Government Audit Leader Level III Certificate Program (Self-Paced)
IDAUDT3.CP.2SP

This executive-level seminar teaches strategies to manage emotions, navigate difficult interactions, and build trust during audit engagements. Learn to influence stakeholders, resolve conflicts, and lead audit teams with emotional clarity.

• Examine and work toward achieving these key characteristics of emotional intelligence for personal effectiveness in auditing and leading change - Self-awareness, Self-control, Attitude and Motivation, Empathy, and Social competence.
• Maintain control, power, and influence by managing challenging personalities and situations.
• Build strong working and personal relationships through mutual trust and confidence to overcome the natural resistance to change and maximize the personal leadership for buy-in and action.
• Apply critical thinking skills across the elements of emotional intelligence to achieve greater influence and situational awareness.

Learn a structured approach to selecting audits that maximize organizational impact. You will apply a systematic risk and value assessment method to define objectives, plan scope, and present compelling proposals grounded in public benefit and stakeholder needs.

• Apply strategic customer value in assessing desired stakeholder needs.
• Perform a SWOT analysis and logic model to consider audit topic objectives.
• Use internal and external risk assessment to identify areas of vulnerability and opportunity as criteria for scoring potential audit benefits and results.
• Apply a cost/benefit approach to score the potential value of audit proposals.
• Describe the central role of objectives in performance auditing.
• Write objectives that provide clear direction for planning fieldwork, assigning staff, facilitating report writing and meeting auditing standards.
• Track audit progress and measure actual results.

Learn how to transition from being a skilled auditor to an effective leader by mastering motivation, accountability, and communication techniques. This course equips participants with tools to build trust, empower teams, and create a culture of high performance.

• Define and develop characteristics of leadership and leadership behavior
• Avoid the behaviors and actions that cause leaders to fail in leadership roles
• Set and articulate clear expectations through mission, vision, objectives, and policies
• Define management functions and how they differ from leadership
• Apply the right leadership style to fit the situation by learning to adjust
• Measure performance for individual and organizational results and accountability
• Delegate work and empower staff for growth and performance
• Use the appropriate style and methods of motivating staff
• Create a culture of innovation, trust, and teamwork
• Develop communication styles that encourage engagement and accountability

Explore common ethical challenges auditors face—from clear-cut right vs. wrong temptations to complex right vs. right conflicts—and learn to apply proven frameworks for resolution. This hands-on one-day workshop teaches how to mitigate risks, strengthen personal courage, and integrate ethics control systems within audit organizations.

• Anticipate and recognize ethical dilemmas as well as distinguish right vs. wrong temptations from the right vs. right ethical hazards and dilemmas that auditors face in their work.
• Select, describe, and use the appropriate ethical decision-making process from a survey of widely accepted models.
• Describe the causes of unethical behavior and methods of discouraging that behavior.
• Mitigate the internal and external inhibitors to carrying out decisions when there are potential risks involved.

This course teaches how to oversee audit assignments by assigning roles, scheduling tasks, managing resources, and ensuring stakeholder communication. Case-based learning supports planning efficiency and audit quality.

• Describe what each phase of the audit process contributes to finding development.
• Describe the decisions that need to be made at each phase and the role that conferences play in making those decisions Illustrate how well-stated objectives form the basis for field work, reporting and for monitoring the ongoing conduct of the audit.
• Define the purpose and product of a conference at the survey, planning, fieldwork verification and reporting phases; and describe which team members should attend, and their roles.
• Demonstrate a working knowledge of how to conduct a conference by participating in a case study simulation using a team-prepared agenda.

This fast-paced, one-day seminar trains auditors, managers, and analysts to integrate ERM into audit strategy using GAO's Green Book, COSO standards, and OMB A-123. Participants learn how to evaluate risk in mission and mission-support areas, build risk-aware cultures, and support organizational accountability using best practices in internal control.

• Explain the need for ERM.
• Describe risk in government.
• Explain leadership accountability for enterprise risk management.
• Identify strategies for building a risk culture.
• Use ERM to define risk to strategic goals.
• Articulate the role of ERM in the budget environment.