MANAGING WITH MIND AND HEART

Leadership development that actually sticks.

Managing people is hard.

Harder than most organizations prepare leaders for. Many managers are promoted because they're technically skilled, dependable, or high-performing.

But here’s the deal…

Leading people requires an entirely different set of skills. And decades of research continue to show that few things shape employee experience more than the quality of a person’s direct manager.

As a result, organizations often experience:

• Inconsistent leadership approaches across managers
• Difficult conversations avoided or handled poorly
• Accountability challenges
• Low morale and disengagement
• Leaders feeling overwhelmed or underprepared

And many organizations have already tried leadership training that generated excitement...but little lasting behavior change.

That's why we created Managing with Mind & Heart™.

Managing with Mind & Heart is a skills-based leadership development process designed to equip managers with practical tools, a shared leadership philosophy, and repeatable practices they can use every day. The goal is to get leaders across your organization singing from the same sheet of music when it comes to leading people.

But training alone isn't enough. We also partner with organizations to implement the systems, expectations, and reinforcement mechanisms that help new leadership behaviors stick over time.

For more than two decades, we've helped thousands of leaders strengthen their management skills and supported organizations in creating healthier, higher-performing workplaces.

“I've seen many workshops come and go over the years, but what Nash Consulting offers is sticky! Their commitment to exploring both tactical management skills and emotional intelligence means you get that elusive trifecta of training: it's practical, meaningful and sustainable!”

VP of Human Resources, Brooks Running

Let's have a conversation →

Explore our process below ↓

More Than a Workshop Series — A Leadership Development Process

Managing with Mind & Heart is designed to create sustainable leadership behaviors, not just a great training experience. While every engagement is tailored to the organization, our process often includes:

  • Strategic alignment & sponsorship
    We work with senior leaders to build sponsorship, clarify goals, and align the development process with organizational priorities.

  • Stakeholder collaboration & organizational insight
    We meet with key stakeholders and often gather employee feedback to better understand the culture, context, opportunities, and real-world challenges leaders and teams are experiencing.

  • Interactive leadership development & action planning
    Participants engage in highly practical sessions designed to build actionable management skills through discussion, reflection, and real-world application. Throughout the process, leaders create individual action plans to help turn insights into sustainable leadership behaviors.

  • Sustainability & long-term implementation
    We partner with senior leaders to create sustainability structures, reinforcement practices, and implementation rhythms that help ensure the learning lasts.

Inside the Managing with Mind & Heart Sessions

The Managing with Mind & Heart workshop series includes six highly interactive chapters designed to equip leaders with practical tools, shared language, and sustainable behaviors they can immediately apply.

Participants learn how to:

✓ Build trust and psychological safety
✓ Hold difficult conversations with confidence
✓ Create accountability and clarity
✓ Coach and develop employees effectively
✓ Navigate conflict and workplace dynamics
✓ Strengthen communication and relationships
✓ Lead healthier, higher-performing teams

Explore Session Details ↓

Session 1: The Manager’s Mindset | Managing with Mind and Heart

Learning Objective: Embracing the core commitments of an effective people-leader

Here we explore six key ways managers can effectively create healthy workplaces (whether on-site, remote, or hybrid) by focusing on workplace morale, emotional IQ, and psychological safety. We also introduce the Top 15 Management Skills for building healthy, highly engaged organizations and begin the journey of developing and practicing a set of specific adaptive skills, such as the ability to receive feedback non-defensively and listen so others feel heard.

  • Personal Growth for Managers | Key learning: Developing a growth mindset 

  • The Morale Mandate | Key learning: Recognizing leadership’s role in creating and maintaining morale 

  • The Top 15 Management Skills | Key learning: Identifying key people-management “deliverables” 

  • Show Caring and Respect | Key learning: Demonstrating to employees that you have their best interests at heart 

  • Grow Your Adaptive Skills | Key learning: Developing emotional intelligence and listening so people feel heard 

  • Manage Your Power Differential | Key learning: Maximizing approachability and receiving feedback nondefensively

Session 2: Proactive Management | Systems Thinking and the Waterline Model

Learning Objective: Learning systemic solutions that improve workplace culture using the four levels of the Waterline Model

In this workshop, we’ll continue our journey through the Top 15 Management Skills and explore the challenge and the privilege of building and maintaining a professional and positive workplace culture through utilizing the "Waterline Model," a proactive approach to organizational health. We'll learn practical skills around setting clear expectations, holding effective one-on-one meetings, giving feedback clearly and compassionately, and more. 

