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Leadership Essentials for Engineers

Offered By: Delft University of Technology via edX

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Management & Leadership Courses Engineering Courses Stakeholder Management Courses Team Motivation Courses

Course Description

Overview

The majority of challenges that organizations face are technology related. Given the growing importance of technology, the demand for leaders with an engineering background will probably rise. Already a quarter of the CEOs of the world's 100 largest corporations have engineering degrees.

Engineers have the potential to be good leaders. They are analytical and tech-savvy. They are comfortable with figures. They often have a can-do attitude. However, these characteristics alone are not enough to make engineers effective leaders.

In this program, you will learn that a good leader needs at least three mindsets, supporting the development of essential leadership skills:

  • The analytical mindset- This mindset is about the ability to analyze complex problems and opportunities as a basis for making strategic decisions. It is about developing a strategy in a systematic way and preparing for action. This mindset taps into the strengths of engineers.
  • The influencing mindset- Designing solutions and strategies, however, is about more than analysis. In our interconnected and complex world, leaders are faced with stakeholders, both internal and external, who might have completely different views. Problems and challenges are often ambiguous. This mindset looks at all these issues and finds common ground and ways of producing willing consensus in teams and stakeholders.
  • The sensemaking mindset- The first two mindsets require a high tolerance of complexity. Leadership is also about communicating, inspiring and convincing people and teams inside and outside the organization. This mindset is about translating complexity into powerful and concise messages so people can understand and make sense of the complexity of their world.

These three mindsets are indispensable for good leaders. They sometimes conflict and they often require completely different skills. In this program, you will become familiarized with each of these mindsets and discover how they can support you as a leader.

By completing this certificate, you will improve your leadership skills through tasks that help you develop a managerial summary of a business situation analysis to inform an effective decision, use a set of cohesive strategies for dealing with stakeholders, and frame your communication.


Syllabus

Courses under this program:
Course 1: Effective Decision Making: Dealing with Business Complexity

Learn how to solve complex problems in a business environment using analysis-based decision making.



Course 2: Dealing with Power and Dynamics: Discover Your Leadership Style and Influence Stakeholders

Learn to lead teams and manage stakeholders effectively and strategically to encourage cooperation and successful performance.



Course 3: Framing Your Communication to Inspire and Convince

Discover how to gain support from management and motivate your teams by learning how to communicate effectively and strategically.




Courses

  • 1 review

    5 weeks, 4-5 hours a week, 4-5 hours a week

    View details

    This course will soon be retired. Last day to enroll is 03/10/2023.

    As an engineer in a leadership position, you will be faced with new responsibilities and tasks. These may include developing a business (unit) strategy and a business plan or being involved in strategic planning. Your success in dealing with these new responsibilities will largely depend on your ability to have a helicopter view of a situation and to make sound decisions.

    In order to make decisions to move organizations forward, leaders will need to ensure that business goals are achievable and well-balanced while also taking into account the uncertainty of future developments. In a complex business environment, a sound strategy is the result of applying an analytical mindset and using a systematic approach to decision making.

    This course will help you to build and apply an analytical toolkit including:

    • stakeholder goal trees to develop a clear set of measurable goals,
    • scenarios to prepare for future situations that may be different from what you expect,
    • multi-criteria analysis to assess which decisions can help you reach your goals.

    The focus of the course will be on utilizing your analytical skills in a business context, allowing you to unravel complex situations requiring decisions.
    Upon completion of this course, you will have been introduced to an analytical mindset and toolkit, and you will have used these in order to write a managerial summary of a business situation analysis to inform an effective decision for your business strategy.

  • 0 reviews

    5 weeks, 4-5 hours a week, 4-5 hours a week

    View details

    This course will soon be retired. Last day to enroll is 03/10/2023.

    In our interconnected and complex world, leaders are faced with both internal and external stakeholders. Problems have to be solved within complex networks of stakeholders, each with their own dynamics, interests, perspectives and power. As leaders, engineers have clear advantages: they are analytical, technically skilled, project-based, good with numbers and well-used to problem-solving. However, engineers cannot rely on this skillset alone when exercising leadership in today's world.

    In this course, you will learn how to develop and apply an influencing mindset, which will allow you to lead your team effectively and to successfully manage stakeholders. The course gives you the tools to operate within a network of stakeholders:

    • distinguish power and interests in networks of stakeholders
    • build trust
    • recognize roles and norms in groups
    • deal with conflict and cooperation
    • motivate group members
    • identify your own leadership style

    Upon completion of this course, you will be introduced to an influencing mindset and toolkit, in order to use a set of cohesive strategies for dealing with stakeholders - both cooperative and non-cooperative stakeholders.


Taught by

Jet Pagnier, Alexander de Haan, Gerdien de Vries, Els van Daalen and Hans de Bruijn

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