4 Key Roleplays for Manager Training to Hone Your Skills

Leveraging roleplays for manager training is one of the single most useful (yet underrated) tools for building leadership and managerial skills. Whether you’re new to management or you’re a manager looking to sharpen your skills, roleplaying should be one of the tools in your training toolbelt. 

Our beginner-friendly guide will walk you through everything you need to know about this type of roleplay, including why roleplaying works, core managerial skills to develop, how to design impactful roleplays of your own, and roleplay scenarios to improve your skills.

Why Roleplays for Manager Training Are Useful 

When it comes to manager training, roleplaying can offer a realistic approach to stimulating actual scenarios managers encounter on a day-to-day basis. Using roleplays for manager training can help new managers build their confidence and leadership skills, while also preparing for common situations they’ll face. 

Effective manager training can be difficult as it’s tricky to find approaches to practice handling different scenarios without real-world consequences. However, that’s why roleplaying is such a useful tool: It gives folks a risk-free environment to learn from mistakes and grow in their skills.  

Roleplays for manager training are useful not just for new hires, but also for more seasoned managers, especially when it comes to refining existing skills and upskilling. 

6 Essential Managerial Skills to Hone Through Roleplay

No matter your level of managerial experience, your skills can be sharpened through roleplays for manager training. With a bit of practice and dedication, anyone can build or hone their core managerial skills to improve their ability to manage employees, resolve conflict, and communicate to effectively run a team. 

Here are six essential managerial skills you can improve through roleplaying.

1. Feedback delivery

When you manage a team, there will come a day when you’re tasked with delivering feedback. It could be feedback about a recent task your employee did or feedback about their behavior at work. Whatever it may be, it’s critical for you as the manager to be able to deliver feedback in an effective, actionable way. 

Roleplaying can provide an environment where people can practice their feedback delivery skills without risk. Here, managers can sharpen their ability to use constructive criticism that inspires employees to change their behavior rather than deflate their motivation and self-esteem. 

2. Problem-solving and strategic thinking

Skilled managers are adept at both problem-solving and strategic thinking. They can come up with creative, effective solutions that benefit the team as a whole. However, these kinds of skills are difficult to practice with traditional training methods, like employee training videos. With an interactive training option like roleplaying, managers can experience the complexity and nuance of an unexpected challenge to then brainstorm potential solutions. 

The best part is, there’s virtually no risk. You can use roleplays for manager training to practice assessing risks versus benefits to make better decisions and prepare for times when you’ll need to navigate tricky situations. 

3. Mediation and conflict resolution

Mediating and resolving conflict go hand-in-hand, and roleplaying allows managers and managers-to-be to practice these skills in simulated environments. Using roleplay, folks can effectively practice empathy and empathetic listening to make sure all parties feel heard. It also provides managers with a safe space to experiment with different techniques for mediation or conflict resolution. 

4. Effective communication

Effective communication is huge for managers. Managing a team efficiently requires not just leadership, but clear, straightforward communication. People who struggle to communicate effectively will also have trouble leading a team as team dynamics suffer. Constant misunderstandings and misinterpretations can negatively affect your team and the trust they have in you.

To avoid that, managers can practice active listening and clear communication during roleplay. Using plain language and avoiding unnecessary jargon can help you steer clear of misunderstandings, especially when delivering feedback to employees, for example. 

5. Informed decision-making during times of stress

One of the challenges of being a manager is making decisions during high-stress or high-pressure situations. Many times, folks in leadership positions are pressured to make an informed decision fast. During roleplay, people can practice making informed decisions in simulated stressful situations, like whilst under a tight deadline or in an unexpected crisis. 

These types of roleplays for manager training can help folks prioritize and manage their options, stay calm during stressful calls, and work on their adaptability skills. 