Waterline Level 1: Structure

  • Single-Point Accountability | Key learning: Understanding “systems” using an example of single-point accountability

  • Clear Expectations (The Personal Success Plan) | Key learning: Establishing clear and collaborative expectations with employees

  • Accountability Defined | Key learning: Differentiating proactive accountability from simply addressing poor performance

Waterline Level 2: Group Processes

  • One-on-Ones | Key learning: Building trust and connection through regular, scheduled one-on-ones

  • Lines of Communication | Key learning: Managing healthy communication channels

  • By-Whens | Key learning: Committing to reliability and follow-through

Waterline Level 3: Interpersonal

  • The Art of Giving Feedback | Key learning: Giving feedback clearly, compassionately, and effectively

Waterline Level 4: Intrapersonal

  • Behavior Styles Homework

Session 3: Understanding People | Behavior Styles

Learning Objective: Building trust and respect through understanding our behavior styles

This fun and interactive workshop explores the four spectrums of human behavior and reveals how leaders can use Behavior Styles Theory, combined with a growth mindset, to increase their own self-awareness, build greater trust and respect in their work group, and improve their effectiveness as leaders.

  • The Four Spectrums of Human Behavior | Key learning: Appreciating our diverse behavioral expressions

  • Discovering Your Behavior Style(s) | Key learning: Identifying your own combination of styles

  • What’s Your Vibe? | Key learning: Gaining a working understanding of the four styles and how we impact others

  • Morale, Meetings, and Managers | Key learning: Exploring each style's basic wants, needs, and expectations

  • Ranges of Expressions | Key learning: Digging deeper into the ways people express themselves emotionally

  • Building Trust and Respect | Key learning: Discovering ways to help others show up as their best selves

  • Creating Your “User Manual” | Key learning: Practicing self-advocacy and increasing others' understanding of you

  • Your Growth Opportunities | Key learning: Committing to three customized learning and growth strategies

Session 4: Performance Management | Course Correcting for High Performance

Learning Objective: Mastering the art of holding employees accountable while maintaining trust and respect

Managers provide feedback in hopes of getting employees to do more of what's working and less of what's not. But let's be honest: that doesn't always happen. Efforts to provide feedback, even if well-intentioned, can easily backfire and cause hurt, confusion, and apathy among employees. This workshop equips managers with techniques that maximize the effectiveness of workplace feedback and coaching.

  • Navigating Organizational Concerns | Key learning: Learning to select from five key manager responses 

  • The Eight Keys to Effective Performance Management | Key learning: Balancing accountability with supportive leadership 

  • Progressive Conversations | Key learning: Practicing the art of challenging conversations 

  • Staying Connected Relationally (C.A.R.E.) | Key learning: Maintaining curiosity and empathy in your corrective conversations 

  • Dealing with Challenging Responses | Key learning: Navigating defensiveness and resistance while fostering trust

Session 5: Employee Engagement | Meeting Employees’ Needs

Learning Objective: Maximizing employee engagement through meeting five core needs

In this chapter, we will start the day by digging into some important information about the brain, human needs, and the psychology of workplace engagement in our continuing journey toward management excellence. Then we'll begin exploring practical and effective ways to build employee engagement with the five core social needs in mind. 

Your Brain on Workplace Culture | Key learning: Understanding the biology of employee engagement

Status 

  • Recognition and Appreciation | Key learning: Effectively validating employees' contributions, value, and worth 

Certainty

  • Information Distribution | Key learning: Building communication channels that reduce uncertainty and increase trust 

Autonomy 

  • The Outcome-Based Mindset | Key learning: Adjusting our mindset toward employee autonomy 

  • Decision-Making Styles | Key learning: Using “smart autonomy” to situationally adapt our decision-making approach 

Relatedness

  • Creating Connection at Work | Key learning: Incorporating the three-part strategy for building workplace community 

  • Triangulation in the Workplace | Key learning: Reducing workplace triangulation and free-floating negativity 

  • Effective and Enjoyable Meetings | Key learning: Facilitating meetings that maximize effectiveness and engagement 

Fairness

  • Actual and Perceived Favoritism | Key learning: Establishing a culture of fairness and belonging

Session 6: Sustaining Change | Avoiding the “Flavor of the Year” Syndrome

Key Objective: Creating a sustainable leadership development plan

Finally, we’ll turn our attention to the vital topic of sustainability and how to avoid the “flavor-of-the-year syndrome” in terms of applying The Top 15 Management Skills to your workplace. Our goal is to work with you to help ensure that you and your fellow management team members implement and sustain the skills from this workshop in order to achieve long-term success. 

  • Avoiding the “Flavor-of-the-Year” Syndrome | Key learning: Embedding leadership skills into an organization's culture 

  • Why Change is Hard | Key learning: Understanding the dynamics of homeostasis and resistance

  • Sponsorship | Key learning: Establishing and maintaining leadership’s commitment to change 

  • Making Change Sticky | Key learning: Committing to the four R’s of change: Resolve, Require, Remind, and Review

  • Sustainability Group Project | Key learning: Designing a leadership skills sustainability plan for your organization 

Let’s explore a partnership.

Interested in our leadership development process or have some questions? Drop us a line below, and we’ll be happy to talk with you.