Leadership Skills

Go to Course: https://www.coursera.org/learn/leadershipskills

Introduction

# Course Review: Leadership Skills on Coursera In today's fast-paced and intricate world, effective leadership is more crucial than ever. If you find yourself aiming to bolster your leadership capabilities or simply curious about leadership dynamics, the **Leadership Skills** course offered on Coursera is an excellent resource that provides invaluable insights. ### **Course Overview** The **Leadership Skills** course focuses on the essence of leadership — the practice of influencing people to achieve objectives that align with both individual and organizational goals. Through a structured curriculum, this course takes participants on a journey of self-discovery, fostering a deeper understanding of what it means to be a leader in our contemporary society. What sets this course apart is its approach; it delves into the psychological dimensions of leadership, emphasizes the importance of mindfulness and emotional intelligence, and offers a solid foundation for aspiring leaders. ### **Course Syllabus Breakdown** 1. **Leading the Self: Mindfulness, Inner Stability, and Positive Strengths** - This module emphasizes self-reflection and the significance of leading oneself before guiding others. It covers the psychological aspects needed for effective leadership and introduces concepts such as emotional intelligence and mindfulness. By exploring automaticity and the inner game of self-management, this module prepares learners to be self-aware leaders. 2. **Leading Downward: Leader Behaviors and Leadership Styles** - Explore the TREAT leadership framework that highlights essential behavioral competencies for modern leaders. Participants will learn to identify and adopt critical leadership styles tailored to various scenarios, enabling a tailored approach to leadership that resonates with individual personalities and organizational cultures. 3. **Building Sustainable Relationships: Supportive Communication and Decision-making Biases** - Building positive relationships is pivotal in leadership roles. This module delves into supportive communication styles and the cognitive biases that can hinder effective decision-making. Leveraging the insights from behavioral economics, learners will become adept at nurturing constructive interactions and fostering team cohesion. 4. **Power, Politics, and Leading Upwards** - Navigating power dynamics is a fundamental aspect of effective leadership. This module teaches how to understand and harness power within organizations, lead upwards, and manage relationships with superiors innovatively. By understanding political landscapes, leaders can navigate challenges while aligning them with broader organizational goals. 5. **Ethics, Culture, and Change Management** - Leadership often involves ethical dilemmas. This module addresses how to confront these challenges, cultivate a positive organizational culture, and manage change effectively. The LEAP framework of culture provides essential tools for building a high-performance environment. 6. **Leadership and Ancient Indian Wisdom: Lessons from the Mahabharata** - Uniquely, this module draws lessons from the ancient Indian epic, *The Mahabharata*. Participants analyze character-driven narratives to uncover timeless leadership principles, fostering a rich understanding of integrity, values, and principled leadership. 7. **Peer Review Assignment** - To synthesize the learning experience, this course includes a peer-review assignment, allowing participants to apply concepts and engage with fellow learners — an excellent opportunity for collaborative learning and constructive criticism. ### **Recommendations** The **Leadership Skills** course is ideal for anyone looking to enhance their leadership capabilities, whether you are a young professional, an aspiring manager, or an experienced leader seeking fresh perspectives. The course harnesses a blend of theoretical insights and practical applications, ensuring learners leave with concrete skills to implement in their workplace. The comprehensive syllabus not only engages participants but encourages continuous self-improvement. Furthermore, the integration of ethical considerations and cultural awareness is timely, ensuring that graduates are equipped to handle the complexities of 21st-century leadership. ### **Conclusion** In conclusion, the **Leadership Skills** course on Coursera is a highly recommended program that blends academic rigor with practical exposure. The journey of self-discovery, coupled with solid psychological foundations and actionable strategies, ensures that enrollees emerge as well-rounded leaders capable of navigating the challenges of both individual and organizational success. Enroll today and take your first step toward becoming an influential leader who shapes the future!

Syllabus

Leading the Self: Mindfulness, Inner Stability, and Positive Strengths

In this module, you will learn about introspection, closely analyzing your inner self, and developing the ability to be self-led before leading others effectively. This module highlights the importance of leading oneself by elaborating on aspects of psychology, brain sciences, and human behavior. You will be introduced to some key challenges faced when interacting with others and find ways to better manage your behavior and conduct. In addition, you will also gain insight into core psychological strengths and positive mindsets, as they are essential to be an effective leader. Lastly, the module discusses issues about automaticity, inner game, mindfulness, multitasking, emotional intelligence, inculcating a learning mindset, and positive strengths.

This module will focus on leader behaviors and different leadership styles. You will learn about the TREAT leadership framework and the different leadership styles proposed by the TREAT leadership theory. The TREAT framework has been developed based on rigorous research, and it highlights the leadership competencies that should be developed in leaders of new-age organizations. You will also gain insight into how the framework highlights the importance of five behavioral competencies for leaders: task orientation, relation orientation, empowerment, authenticity, and team building. Finally, the module elaborates on each one of these behavioral competencies and delves deep into how you can develop and incorporate these into your behavior.

This module focuses on enabling you to create sustainable and positive relationships. You will learn about supportive communication and decision-making biases, which are important aspects of building sustainable and positive relationships. The module also covers the theory of empowering communication and some key aspects that leaders must keep in mind when communicating with their subordinates and peers. It also discusses some biases that impact our interactions with others. You will also explore and review the work of Nobel laureates and other behavioral economists. Lastly, you will analyze key biases that impact a leader’s decision-making.

In this module, you will learn about power, politics, and how to lead upwards. The module will introduce you to power and politics in organizations, different sources of power, and how to acquire those sources of power. The module also discusses how to lead upward and manage your supervisors and bosses. Power and politics are integral to any organization and exist everywhere. It is extremely difficult to run away from these issues. Hence, it becomes important for leaders to embrace these challenges and learn to manage them effectively to suit their own and the organization’s larger interests. You will also gain insight into different sources of power, how to develop power, and the use of politics to influence people positively toward achieving their goals. Lastly, you will learn to apply these ideas to forge effective boss-subordinate relationships that can enable effective performance and long-term success.

In this module, you will learn about managing ethical dilemmas, developing organizational culture, and managing change. Ethical dilemmas are inherent to leadership. Leaders need to make a decision and decide between two rights or two wrongs. In this module, you will gain insight into how to navigate life’s ethical dilemmas. In addition, the module discusses the usual organizational culture and how you can build a transformational culture that is conducive to high performance. You will also learn about the LEAP framework of culture. Lastly, the module explores how you can lead and manage change in organizations. Using the real-life example from a corporate organization and public life, you will learn how leaders can inspire change in organizations.

This module covers leadership lessons from the great Indian epic The Mahabharata. The fundamental question is: can leadership lessons be learned from the Mahabharata? In this module, you will look into the lives of important characters from this ancient Indian epic and analyze various aspects of leadership, such as demonstrating the correct values, decision-making ability, integrity, principles, and leading oneself and others. Borrowing from different disciplines, such as literature, philosophy, politics, and psychology, the module will present a leadership triangle comprising six levels. These levels are positive personality, peace with personal identity, purpose, positive use of power and politics, paradoxical leadership, and principled pragmatism. Finally, you will explore the grounded approach where mythology and leadership amalgamate through scholarship and practice.

This is a peer-review assignment based on the concepts taught in the Leadership Skills course. In this assignment, you will be able to apply the skills you learned to become more adept in your journey of leadership.