Chairing Meetings Training Course

Overview | Chairing Meetings Training Course

Chairing meetings training is a course that teaches you how to turn one of the most expensive business activities into a truly productive one. The average employee wastes 129 hours a year in unnecessary meetings, according to research from Asana. This course provides the leadership skills to claim that time back.

You will learn to be a ‘Facilitative Leader’. This means you move beyond simply managing an agenda and instead learn to manage the process of the discussion. These skills are even more effective when combined with management training, as managers learn not only to lead meetings but also to apply broader leadership techniques in the workplace. This is the key to enabling a group to do its best thinking together.

The training is essential for managers who run regular team meetings, project leaders who need to drive decisions, and anyone who feels their meetings end without clear outcomes. As a specialist in this area, MTD Training is a provider of chairing meetings training that gives you a complete toolkit to run meetings with confidence and purpose.

Course Content

Here is an example of an in-house, customised course we can deliver for you. We can run this exactly as shown, or adjust it to your organisation’s needs.

Planning and Preparing to Chair

• Define the role and responsibilities of a chair, as well as the roles of participants and minute-takers.
• Set clear objectives: what outcomes are expected from the meeting.
• Design agendas that are purposeful, structured, and time-sensitive.
• Prepare logistics, supporting materials, and participant briefings needed for smooth execution.

Leading Meetings Effectively

• Create the right environment that encourages participation and focused discussion.
• Use facilitation techniques to encourage balanced input and manage dominant or quieter voices.
• Maintain momentum and keep discussions on track without rushing key topics.
• Manage timings and transitions to ensure each item gets adequate attention.

Handling Difficult Dynamics

• Recognise challenging situations and types of difficult behaviour.
• Stay calm, objective and impartial in the face of conflict or strong emotions.
• Use conflict management strategies to resolve tensions and refocus the meeting.

Closing the Meeting & Following Up

• Summarise decisions made, clarify who is accountable, and confirm next steps.
• Review meeting outcomes against the objectives set at the start.
• Ensure action points are recorded, assigned, and followed up effectively.

Practical Application & Continuous Improvement

• Participate in role-plays or simulations using real meeting scenarios from your own work.
• Observe peer feedback and self-reflection on chairing style and effectiveness.
• Create a personal action plan to implement what you’ve learned and monitor results.

Key Features

Chairing Meetings Training

Gain confidence leading meetings, running them smoothly, keeping discussions focused, and ensuring follow-through on actions.

Embed The Learning

Practical tools and role-plays help you practise chairing meetings in safe settings, so when you do it live, you lead with clarity and authority.

Certification

All our solutions are assured by the Institute of Leadership and Management and are CPD certified, so you’re getting training recognised for quality and credibility.

What Learners Say

Participants say meetings feel more purposeful, run more smoothly, and outcomes are clearer. Check our independent Feefo reviews.

Ongoing Chairing Support

Enjoy 3 months access to our Skillshub eLearning platform plus follow-up support by email and phone to refine your meeting chairing skills.

Similar Learners

Great for team leaders, project managers or anyone who chairs meetings. Many attendees share similar challenges, making the learning immediately applicable.

FAQs about Chairing Meetings Training

What Is Chairing Meetings Training?

Chairing meetings training is a course that teaches you the leadership skills to run meetings that are focused, productive, and result in clear decisions.

It’s about shifting your role from a simple administrator who just follows the agenda, to a Facilitative Leader.

Your job isn’t just to get through the topics. It’s to create an environment where the group can do its best collaborative work. This is why chairing meetings training often overlaps with communication skills training, since guiding discussions, asking the right questions, and ensuring everyone is heard are all core communication abilities.

As a specialist, MTD Training is a provider of chairing meetings training for managers, and we deliver it through in-person workshops. This format is ideal for learning the human-centric skills needed to guide a group discussion effectively.

The aim is to give you the confidence to know that every meeting you run will have a clear purpose, a productive discussion, and a valuable outcome.

What Does The Training Cover?

The training provides you with a complete toolkit built around the ‘4 Ps’ of effective meetings: Purpose, People, Process, and Progress.

These skills are also a central part of training courses for managers, since the ability to run productive meetings is one of the most visible measures of effective leadership.

• Setting the Meeting Up to Win: First, you’ll learn how to define the purpose of every meeting by creating a ‘decision-focused’ agenda, where every item is a question to be answered, not just a topic to discuss. We’ll also cover how to ensure the right people are in the room.
• Managing the Discussion: The main part of the course focuses on the process. This is where you learn the core facilitation skills to manage the discussion, handle difficult personalities, use techniques like a ‘Parking Lot’ to table off-topic points, and guide the group to a clear consensus.
• Ensuring Action is Taken: Finally, we cover progress. You will learn how to close a meeting effectively and create a clear Action Log that details who is doing what by when, which is the key to ensuring accountability and follow-through.

What Are The Key Benefits?

The key benefits of chairing meetings training are a huge saving in time and money, faster decision-making, and a more engaged and aligned team.

Unproductive meetings are a major hidden cost in any business, with research estimating that they cost companies billions each year.

When you learn to run a focused, hour-long meeting that used to take ninety minutes, you give back hundreds of hours of productive time to your business.

• Make Decisions and Move Projects Forward: Poorly run meetings are often where important projects stall. This training gives you the skills to break through that indecision. You learn how to guide a group from a circular discussion to a clear conclusion, which is essential for keeping your projects and initiatives moving forward.
• Improve Team Morale and Engagement: Finally, nothing damages team morale faster than feeling your time is being wasted in a pointless meeting. When you run a crisp, respectful, and productive meeting, you send a clear signal that you value your team’s contribution. This directly improves morale and builds a stronger sense of shared purpose.

Strong meeting skills are also a key theme within leadership training courses, since leaders are judged on how well they use their team’s time and energy.

What Can You Expect From The Training?

The entire day is focused on building real skills that you can use as soon as you are back in the office.

• Practice in a Safe Environment: A significant part of the training is dedicated to hands-on practice. You will get the chance to chair short meeting sessions and handle common difficult scenarios, like dealing with a person who dominates the discussion or a group that goes silent, in a safe and supportive environment.
• Leaving with Tools You Can Use: The main value of the day comes from getting direct, personalised feedback and coaching from an expert facilitator in real-time. You will leave not just with new skills, but with practical tools like agenda templates and action log formats that you can put into practice in your very next meeting.

Get In Touch!

If you have got some training requirements in mind please call us on 0333 320 2883 or complete the online form below and tell us about what they are and we’ll get back to you with some options and costs.