Technical Team Leadership (online)



Overview

Fast-track your transition from technical expert to leader. 

Step confidently into leadership with practical strategies to guide, motivate and manage others. This course is designed for technical professionals who are managing others, guiding teams or stepping into leadership responsibilities, and want to increase their impact beyond technical delivery. 

Led by a former engineer and board-level executive, the course explores how to develop the right mindset, balance leadership and management, and understand what senior stakeholders really value. Through real-world case studies and interactive exercises, you’ll build the operational and people skills needed to lead high-performing teams and influence at a strategic level. 

Whether you’re new to managing people or already leading as a senior expert, this course will give you the tools to create scalable high-performance results. 

Course Aims

  • Understand how the history of management shapes our current workplace
  • Learn how to balance management with leadership, using examples of where mistakes have been made over the past decade
  • Examine the gap between technical leader and technical expert
  • Distinguish the different behaviours required to lead or manage
  • Understand people and their personalities
  • Critique motivation techniques, and what works with smart people
  • Discover why people before process is important
  • Discover why you cannot ignore process
  • Practise an operational model to get the right things done systematically
  • Develop techniques to prioritise work to reduce work overload 
  • Learn practical tips and tricks to be an effective manager and inspirational leader

Who will benefit?

  • Technical experts moving into management
  • Technical experts who need to lead in their role
  • New managers who want to fast track their experience
  • Experienced managers who want an up-to-date refresher on leading smart people

Dates, Times and Delivery

This course will run over five sessions from 8 - 12 December 2025.

These live video sessions will be held on Microsoft Teams at 9:30am – 11:30am (UK time) on:

  • Monday 8 December
  • Tuesday 9 December
  • Wednesday 10 December
  • Thursday 11 December
  • Friday 12 December

A world clock, and time zone converter can be found here: https://bit.ly/3bSPu6D

This is a ‘virtual classroom’ course, and is designed to replicate the experience of a classroom. The sessions are ‘live’ and are not recorded.

No attendance at Oxford is required and you do not need to purchase any software.

Accessing Your Online Course 

Details about accessing the private MS Teams course site will be emailed to you during the week prior to the course commencing.  

Please get in touch if you have not received this information within three working days of the course start date. 

Programme details

Session 1 - Understanding the giant leap to leading people

  • Discover how the history of management influences today’s workplace
  • Differentiate management from leadership in practice
  • Define the leadership mindset
  • Demonstrate the requirement for leadership in all roles
  • Explore the new leadership paradigm
  • Adapt technical strengths to a leadership environment

Session 2 - Leading with aligned purpose

  • Learn how to plan for an unknown future
  • Consider why starting with ‘the why’ is so critical to goal setting
  • Establish how to define the true requirements   
  • Build collaborative virtual teams in a complex environment
  • Determine how to identify and engage all stakeholders (core, extended and external)
  • Define unique roles and responsibilities in a team setting
  • Identify and appraise the boundaries of ownership
  • Use a leadership framework to run an innovative initiative

Session 3 - Understanding people, personalities and motivation

  • Understand the secrets of leading smart people
  • Learn to work with different personality styles
  • Understand how to motivate smart people
  • Understand the balance between compliance versus commitment
  • Build influential relationships, not just connections
  • Networking and politics
  • Understand trust versus micromanagement in the real-world

Session 4 - Establishing your operational process to get the right things done

  • How to stop the talking and start the doing
  • Empower people using good process
  • The key role of milestones and measures in planning complex projects
  • Define unique versus shared ownership
  • Define operational interfaces 
  • Learn to use negotiation levers of time, money and scope

Session 5 - Personal and Team Development

  • Create a personal development plan for you and your team
  • Learn some daily habits that effective leaders use
  • Build some checklists to help implement the changes required to close the gap
  • Understand key traits to fast track your career

Digital Certification

In order to be eligible for a certificate of attendance, you will need to attend the whole course. Participants who meet this criterion will be emailed after the end of the course with a link, and instructions on how to access their University of Oxford digital certificate.

The certificate will show your name, the course title and the dates of the course you attended. You will be able to download your certificate, as well as share it on social media if you choose to do so.

Fees

Description Costs
Course Fee £895.00

Payment

Fees include electronic copies of course materials. 

All courses are VAT exempt. 

Register immediately online  

Click the 'Book now' button on this webpage. Payment by credit or debit card is required. 

Request an invoice 

If you require an invoice for your company or organisation, please email us to request an online enrolment form. Payment is then accepted online, by credit/debit card, or by bank transfer. 

Tutors

Trevor Manning

Course Tutor

Technical Trainer and Author

Trevor Manning is a qualified telecoms engineer, who is still involved in world-leading innovation projects. He has over 30 years’ leadership experience, from technical roles, to COO roles, to advisory-board roles in the US, UK, South Africa, Italy and Australia. This international experience, in a variety of companies, has given him insights into how the workplace really operates. 

To lead others and achieve the right business results, as well as having influence at a technical level is a difficult balance. Trevor developed insights and frameworks that helped to create practical management habits, and developed his inspirational leadership skills through a deep understanding of the leadership mindset. He runs a consultancy business specialising in helping engineers transition from expert practitioner to business leader. This includes regular leadership training programs at the University of Wisconsin - Madison College of Engineering. 

Trevor lives in Brisbane, Australia.

Berenice Manning

eLearning Support Facilitator

Berenice Manning is a seasoned Learning and Development professional with a wealth of experience in the education sector. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree, coupled with a high school Teaching Diploma. Before transitioning into adult education, Berenice dedicated over 20 years to teaching Science in high school. Her expertise extends to her previous role as the Leader of eLearning in a large high school, where she played a pivotal role in shaping digital learning initiatives. 

Berenice believes in using technology to enhance the learning experience and is passionate about imparting this knowledge to others. Her commitment to educational innovation led her to become a prominent advocate for the effective use of various technology platforms during training sessions, a commitment evident in the development of the highly interactive courses: Technical Team Leadership and Mastering Team Communication.

Application

If you would like to discuss your application or any part of the application process before applying, please click on the 'Ask a question' button at the top of this page.

IT requirements

This course is delivered online using Microsoft Teams. You will be required to follow and implement the instructions we send you to fully access Microsoft Teams on the University of Oxford's secure IT network.

To participate you must be familiar with using a computer for purposes such as sending email and searching the Internet. You will also need regular access to the Internet and a computer meeting our recommended minimum computer specification.

It is advised to use headphones with working speakers and microphone.

Terms & conditions for applicants and students

Information on financial support