Leadership Development Programs and Manager Training

A lot of leadership training is sold the same way: a cookie-cutter course and examples from a corporation with its own training department. By the next Monday, nobody remembers it. At HRish, I build each leadership development program around what your business actually needs right now, not what's traditionally sold to bigger companies.

Maybe you're asking yourself: My best technician just became a supervisor, so now what? Why do my managers keep putting off the hard conversations? Do I really need a formal program for a team this size?

Those are the right questions. My job is to give you practical, people-first HR support that grows with your business and makes the people side of running a company feel less overwhelming. That might be coaching for one manager, training for a group of supervisors, or a workshop for the whole team. I do this for businesses from owners just starting out up to teams of about 150.

How the training is delivered depends on what makes sense for your business. Virtual is my first choice, and I can run sessions in person too when that fits the group better. Whatever the format, I absolutely do follow-ups and check-ins afterward, so the work doesn't stop when the session ends.

Who's behind HRish

I'm Allisha McCartney, Founder & HR Consultant at HRish Solutions, based in Colorado Springs. I hold a bachelor's degree in business management, with a concentration in HR management. You can read more about me on the About page.

Leadership development programs

A good program starts with your people, not a curriculum. I look at who's leading, who's next, and where things keep getting stuck. Sometimes that points to manager development for two new supervisors. Sometimes it's leadership team development: how you and your managers share decisions and hold each other accountable.

• Where your leaders are now: conversations with you and your managers, plus a 360 leadership assessment only if it fits your team.
• A plan for each person: specific skills to build, not a generic reading list.
• Practice on real situations: your team's own examples, with follow-ups and check-ins afterward.

How I size a program to your business

If a formal management development program looks like it was built for a much bigger company, it probably was. There's no standard package at HRish. A new supervisor might only need first-time manager training, while a leadership team might add leadership coaching and advising or leadership team alignment sessions. Whether a 360 or another assessment belongs in it depends on what makes sense for the business.

Leadership and executive coaching

Leadership coaching is one-on-one time with a manager, a senior leader or you as the owner, to work through real situations: the team member who keeps missing deadlines, the decision you've been putting off, the conversation nobody wants to have. I coach owners and senior leaders, not only managers.

I start each coaching engagement by asking what the person is dealing with now and what they want to handle differently. I agree the length and cadence of coaching with you up front, and you can adjust them as things change. Between sessions, I follow up and check in, so the next conversation picks up from what happened on the job. Coaching also rubs off, since a manager who has been coached has a model for coaching their own team members.

Leadership coaching cost depends on the type of work, and usually on how many people take part, how often sessions happen and how long the support runs. Coaching fits any of the three ways to work together, Project-based, Hourly or Monthly partnership, and a consultation gets you a quote.

Most of my work happens by phone and video, so coaching works the same whether your leaders are in Colorado Springs or Denver. Leading a team in the Denver metro area? Take a look at Denver training and coaching.

New manager and supervisor training

Most first-time managers get promoted because they were great at the job, not because anyone taught them how to lead. Suddenly they're managing friends, fielding complaints and writing reviews without a playbook. That's a training gap, not a character flaw.

My supervisor training and new manager training cover the basics new leaders use every day:

• Setting expectations: what good work looks like, said out loud.
• Feedback and difficult conversations training: practice before the real conversation happens.
• Delegation: handing off work without handing off responsibility.
• Conflict management: working through disagreements on the team while they're still small.
• Accountability: following through on what was agreed, for the manager and for the team.

Which topics come first depends on where your new managers are and what your business needs. I can run the training virtually, which is my first choice, or in person at the location you choose when that suits the group better. If your managers also hire, hiring manager training is part of my Hiring & Onboarding work.

Manager training can be a short series for one person as well as a group session. I like to build it around what the person or company needs, so it can take whatever form they need. For individual manager training, the depth is usually more specific to the person than to the role. For role-specific training, the depth can be based on either timing or the amount of experience.

Performance management consulting

Annual reviews that everyone dreads, then nothing for the rest of the year. Sound familiar? Performance management consulting helps you replace that with something simpler that your managers will actually keep up.

As your consultant, I help you design a system that fits your size:

• Goal setting: a few clear goals per person, tied to the real work.
• Regular feedback: short check-ins through the year instead of one big yearly surprise.
• Performance improvement: a fair, documented path when someone is struggling.
• Review training: so managers write and deliver reviews that are specific and fair.

Performance management training then makes sure your managers can run the system without me in the room.

HR compliance training

In HR compliance training, I cover what your managers need to know to manage team members effectively and legally. It's employment law training in plain words, without the legal mumbo jumbo. Along with harassment prevention, my manager compliance sessions can cover retaliation, leave and accommodation, documentation and corrective actions, managing complaints and escalation, performance reviews, hiring and interview basics, terminations, and pay transparency and wage and hour compliance.

Harassment-prevention training is part of this, and I can do it for your team. There's no such thing as a certified course in Colorado, and Colorado law doesn't currently require private employers to provide this training (the FAQs below cover what it does say). My trainings are compliant with federal and most state guidelines instead. At the federal level, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission strongly encourages employers to provide training to all employees, including supervisors and managers, about the company's anti-harassment policy and complaint process. Training pairs well with clear policies from my HR Foundations & Compliance work.

Usually I offer an hour-long harassment-prevention training that can apply to all team members. I can also offer a 30-minute training for front-line team members and an hour-long training for supervisors and managers. If your company has team members in different states, the training may vary based on state requirements. Typically the training covers topics such as the do's and don'ts, a company policy review if applicable, how to report concerns and bystander prevention. For managers, it also includes topics such as their role and responsibilities and retaliation prevention.

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice. When a question needs an employment attorney, I'll work with one on your behalf, so you're never handling it alone. The legal facts on this page were last checked in October 2026. My guide to Colorado employment law covers the wider picture.

Leadership retreats and team alignment

When the owner and managers are pulling in different directions, everyone below them feels it. Leadership team alignment sessions give your leaders dedicated time to agree on priorities, roles and how decisions get made, whether that's a working session or a leadership retreat.

I can take on as much or as little of it as you need, and I partner with business coaches who help with operations. I'm not a strategic planning facilitator for financials or market plans. My part is the people side of leadership alignment: who owns what, what you expect from each other, and how you'll follow through.

HR workshops and lunch-and-learns

Sometimes the whole team needs the same information at the same time. Topics for my HR workshops include:

• HR fundamentals for small business owners
• Hiring and interviewing best practices
• Managing employees effectively and legally
• Building a healthy workplace culture: workplace culture training about the daily habits that shape how people treat each other
• Difficult conversations for managers, including feedback training
• Employee retention strategies

How I run a workshop depends on the team, the type of training and what you're looking to accomplish. Usually workshops are 1, 2 or 4 hours long, and sometimes they're lunch-and-learns. There are usually questions throughout, along with time at the end for questions. Sometimes there's homework, and there are always takeaways.

Virtual is my first choice for workshops, and I can run them in person too, although whether that's the better fit depends on your team and the session.

Team building workshops

Trust falls are optional. A good team building workshop gives people a reason to talk about how they actually work together: who needs what, where hand-offs break down, and what would make the day easier.

What a session looks like depends on what the needs are, the team I'm working with and what I'm trying to help with, whether that's a new group finding its feet, two departments that keep clashing, or a team that's grown quickly. Making room for quieter people to have a say is part of how I run these sessions.

I work with Colorado businesses in Colorado Springs, Denver, Pueblo, Fort Collins & Loveland, and a team building workshop can run virtually or, depending on the team, in person where your people are based. In Denver? See Training & Development in Denver.