Essence of Leadership

O.P. Jindal Global University via Coursera

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Details

Go to class

Provider

Coursera
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Effort

6 weeks, 4 hours a week
Sessions

Self-Paced
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

English, Pashto, Farsi

Found in

Part of

Leadership and Society

Overview

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What does it take to become an effective leader in a complex, rapidly changing world? Essence of Leadership gives you a comprehensive foundation in leadership theory and practice, helping you understand how great leaders navigate uncertainty, influence others, make ethical decisions, and create meaningful change. Designed for aspiring, emerging, and practicing leaders, this course takes you beyond traditional leadership models. Explore modern leadership styles, transformational and transactional leadership, ethical and public leadership, bureaucratic leadership, complexity leadership, servant and authentic leadership, gender and leadership, and leadership networking. You’ll also examine how leaders operate in VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) environments. Learn through the stories and approaches of globally acclaimed leaders—including Nelson Mandela, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr., and Emmeline Pankhurst—as well as grassroots leaders creating change in their communities. Whether you’re preparing for your first leadership role, strengthening your leadership skills, or seeking to lead teams and communities more effectively, Essence of Leadership will help you develop a broader perspective on what leadership means—and how effective leadership can turn complexity into collective action. Build your leadership skills. Understand diverse leadership styles. Lead with purpose, ethics, and impact.

Syllabus

Traditional and Modern Leadership
- In this module, you will learn the basic definitions, common misconceptions, and focus of traditional and modern leadership studies. You will also learn about the interdisciplinary nature of leadership studies. You will know the basic components of key leadership styles and other styles in the continuum, leading in the VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Complex, and Ambiguous) World.
Political, Ethical, and Bureaucratic Leadership
- This module focuses on the overview and different contexts of political leadership. You will learn about the evolution of political leadership and the modern-day challenges leaders face and potential solutions to those problems. This module prepares you to take an institutionalist approach and compare political leadership in old and new democracies. You will know the political override of the bureaucracy, people, politics, and public leadership. You will gain a deep understanding of ethical public leadership, ethical value and their importance for public leadership, ethical competencies, and key characteristics of ethical actions. Understanding various leadership attributes and styles will help you analyze political and bureaucratic relationships and evaluate transactional and transformational political leadership in organizations (Herbert Simon’s insights). You will also learn about bureaucratic leadership in the context of the UN systems where you will further examine issues, needs, and challenges they face in a multilateral setting.
Leadership in Specific Contexts of Complexity, Spirituality, and Gender
- This module focuses on leadership in specific contexts of complexity, spirituality, and gender. You will learn about complexity leadership and explore the shifts leaders need to deal with complexity, innovation, and change. You will also explore spiritual, authentic, and servant leadership using Al Qaeda as an example of complexity-based organization and leadership. Further, you will learn the significance of gender, the influence of gender stereotypes, and variations in leadership traits, styles, and effectiveness among men and women leaders. You will also learn about leadership networking and its significance and analyze how it differs from conventional networking. Furthermore, you will learn about the context in which leadership ideas develop, when traditional leadership must change, and how these changes may impact the current leadership.
Globally Acclaimed Leaders
- Leaders are considered successful if they can transfer chaos (randomness) in a social system into order (integration). This module focuses on the cases of five global leaders who effectively made this process effective. You will learn about the traits leaders use in their leadership activities and analyze the commonalities in their approaches.
Grassroot Leaders
- Successful leadership at the macro level can be better achieved when supported actively by community leaders at the micro level. This module focuses on leaders operating at the grassroots level often initiating complementary changes at local levels. You will learn how these leaders’ efforts can be adapted for use in other local contexts and provide evidence for their effectiveness at macro levels as well. You will understand the role of grassroots leaders in bringing about order in a prevailing situation of chaos.
Leaders Portrayed in Films
- Films are mostly portrayals of realities with reference to the past, present, and even future. This module focuses on three films with an emphasis on leadership. You will discover how these films illustrate the different perspectives of leadership. You will learn about the main role of leaders in bringing order to a situation of chaos.