in an order, with practice between sessions.
Practice happens on real work, between sessions.
Each participant picks one real issue in their own team, applies the method and brings back what happened. This is what separates a programme from a workshop: the learning is used before the next session.
Assessment comes before and after.
Each participant is assessed at the start against the behaviours the programme teaches, and again at the end. You receive individual results for the participants and a summary for the group, so you can see where the gap was and whether it narrowed.
The programme is tied to your processes.
If your managers are taught to run a review, the review process exists and they use it. Where a process is missing, we say so and recommend fixing it alongside, because training cannot make up for a missing process.
The process
How it runs
Record the baseline
We assess each participant against the behaviours the programme teaches and take the team numbers you can share: attrition by team, review completion and goal coverage. This is what the end report compares against.
Choose the tracks and the modules
We agree who goes into the first-time manager track and who into the senior leader track, and which modules your managers need, from the issues the baseline shows.
Run the sessions in sequence
Sessions are spread over several months, not packed into days, with each one built on the last. The length and cadence are agreed after the first conversation.
Apply it on real work between sessions
Each participant takes one real issue in their team, applies the method and reports back. We review these in the next session.
Support the managers' own manager
We brief the person each participant reports to on what is being taught, so the programme is not undone by the person above.
Assess again and compare
We repeat the assessment at the end and compare each participant with their own baseline and the group with the group baseline.
Report and recommend what comes next
You receive a report on what changed and what did not, and a recommendation on who needs further support and which processes need to be fixed alongside.
What you receive
- A baseline assessment for each participant.
- A programme plan: tracks, modules, sequence and dates.
- The sessions, delivered in person or online as agreed.
- Participant materials and a practice task for each session.
- A short brief for each participant's own manager.
- An end-of-programme assessment for each participant.
- A report comparing results with the baseline, by individual and by group.
- A recommendation on next steps: further training, process fixes or both.
Who it is for
- Founder-led businesses that promoted their best individual performers into management and want to prepare the next batch before promotion.
- Companies where attrition is concentrated under a few managers.
- Businesses that have run one-off training and want a programme that carries over into daily work.
- Teams that have just introduced goals, reviews or a new structure and need managers who can run them.
- Growing businesses adding a second layer of leadership who need senior people to lead managers, not only teams.
- Companies with managers across several locations who each run their team differently.
Why GullyHR.
A programme only changes behaviour if the processes around it work. GullyHR also designs the review cycle, the goal-setting process and the structure your managers work in, so the programme teaches methods that exist in your business. The training modules it uses are the ones we already deliver, and the assessment is built from the same behaviours the modules teach, so what is taught and what is measured match.
Design the process
Map how the work runs today, then write the procedure, the forms and the approval route it should follow.
Strengthen management
Settle the structure, the roles and the decisions each level can take without the owner.
Develop people
Train the managers who have to run it — the review, the difficult conversation, the handover.
Automate HR
Configure the agreed process in software, so the document and what people actually do stay the same thing.
The difference
What changes
- Managers can run a one-to-one, a goal-setting conversation and a review without needing a template in front of them.
- Difficult conversations happen earlier and shorter, instead of becoming a resignation.
- Senior leaders delegate decisions and build a second line instead of taking every decision themselves.
- You can see, by manager, where the gap was at the start and whether it moved.
- Managers share a common view of what good management looks like in your business.
How we are measured
Before work starts, we record where you stand. Every later report compares against that baseline.
We choose the measures with you at the start, from the list on this page, and only the ones your data can support. We do not promise a result. We promise a baseline, and a report that shows the change against it, whichever way it went.
This engagement is measured on
- Team attrition under managers who completed the programme
- Assessment scores before and after
- Manager training coverage
- Review completion rate
The measures we choose from
Time-to-hire
Days from approved vacancy to accepted offer.
90-day attrition
New joiners who leave in their first three months.
Annual attrition
Leavers over the year, by team and by manager.
Payroll and statutory errors per month
Corrections after the run, and returns filed late.
Open compliance gaps
Obligations without an owner or a due date.
Employees with written goals
Share of the team that knows what it is measured on.
Review completion rate
Reviews finished on time, not just started.
Manager training coverage
Managers who have been taught the part of the job they were promoted into.
Ways to engage us
- First-time manager track
- A programme for people in their first years as managers, run as a cohort over several months with practice between sessions.
- Senior leader track
- A programme for people who lead other managers, covering delegation, decision rights and building a second line.
- Both tracks, one programme
- The two tracks run together, so first-time managers and the leaders above them are taught a consistent view of management.
- Custom module on a specific issue
- A short block on one issue, such as running reviews or handling conflict, where a full programme is not needed.
Good to know
Questions we are asked
It is a structured course of training, practice and assessment over several months, for people who manage people. It teaches the parts of management a promotion does not: goal setting, feedback, reviews, delegation and handling conflict, and it measures where each manager started.
A workshop is usually a day or two with no follow-up. The programme runs over several months, has practice between sessions on real team issues, and assesses each participant before and after. The difference is that learning is used and measured.
People in their first years as a manager go into the first-time manager track. People who lead other managers go into the senior leader track. We agree the groups with you after the baseline.
Each participant is assessed before and after, and we compare team attrition and review completion with the baseline recorded at the start. We report what moved and what did not. We do not promise a result.
Yes. The programme sequences GullyHR's soft skills and management modules, such as communication, leadership and people management, conflict management and interviewing skills for managers, with practice between sessions.
Several months. The exact length depends on the number of participants and modules, and we agree it in writing before work starts.
Yes, in person or online. For managers across several locations we agree a mix that keeps the practice work on real team issues.
Then we say so. A manager cannot run a review the business has not defined. We recommend fixing the process alongside, and GullyHR can do that work as well.
We recommend the managers who share a team context go through together, because the practice is on real issues. Where that is not possible, we adapt the cohort and tell you what the trade-off is.
Prefer to talk first? +91 80958 58589 · hello@gullyhr.com