Harvard Business School: Leadership Principles
About Leadership Principles:
This online course is designed, written, and taught by Harvard professors from the graduate school of business. The general idea is to walk new and moderately experienced leaders through four modules: 1) Taking Charge, 2) Leading Your Team, 3) Unleashing Potential in Yourself and Others, and 4) Your Network.
Who Should be Interested:
Leaders with 0-5 years of experience
Leaders who want a refresher over common best practices
Leaders who want to improve their current performance
Prospective leaders who are looking to make the leap into management and leadership
Course Summary:
The course is hosted online via Harvard Business School Online with high interactive and engaging videos, content reading, question and answer, and communication within your cohort. This highly innovative approach is both motivating and easy to use. The course is broken down into the following four modules:
1) Taking Charge
How to move from being the expert and task completer into creating an environment for mutual learning, engaging with people, growing collaboration, and increasing productivity within a diverse working environment. To do this well, a leader must develop your ability to build direction, relationships, design systems, create processes, and understand yourself.
2) Leading Your Team
Creating a culture within your team that is committed to a common purpose, requires equitable engagement of all members, allows for health debate and conflict, permits vulnerability to encourage risk-taking, and establishes a shared set of norms for operation and decision-making. Developing these qualities within your team will move you from a collective group of individuals to a collaborate team that is highly effective.
3) Unleashing Potential in Yourself and Others
Understanding your own current leadership style through measuring your ability to lead with authenticity, competence, humility, resolve, warmth, elevation, and faith. Identifying your own style here will allow you to develop yourself to be more approachable and credible, which are the bedrock for being a more aspirational leader.
4) Your Network
Individual leaders are often celebrated and seen as a monolith of excellence. However, every great leader has been impacted by other people along their journey and currently require a network that can be relied upon for advice and support. Developing such a network has already started for all leaders, for both those who are aspiring or seasoned. Knowing how to connect, contribute, and seek support is key in your development as a leader.
Course Recommendation:
At the time of writing, this course costs $1750, which is by no means cheap or affordable for more individuals. However, if you have the funds or a workplace that is willing to pay for it, this is certainly a course worth considering for any aspiring to moderately experience leader. While the course seems focused on leadership within the business realm (and it largely is), as a school leader, I found its content and learning to be highly applicable. There are many references to leading in schools and fantastic case studies from business around the world that keep you excited in seeing the journey of a series of individual leaders.
If you are a highly seasoned leader looking for opportunities to take the next big leap, this course may not be worth the time, effort, and costs. However, if you can afford roughly ten hours per week and the cost, this course will benefit nearly all leaders in some way.