Leading People and Operations From the Center of the Organization

Management Skills for Office Managers

A Two-Day Workshop for Office Managers Who Must Lead Without Always Having the Authority That Comes With the Responsibility
“The office manager is responsible for the organization running smoothly every day. The difficulty is that almost none of the people who determine that are directly under their authority.”

The office manager role in Pakistani organizations is:

One of the most structurally difficult management positions in any organization.

The office manager is expected to keep the office running: facilities, administrative staff, vendors, systems, logistics, and the hundred small daily decisions that keep an organization physically and operationally functional. At the same time, the people whose cooperation is required to keep things running, senior managers, department heads, external vendors, administrative staff from multiple functions, are rarely directly under the office manager’s authority. They report to other people. They have their own priorities. The office manager must lead through influence, relationships, and credibility rather than through a clear reporting line.
Management Skills for Office Managers is IKTAR’s program for the specific management challenges this role creates. It builds the people management skills needed to lead an administrative team directly, alongside the influence, communication, and operational management skills needed to coordinate effectively with the rest of the organization and with external service providers, all in a role where authority is often informal and must be earned through competence and consistency rather than granted through a title.
This program sits between IKTAR’s administrative programs, Modern Secretarial Practices and Secretarial Practices, which develop the technical skills of the role, and the broader Managerial Skills program, which addresses management in general. Management Skills for Office Managers is specifically for the people management and operational leadership layer of the office manager role.

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Who This Program Is For

Management Skills for Office Managers is designed for:

• Office managers responsible for both administrative staff and the operational running of a department or office facility
• Senior administrative professionals stepping into an office management role for the first time and needing to develop people management alongside operational skills
• Office managers who are operationally strong but find the people management aspects of the role, giving feedback, handling performance issues, managing team dynamics, more challenging
• Organizations whose office managers are technically capable but are not yet operating as genuine managers of people and processes rather than very senior administrators
• Administrative team leads who supervise two or more people and need to develop their management capability before taking on a full office manager role

If your office managers are running the office but not yet leading the people and systems within it, this program bridges exactly that gap.

What Participants Learn

By the end of the workshop, participants will be able to:

• Set clear performance expectations for administrative staff and follow through when those expectations are not met
• Give direct, specific feedback to team members who report to them without softening it to the point where the message is lost
• Influence and coordinate with colleagues and departments over whom they have no direct authority, including senior managers and department heads
• Manage vendor and service provider relationships with the professionalism and firmness that protects the organization’s interests
• Handle the specific management challenges of a hybrid role: being simultaneously a manager, a coordinator, and an operational contributor
• Build the personal authority and organizational credibility that makes the informal aspects of the office manager role work

Methodology

Program Structure and Methodology

Format: Two day in-person workshop
Group Size: Optimal cohort of 12 to 20 managers
Methodology: Role plays covering the specific management scenarios office managers face, influence and coordination exercises, feedback practice, and vendor management simulations
Delivery Options: Public workshop with scheduled dates, or in-house program for an office management team
Training
The scenarios used in this workshop are drawn specifically from the office manager context rather than generic management examples. Participants practice having a performance conversation with an administrative team member who is consistently late, influencing a department head who is not complying with office systems, and handling a vendor who is underdelivering on a service agreement. These are the actual situations office managers face, and the workshop prepares them for each specifically.

Why IKTAR

Generic management training rarely accounts for the specific dynamics of the office manager role: the hybrid authority, the need to manage upward as well as downward, and the operational complexity of keeping an organization running while also developing and managing a team. IKTAR’s program is built around the actual scenarios this role generates rather than generic management theory applied uniformly.
Following the workshop, IKTAR provides a free training review report identifying each participant’s strongest management skill and the specific area most likely to improve their effectiveness in the office manager role immediately.

Public Training Workshops

Open Public Training Workshops

Scheduled training sessions held at IKTAR’s facilities or partner venues in Lahore. Open to participants from any organization. Ideal for organizations sending one to five people, or for individuals investing in their own professional development

Scheduled dates published in advance | Meet and learn with professionals from other organizations | Cost-effective for small teams | Immediate availability without minimum group size | Certificate of completion issued

View Upcoming Public Workshops

In-House Customized Programs

Customized In-House Training Solutions

Training designed exclusively for your organization and delivered at your premises or a venue of your choice. IKTAR conducts a Training Needs Analysis first, then develops a program that reflects your organization’s specific context, challenges, and objectives.

Designed around your actual training gaps | Delivered at your location across Pakistan | Consistent messaging for your entire team | Flexible scheduling around your operations | Higher ROI for teams of 10 or more | Ongoing support and follow-up available

Request a Customized Program Proposal

Explore Our Management Training Programs

Managerial Skills is the foundational program in IKTAR’s Management suite. Build on it with:

Negotiation Skills

Negotiating with vendors and service providers professionally

VIEW PROGRAM

Conflict & Complaint Management

Handling team disputes and stakeholder complaints

VIEW PROGRAM

Modern Secretarial Practices & Office Management

The operational and systems layer of the office manager role

VIEW PROGRAM

Effective Time and Work Management

Managing personal and team workload alongside project responsibilities

VIEW PROGRAM

CLIENT RESULTS

What Organizations Say About IKTAR Training

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Shafqat is well experienced trainer familiar with Competency Based Education and Training CBET & Quality Assurance QA / Quality Control QC of Training

Moustafa WahbaTVET Consultant

I don’t hesitate in placing Shafqat Jilani among the best trainers in the country. He always explores modern approaches, creative skills, innovative ideas and relevant case studies. Any enterprise looking for training services in human development, strategic planning, development of selling & marketing skills, improvement in presentation skills, policy & strategy development, polishing decision-making skills, introduction of modern approaches etc. must opt IKTAR as a Trainer.

Zulfiqar Ahmad HBL

Mr. Shafqat is a thorough gentleman and a perfect professional who keeps his commitments and have all the potential to steer any organization to success. He is a Lead Trainer and Consultant and I for once trust him to deliver effective and mesmerizing trainings as well as innovative solutions. I would like to highly recommend him for training and consulting assignments.

Suhail Iqbal SysComp International (Pvt.) Ltd

KTAR is very good training institute, as we experienced recently. We sent our team on Leadership training course to IKTAR and found a tremendous change in behavior of our team. IKTAR has been useful in bringing a Paradigm shift in their approach to handle things and now the same employees are very helpful towards other colleagues. I believe, IKTAR training modules makes employees from Followers to Leaders, who not only delivery their own KPIs but also help others to grow to achieve joint goals of the company.

Abdul Wahid QureshiRenacon Pharma

Shafqat Jilani is a a detailed oriented person. Hope his organization can take a lot a benefit from him. Good Luck

Chaudhry Ahmad JawadPakistan Business Forum

I had the opportunity to work with Shafqat Jilani and found him to be a knowledgeable and dedicated business consultant. His practical advice, strategic thinking, and commitment to helping businesses grow make him a valuable professional. I appreciate his guidance and confidently recommend him to anyone seeking business transformation and growth expertise.

Dr. Shafa UllahPower Lion Seed

I know Shafqat from his university days, he had a candid and persuasive personality from the early days. He had bold presentations with innovative and unique ideas complemented by his ability to put this on the paper as well. Teaching and passing on his knowledge to others has always been his passion and he has been doing this very well in his different roles at the present and previous assignments.

M. Zafar IqbalLa Computa Vision LLC

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