Leadership and Business Skill for Immediate Impact
Apply practical strategies to becoming an effective organizational leader.
About This Specialization
Enhance leadership and business skills for immediate impact. Practice everyday leadership, manage people, learn and apply concepts and techniques to effectively manage organizations through organizational design, and formulate and implement strategy.
Through the courses in this specialization, you will learn the fundamentals to effectively lead people and teams, manage organizations as well as tools to analyze business situations and develop strategies. The Specialization covers the strategic, human resource, and organizational foundations for creating and capturing value for sustainable competitive advantage – including how to manage people and organizations, analyze the competition, and develop strategies both within a business and across a portfolio of businesses.
The capstone is a strategic leadership and management plan where you’ll apply what you will learn to an actual business situation with participation by one or more focal companies. The deliverable will be designed to create value from the perspective of potential employers while achieving pedagogical and experiential goals for learners.
This Specialization is part of the University of Illinois Masters of Business Administration degree program, the iMBA. Learn more about the admission into the program here and how your Coursera work can be leveraged if accepted into the program. You can also start with for-credit courses within the Illinois iMBA degree program.
Created by:
7 courses
Follow the suggested order or choose your own.
Projects
Designed to help you practice and apply the skills you learn.
Certificates
Highlight your new skills on your resume or LinkedIn.
Courses
- Beginner Specialization.
- No prior experience required.
COURSE 1
Foundations of Everyday Leadership
Upcoming session: Jul 3 — Aug 7.- Commitment
- 4 weeks of study, 4-6 hours/week
- Subtitles
- English
About the Course
In this course you will learn about the “head and heart” of everyday leadership, individual decision making, group decision making, and managing motivation. The objectives are to understand why and how leadership skills are so critical to organizational success, and learn the foundations of effective leadership skills. Learners: • Understand why and how leadership skills are so critical to organizational success • Know how to use leadership skills to work more effectively with others, and are able to organize teams to work more effectively together • Will be able to apply the foundations of effective leadership skills to everyday situations faced by leaders. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.COURSE 2
Applications of Everyday Leadership
Upcoming session: Jul 3 — Aug 7.- Commitment
- 4 weeks of study, 5-7 hours/week
- Subtitles
- English
About the Course
This course covers the following topics: negotiation, feedback and coaching, conflict management, and leading change. The objectives are to learn how to use leadership skills to work more effectively with others, how to use leadership skills to organize others to work more effectively together, and to apply the foundations of effective leadership skills to everyday situations faced by leaders. Learners: • Will be able to negotiate effectively and influence others • Provide feedback and coaching that is appropriate and influential • Will be able to manage conflict and lead change This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.COURSE 3
Designing the Organization: From Strategy to Organizational Structure
Current session: Jun 26 — Jul 31.- Commitment
- 4 weeks of study, 3-5 hours/week
- Subtitles
- English
About the Course
In this course you will understand how firms are organized, what factors must be taken into account in making critical design decisions, and what role managers play in making these choices. In order to answer these questions, we will first develop a conceptual process model that links business models, external and internal contingencies, and organizational design. Second, we will focus on the fundamental principles of organization design and what alternative design choices are available for managers. Finally, we will apply these concepts and ideas to organizational situations to develop the critical insights and decision making skills to build effective organizations. Learners: • Will understand how managers create value through their organizations • Will have a good understanding of the fundamental principles and factors important to organizational design • Will be able to design the coordination, control, and performance measurement systems to manage an organization. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.COURSE 4
Managing the Organization: From Organizational Design to Execution
Upcoming session: Jul 5 — Aug 14.- Commitment
- 4 weeks of study, 4-6 hours/week
- Subtitles
- English
About the Course
In this course you will build a practical framework to understand the critical linkages between organization design and the creation of economic value through execution. We will focus on four critical linkages: 1. How organizational growth and life cycle require design changes to improve execution 2. How managerial decision making can be improved through better organization design 3. How the design of human resource practices shape the culture of the organization 4. How innovation and change can be facilitated through organization design These linkages are critical in assessing how managers make sure that the organizations they design can execute the strategies they have envisioned under changing environmental conditions. Learners will be able to answer the following: • What are the managerial implications of organizational growth and life cycle? • How do you improve managerial decision making through organizational design? • How do human resource management policies shape organizational culture? • How do organizations plan for top management succession and change? • How do you know that your organization design is not effective? • How do you manage organizational change and innovation? This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.COURSE 5
Business Strategy
Upcoming session: Jul 3 — Aug 7.- Commitment
- 4 weeks of study, 4-6 hours/week
- Subtitles
- English
About the Course
In this course you will learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value, and how it is fundamental for sustainable competitive advantage. You will be able to better understand value creation and capture, and learn the tools to analyze both competition and cooperation from a variety of perspectives, including the industry level (e.g., five forces analysis), and the firm level (e.g., business models and strategic positioning). • Understand how managers coordinate different functional areas, resources, and systems inside a company and align them with the external environment to enhance overall performance • Knowledge of strategic management tools and frameworks, and apply them to real business contexts Process diverse business and industry information to diagnose strategic issues, evaluate strategic alternatives, and formulate a coherent and actionable strategic plan • How to think like a CEO, entrepreneur, or general manager. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.COURSE 6
Corporate Strategy
Upcoming session: Jun 28 — Aug 3.- Commitment
- 4 weeks of study, 5-7 hours/week
- Subtitles
- English
About the Course
In this course you will learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value, and how it is fundamental for sustainable competitive advantage. You will be able to better understand economic value creation and value appropriation, and learn the tools to analyze both competition and cooperation from a corporate level perspective, (e.g., through vertical integration, diversification, and geographic scope decisions). You will: • Understand how corporations create, capture, and sustain competitive advantage. • Analyze business situations and create a coherent corporate strategy. • Understand the fit between corporate strategy and organization structure to improve economic performance. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.COURSE 7
Strategic Leadership and Management Capstone
Upcoming session: Aug 14 — Oct 2.- Subtitles
- English
About the Capstone Project
The capstone is a strategic leadership and management plan where you’ll apply what you will learn to an actual business situation with participation by one or more focal companies. The deliverable will be designed to create value from the perspective of potential employers while achieving pedagogical and experiential goals for learners. This course is part of the iMBA offered by the University of Illinois, a flexible, fully-accredited online MBA at an incredibly competitive price. For more information, please see the Resource page in this course and onlinemba.illinois.edu.
Creators
Jeff Flesher
PhD
Joe Mahoney
Professor of Business Administration
Huseyin Leblebici
Professor of Business Administration
Gregory Northcraft
Professor of Business Administration and Harry J. Gray Professor of Executive Leadership
Deepak Somaya
Professor of Business Administration
FAQs
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