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New Leader Advantage Workshops

New Leader Advantage (NLA) Workshops are designed to provide new leaders with targeted information and leadership fundamentals to aid in their success at the University of Tennessee Knoxville.

NLA Workshops are provided at various times throughout the year to provide new leaders the opportunity to join the NLA team at any time. This will give you access to common leadership values we hold at the University of Tennessee Knoxville without having to wait for a new year to start. With inclusivity as a strategic university initiative, we provide all of these NLA Workshops via online and in-person formats. Registration for all workshops is available through K@TE.

 NLA Leadership Learning Workshops – Spring 2023

  1. January 12, 2023 – The Power of ‘Why’

The Power of ‘Why’ will present new leaders with the importance of alignment between our Why and the UT Knoxville strategic vision. Great leaders and teams need more than just hard workers. Everyone has a ‘why’ and helping you and your team connect personal and department goals to the why of UT Knoxville may be the missing piece to move from functioning to high-performing.

  1. January 31, 2023 – New Leader Change

New leaders are faced with navigating their way through multiple levels of change that can be imposing. Understanding and responding to challenges of relational and functional change, for you and your team, can help leaders and teams maximize success and minimize resistance.

  1. February 9, 2023 – Feedback (Radical Candor)

Feedback is a key characteristic of effective leadership. Effective feedback is essential for any leader to build relationships and develop an engaged team. Delivering feedback as a new leader may be intimidating but with practice and a couple of tried and true methods, you can improve your practice.

  1. February 28, 2023 – OPR – Picking Up the Middle

Picking up performance reviews that a previous manager left can leave a new leader wondering where to begin. Meeting this challenge as a positive opportunity can set your leadership role off on the right foot!

  1. March 9, 2023 – DEIB…Say What? – The Language of Inclusion to Create Welcoming and Belonging

Communication is challenging when faced with employees from wide and very different backgrounds. Words and actions can be interpreted in many ways. In this session we will discuss strategic ways that leaders demonstrate inclusion, welcoming, and belonging. Achieving this goal takes courage, trust, understanding and commitment from leaders to be Torchbearers on the journey.

  1. March 28, 2023 – Staff Recognition

Gallup lists recognition as the #2 most important thing employees need to feel connected at work. However, recognition always seems to get ‘forgotten’. Recognizing team members in a way that encourages them individually is crucial for building relationships and engaged teams.

  1. April 13, 2023 – Budgeting for Higher Education with Keith Thomas

Ever wonder how the campus finances its operations? Where is the money spent or how are resources generated? Newsflash: It’s more than just football!  In the session “Budgeting for Higher Education”, we will cover UTK’s place in Tennessee state government, how we compare to our peers and what does it mean to be a Land Grant Institution and BAM, our Budget Allocation Model; how does this impact my unit? We hope to equip you with information on campus finances in an open, interactive discussion/presentation that will make you a more effective leader within your campus unit by sharing first-hand knowledge of this important topic.

  1. April 25, 2023 Recruiting – To Search or Not to Search

Promoting an employee because they are great at their current role or because they ‘know’ the team doesn’t always mean they were the right hire. Active recruiting is an effective way to identify both internal and external candidates to ensure you make the best decision for your team’s future.

  1. May 11, 2023 – Value of Staff Development

Staff development is crucial for the success and growth of any organization. At UT Knoxville, leaders are committed to developing staff to achieve more than they knew possible. Staff growth however adds fear to leaders who don’t want their employees to promote out. “Leadership is not about being the best. Leadership is about making everyone else better.”

  1. May 30, 2023 – Work Life Balance

Finally, the shift to focusing on an employee’s WHOLE well-being has taken precedence in the workforce. Humans are humans and we all need to balance the responsibility of employment with the emotional, mental, physical, and family health that holds us together a whole individual. So how can you lead this WLB initiative in caring for your team?

  1. June 8, 2023 – Dignity: A Key to Effective Conflict Management

We all have an inherent value (dignity) that drives our need to matter and belong. Attending to feelings and experiences of dignity is crucial to building relationships of trust and mutual understanding. Violations of dignity are often the root cause of anger, resentment, mistrust, and destructive conflict. In this session, you will explore the importance of dignity in workplace relationships; discuss how to honor dignity & avoid violations; and strategize ways to uphold the dignity of yourself and others.

  1. June 27, 2023 – Effective Employees and Engaged Workforce

New Leader Advantage has focused on Effective Leadership impacting our employees to create an engaged workforce. In this session, we will recap some of the benefits of employee engagement. We will focus on discussing personal experience with engaging employees and increasing effective leadership influence.