6. Team management and delegation

Not surprisingly, team management is a critical aspect of being a manager. Knowing how to best delegate tasks and effectively run a team is central to management roles. Using simulations to practice delegation and team management can help managers articulate clear expectations, pinpoint who the best person is for specific tasks, and follow up without unnecessary micromanagement. 

At the end of the day, roleplays for manager training can nurture a positive team environment in which employees can continuously learn, grow, and improve their abilities. 

Designing Impactful Roleplays for Manager Training 

If you’ve never designed roleplays for manager training before, it might feel overwhelming at first. Building effective roleplays that help hone and improve managerial skills takes some effort. However, the results of a successful roleplay are worth the time it takes to design one. 

Here are some quick tips and strategies for designing impactful roleplays for manager training.

Use SMART goals to define clear objectives

Before you start brainstorming different roleplay scenarios, you’ll need to have some clear-cut goals in mind. Aim to leverage SMART goals — goals that are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound — to elucidate what you want roleplay participants to get out of the training. Setting goals for your participants is important because it helps get managers on the right track in terms of building their skills and fulfilling the purpose of the roleplay. 

Start with a smaller goal and use the SMART framework to flesh it out. For example, you might start with wanting to improve your managers’ conflict resolution skills. From there, you’ll define it further with the SMART methodology for best results. 

Aim to replicate common, realistic scenarios

Although roleplays for manager training can be used to help folks train for specific, uncommon situations, it’s better to design roleplays to emulate everyday situations managers will face. Realistic scenarios make training more effective and efficient. 

Think about common workplace situations that managers are most likely to face in their role. If you’re drawing a blank, take a look at industry-specific or company-specific data. Depending on time constraints, you could even use anonymous surveys with current managers to see what routine situations they face.

For example, common scenarios might be:

• Dealing with teams that are not performing as they should
• Handling difficult conversations with an employee
• Managing tight deadlines with the team

Don’t underestimate the power of technology for roleplays for manager training

Using technology to inform and enhance roleplays for manager training can make them more engaging and effective. For example, AI roleplays can add an extra dynamic layer for participants as they use generative AI to keep participants on their toes.

You can also tap into virtual reality (VR) to practice managerial skills in immersive workplace simulations. Even something as simple as using video recording software to record your roleplays for manager training can help trainees review their performance and improvement over time. 

Always leverage feedback for trainees

When conducting roleplays for manager training, make sure you include constructive feedback. Incorporating feedback into your roleplay training process is important because it gives trainees the information they need to improve. Follow-up coaching sessions can also be baked into the process to allow managers in training to improve their abilities.

How to Conduct Roleplays for Manager Training With Yoodli

When it comes to conducting roleplays for manager training, there’s no more valuable tool than Yoodli. Yoodli — a roleplay and communication coach that uses artificial intelligence — provides state-of-the-art roleplay capabilities to transform folks into better, more effective managers. Companies like Google, Korn Ferry, and Dale Carnegie already use Yoodli for training, certification, and enablement.

Here’s how it works for managers and team leads. There are tons of existing roleplay scenarios on Yoodli’s platform that folks can choose from, from manager skills training to performance review simulations. However, users can also craft their own roleplay from scratch to practice specific scenarios. This option is especially useful if you have a situation that you know you’d like to prepare for.

Once you’ve chosen a scenario, you’ll engage with an AI-generated partner who will respond in real time, just like a human would. There are tons of personalities you can choose from to customize your roleplay further and get more practice. For example, your conversations with an employee who’s stressed or frustrated will be different than a conversation with a team member who’s friendly and relaxed. No single roleplay is the same with Yoodli, which makes it perfect for manager training. 

After you’re done roleplaying, Yoodli analyzes your performance to provide you with an in-depth evaluation of how you did. Using this data, you’ll get specific feedback and valuable insights on your listening, delivery, and speech patterns. That way, you can home in on and practice what needs the most improvement, whether that’s effective feedback delivery or your tone (or something else altogether). 

It’s one of the most realistic ways to build and develop the managerial skills you need to take your team to the next level. 

