Syllabus
The Foundations of the Program
The Person-Centered Manager Certificate is built upon four critical, evidence-based pillars designed to transform leadership. These core principles equip managers to cultivate thriving teams and drive sustainable organizational success by focusing on human potential.
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Manager as Coach: Shifting from Control to Capability-Building
At the core of person-centered management is a shift in how managers understand their role. Rather than directing, fixing, or micromanaging, managers learn to coach for clarity, ownership, and growth.
Workplace coaching is supported by multiple meta-analyses demonstrating positive effects on performance, skill development, wellbeing, coping, and work attitudes (Theeboom et al., 2014; Cannon-Bowers et al., 2023).

Evidence
Coaching works. Meta-analyses show workplace coaching improves performance, wellbeing, coping, and work attitudes (Theeboom et al., 2014; Cannon-Bowers et al., 2023).
Managers learn to:
  • Ask effective, curiosity-driven questions
  • Support problem-solving rather than dependency
  • Balance empathy with accountability
  • Build confidence, autonomy, and capability

Capability Building
Coaching-oriented managers spend less time reacting to problems and more time building sustainable capability.
Positive Psychology: Building Engagement, Motivation, and Wellbeing at Work
Within the Person-Centered Manager Certificate, Positive Psychology provides a scientific foundation for understanding what helps people function well and perform sustainably at work.
Traditional positive psychology emphasizes strengths, engagement, recognition, motivation, and meaning. Meta-analytic evidence demonstrates that strengths-use interventions produce positive effects on employee wellbeing, engagement, and performance-related outcomes (Meyers et al., 2022).

Evidence
Strengths drive outcomes. Strengths-based interventions improve wellbeing, engagement, and performance (Meyers et al., 2022).
Engagement-focused interventions also show small-to-moderate but reliable positive effects across organizations (Knight et al., 2016).

Engagement
Engagement matters. Engagement interventions are linked to improved productivity, persistence, and discretionary effort (Knight et al., 2016).
Managers learn how to apply these principles in daily leadership practices without lowering performance standards or ignoring real demands.
Psychological Safety: Creating Conditions Where People Can Contribute
Psychological safety is essential for learning, voice, and collaboration. A large meta-analysis shows psychological safety is positively associated with task performance, learning behavior, and citizenship behavior (Frazier et al., 2017).

Evidence
Psychological safety predicts performance. Teams with higher psychological safety show stronger learning and performance outcomes (Frazier et al., 2017).
Additional empirical work demonstrates that psychologically safe teams are more likely to surface errors, raise concerns, and adapt effectively (Kim et al., 2020).

Risk Reduction
Psychological safety reduces risk. Teams speak up earlier about errors and concerns, reducing costly failures (Kim et al., 2020).
Neuroinclusion: Designing Work for Cognitive Diversity
Neuroinclusion recognizes that cognitive diversity is already present in the workforce. Research shows many workplace challenges experienced by neurodivergent employees arise from environmental and managerial barriers, not lack of capability (Doyle, 2020).

Evidence
Barriers—not ability—drive many outcomes. Neurodivergent employment challenges often stem from workplace design and management practices (Doyle, 2020).
Accessible and inclusive work design improves employment sustainability and retention for autistic employees (Waisman-Nitzan et al., 2021).

Accessibility
Inclusive design improves retention. Accessible environments support sustained employment and reduce preventable attrition (Waisman-Nitzan et al., 2021).
Why Bringing These Four Pillars Together Matters
Individually, each pillar adds value. Together, they create a coherent, person-centered management system that supports performance, wellbeing, learning, and inclusion at the same time.
Manager as Coach
Building capability through curiosity-driven questions and support
Positive Psychology
Leveraging strengths, engagement, and meaning at work
Psychological Safety
Creating conditions for voice, learning, and collaboration
Neuroinclusion
Designing accessible work for cognitive diversity

Integration
Person-centered management works because coaching, engagement, safety, and inclusion reinforce one another.

