Middle managers play a critical role in shaping employee experience, retention, and team performance; yet they are often navigating these responsibilities while managing high stress, difficult conversations, and competing priorities. This training series equips leaders at all levels, with practical people-management skills grounded in emotional awareness, collaborative communication ™, and psychological safety. Participants will explore how mental health at work, team dynamics, and leadership behaviors intersect, and will practice tools to navigate conflict, build trust, and support their teams through ongoing change—while also taking care of themselves.
By the end of this training series, participants will be able to:
1. Identify key people-management challenges facing middle managers including; communication breakdowns, team stress, and retention pressures, and explain how these impact employee experience and outcomes.
2. Analyze how emotional awareness, psychological safety, and leadership communication influence team engagement, conflict, and performance during periods of change.
3. Apply at least two practical people-management strategies (e.g., adaptive communication tools, conflict navigation techniques, or psychological safety practices) to support healthier teams and more effective day-to-day leadership.
Lamarr Lewis Bio
Lamarr Lewis’ lifelong mission is to leave the world better than how he found it. He is a dedicated advocate, author, and agent of change. With a focus on the human side of workplace culture, he has supported diverse groups including individuals living with psychiatric disabilities, people in recovery from substance abuse, and at-hope youth (He does not use the term at-risk).
His career spans over twenty years with experience in community-based mental and public health, as a therapist, consultant, public speaker, facilitator, trainer, and human service professional. Lamarr integrates “A therapist’s lens to organizational problems,” fostering accountability, healing, and equity in the communities he serves.He is an alumnus of Wittenberg University graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology with minors in Africana Studies and Religion. He later received his master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling from Argosy University.
He has been a featured expert for such organizations as; Boeing, Region IV Public Health Training Center, the Georgia Mental Health Consumer Network, Fulton County Probate Court, Mississippi Department of Health, the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians, ASTHO, CyncHealth Nebraska, and many more.
Free
12:30 - 1:00 PM - Check-in and light snack 1:00 - 3:00 PM - Presentation