Company administrators can also personalize Yoodli to make it their own based on their own needs and brand methodology. Plus, Yoodli provides enterprise-grade privacy — including SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and more.

Don’t wait to explore roleplays for manager training. You and your team can get started for free at https://yoodli.ai/.

4 Must-Try Roleplay Scenarios for Manager Training

Whether you’re a seasoned manager or you’re new to managing a team, roleplaying realistic scenarios is a great way to improve your ability to navigate team management. Here are four roleplay scenarios for manager training you can use in your next training session.

1. Managing difficult conversations with employees

It’s not uncommon for a manager to be tasked with having a difficult conversation with one of their employees. They could be tasked with relaying tough news or addressing performance or interpersonal issues. Whatever the case may be, traditional training doesn’t often prepare managers for these scenarios. That’s what makes this scenario in particular such a valuable roleplay for manager training. 

Have your managers-in-training practice navigating tricky conversations with employees using AI or peer roleplay. For example, one person will act as the manager and another person (or an AI-generated partner) can be the employee. Assign a difficult or sensitive subject for the roleplay. 

Conversations can revolve around situations like:

• An employee has behaved inappropriately at work
• There are organizational changes that’ll affect your team
• Your employee asks for a raise but it’s not in the budget
• An employee is constantly missing work or coming in late

Practicing navigating these difficult conversations is essential for managers, as interactions like these are commonplace. Plus, it’s a good way to practice empathy and professionalism.

2. Facilitating collaboration across teams and departments 

In both large and small companies, managers are frequently tasked with fostering cross-team and cross-departmental collaboration. Although this might seem simple and straightforward, office politics and employees who are resistant to change can complicate things. 

Consider a scenario where multiple teams are working together toward a common goal, like a product launch. The deadline is fast approaching, and there’s disagreement over the priorities of two different teams. In this roleplay for manager training, the idea is to bridge the gap between these two teams so you’ll meet the launch deadline. 

In this roleplay, you’ll work on skills like mediation, effective cross-team communication, and conflict resolution. 

3. Providing constructive criticism and feedback

The ability to provide constructive criticism and feedback is another critical skill for managers (and one that can be difficult to practice). Learning how to give feedback to your employees can completely revolutionize the team dynamic. You need to be able to deliver feedback without unnecessarily upsetting your employees or discouraging them from changing their behavior. 

With this scenario, imagine one of your employees is severely underperforming. Their lack of performance impacts the team as a whole, and it’s your job to motivate them to action without negatively impacting their own morale. Practice this scenario using a feedback delivery technique like the GROW method.

Working through a scenario like this one will help managers foster a positive team environment as well as trust in their employees. 

4. Announcing a change in management

One of the more difficult situations managers sometimes face is a change in management. When there are organizational changes happening in a company, managers are often the folks responsible for breaking the news to their team. It’s a high-pressure situation that can be as stressful for the manager as it is for the employees. 

In this scenario, picture an organizational change that’ll affect your team. It’s only natural for people to resist change, and you might face some pushback. Practice addressing employee concerns while also reframing the change as an opportunity for growth. This type of roleplay for manager training helps team leads work on their persuasion skills, empathy, and team alignment skills, among others.  

Practicing scenarios like change management will help future managers navigate their teams through transitions and change easier. 

The Main Takeaway 

Roleplays for manager training offer an immersive, interactive way for folks to hone their managerial skills and become better leaders for their teams. When you use a tool like Yoodli that leverages AI, you’ll be able to get countless hours of training without having the same experience over and over again. After all, roleplaying is a risk-free option for practicing stressful, uncomfortable, or high-stakes conversations that you wouldn’t be able to practice otherwise. 

Sources

• SHRM: “Developing Management,” “The Art of Role Playing in Developing Management Proficiency.”

Together Mentoring Software: “15 Skills to Include in a New Manager Training Program.”