Learn more about the Person-Centered Manager Competencies and Core Skills
Return on Investment
Why Person-Centered Management Makes Business Sense
Meta-analyses show a consistent negative relationship between employee turnover and organizational performance (Hancock et al., 2013; Park & Shaw, 2013). Turnover is also economically costly, with peer-reviewed estimates commonly citing replacement costs of approximately 90–200% of annual salary, depending on role complexity (Jian et al., 2022).
90-200%
Turnover Cost
Replacing an employee can cost 90–200% of annual salary (Jian et al., 2022)

ROI
Turnover is expensive. Replacing an employee can cost ~90–200% of annual salary (Jian et al., 2022).

Performance Impact
Turnover hurts performance. Higher turnover is associated with poorer organizational performance (Hancock et al., 2013; Park & Shaw, 2013).
Engagement and coaching-based leadership practices improve productivity, persistence, and discretionary effort (Knight et al., 2016; Meyers et al., 2022).

Compounding ROI
Management behavior influences multiple outcomes at once—engagement, retention, performance, wellbeing—creating compounding returns over time.
Psychological safety and neuroinclusive practices further reduce risk, prevent avoidable losses of talent, and improve learning under pressure (Frazier et al., 2017; Doyle, 2020).
A Practical, Human-Centered Approach to Modern Leadership
The Person-Centered Manager Certificate exists because today's managers are navigating unprecedented complexity with limited preparation. This program does not assume managers are failing—it recognizes they have been undertrained.

Bottom Line
Organizations invest in person-centered management not because it is aspirational, but because it is evidence-based, preventative, and performance-relevant.
This is not about being softer.
It is about being more effective—by putting people at the center of how work gets done.
References
Cannon-Bowers, J. A., Bowers, C. A., Carlson, C. E., Doherty, S. L., Evans, J., & Hall, J. (2023). Workplace coaching: A meta-analysis and recommendations for advancing the science of coaching. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1204166. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1204166
DeRue, D. S., Nahrgang, J. D., Wellman, N., & Humphrey, S. E. (2011). Trait and behavioral theories of leadership: An integration and meta-analytic test. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 7–52.
DeRue, D. S., & Wellman, N. (2009). Developing leaders via experience: The role of developmental challenge, learning orientation, and feedback availability. Journal of Applied Psychology, 94(4), 859–875.
DeRue, D. S., Sitkin, S. B., Podolny, J. M., & Wrzesniewski, A. (2012). Organizational leadership capability: A strategic approach to leadership development. Academy of Management Perspectives, 26(4), 63–80.
Doyle, N. (2020). Neurodiversity at work: A biopsychosocial model and the impact on working adults. British Medical Bulletin, 135(1), 108–125.
Frazier, M. L., Fainshmidt, S., Klinger, R. L., Pezeshkan, A., & Vracheva, V. (2017). Psychological safety: A meta-analytic review and extension. Personnel Psychology, 70(1), 113–165.
Hancock, J. I., Allen, D. G., Bosco, F. A., McDaniel, K. R., & Pierce, C. A. (2013). Meta-analytic review of employee turnover as a predictor of firm performance. Journal of Management, 39(3), 573–603.
Hannah, S. T., Avolio, B. J., Luthans, F., & Harms, P. D. (2013). Leadership efficacy: Review and future directions. The Leadership Quarterly, 24(1), 285–310.
Jian, Q., Chen, N., Zhang, Y., & colleagues. (2022). Reducing employees’ turnover intentions: Evidence on the economic cost of turnover. Frontiers in Psychology.
Knight, C., Patterson, M., & Dawson, J. (2016). Building work engagement: A systematic review and meta-analysis of interventions. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 38(6), 792–812.
Meyers, M. C., van Woerkom, M., & Bakker, A. B. (2022). The effectiveness of strengths use interventions: A meta-analysis. Applied Psychology: An International Review.
Park, T. Y., & Shaw, J. D. (2013). Turnover rates and organizational performance: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 98(2), 268–309.
Theeboom, T., Beersma, B., & van Vianen, A. E. M. (2014). Does coaching work? A meta-analysis on the effects of coaching on individual-level outcomes. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 9(1), 1–18.
Waisman-Nitzan, M., Schreuer, N., & Gal, E. (2021). Workplace accessibility for employees with autism. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 115, 104003.