Leadership is the driving force behind every successful company. In fact, it can make or break a business. Leadership is an area that requires ongoing learning, regardless of how long you’ve been in the working world, which is why online courses are so useful.
edX is a go-to choice for students and professionals looking to enhance their leadership skills, but how do you choose between the available courses?
I spent some time sifting through the leadership courses on edX to bring you a list of the top options.
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How to Choose the Best Leadership Course
If you want to become a good leader, you’ll need to know what to look for in an online course.
A good leadership course should teach you how to manage your team in a way that benefits your team as well as the organization as a whole. Opt for a course that touches on effective strategies and methods of management. Some of the most essential leadership skills include mindfulness, social skills, decision making, change management, and mediation.
Practical application of those skills is also important, so try to find courses that have assignments and real-world exercises.
Top 5 Leadership Courses on edX
With edX leadership courses, you can gain access to lectures from renowned universities, professionals, and experts. Many leadership courses on this platform will focus on a particular area of learning, giving you a detailed insight into specialized techniques.
Once you review all of the options, you’ll undoubtedly find the right course for you. And if you wish to improve your skills even further, there are even more options to explore on edX.
Here are the leadership courses I suggest you start with.
1. Rise to Leadership: Become a CEO
- Cost: $199
- Duration: 4 Weeks
- Qualification: Intermediate level, shareable certificate
This course is intended for people who want to move up in the ranks and take a role that helps shape the future of an organization. The main focus of the course is to help learners develop the crucial competencies every CEO should have.
In Rise to Leadership, you’ll learn how to get results at every organizational level, articulate your company’s values into a strong culture, and ensure that your team buys into those values. Additionally, you’ll discover tactics for attracting new talent, encouraging innovation, and developing strategies.
The course lecturer is Peter Cohan from Babson College. Cohan is both an experienced college teacher and a management consultant. Besides that, he’s active as an angel investor, author, and blogger.
2. Becoming a Successful Leader
- Cost: $49
- Duration: 4 Weeks
- Qualification: Introductory level, shareable certificate
This course focuses on modern leadership skills with a particular emphasis on inclusive practices. The skills you’ll learn here aren’t the stereotypical ones usually associated with leaders. Instead, the course will teach you how to practice courage, empowerment, humility, and accountability.
Becoming a Successful Leader provides learners with a community of other like-minded individuals, case studies and quizzes, and, crucially, practical exercises.
The lecturers for this course are Amelia Costigan, Director of Information Center, Emily Troiano, Senior Director of Information Center, and Deepali Bagati, Vice President of the Inclusive Leadership Initiative. All lecturers come from Catalyst and are skilled industry professionals.
3. Exercising Leadership: Foundational Principles
- Cost: $139
- Duration: 4 Weeks
- Qualification: Introductory level, shareable certificate
This edX leadership course provides an introduction to modern adaptive challenges. The ongoing global changes have created organizational systems that are becoming increasingly complex. Exercising Leadership: Foundational Principles provides different methods of approaching these systems.
The course teaches diagnostic as well as action-leadership processes that will help you understand authority roles, identify the stakeholder’s perspective, renew or rebuild trust, and much more.
The lecturer is Ronald Heifetz, founder of the Center for Public Leadership, and the King Hussein bin Talal Senior Lecturer in Public Leadership at Harvard. As a researcher, teacher, and advisor in the field of leadership, Heifetz counts among the greatest authorities on the subject worldwide.
4. Digital Transformation Leadership
- Cost: $1,795.50
- Duration: 9 Months
- Qualification: Expert level, MicroMasters certificate that counts towards a Master’s degree
This program from Boston University focuses on oversight techniques for development, prototyping, risk management, and experimentation. In particular, it teaches learners how to apply these techniques in digital-based businesses.
The program has five modules: Leading in the Digital Age, Digital Transformation Strategy, Product Management with Lean, Agile, and System Design Thinking, Business Analytics for Data-Driven Decision Making, and Platform Strategy for Business.
Digital Transformation Leadership will teach you how to leverage data in making decisions, lead teams, and develop growth strategies based on available platforms, among other techniques. You’ll also learn how to establish a business model that will overcome the challenges of a digital environment.
The instructors for this program are expert, long-time lecturers at Boston University.
5. Business Leadership
- Cost: $1,347.30
- Duration: 11 Months
- Qualification: Expert level, MicroMasters certificate that counts towards a Master’s degree
Enrolling in Business Leadership takes you through 5 modules that explore various leadership styles. The modules in this program are: Becoming an Effective Leader, Leading the Organization, Leading High-Performing Teams, Leading in a Complex Environment, and Business Leadership Capstone Assessment.
The program teaches you how to improve your decision-making process to become a successful leader in the complex environments of modern companies. You’ll also learn the skills necessary for developing and engaging your team, as well as methods for navigating the political influences and social issues that might impact businesses today.
Along with all this, Business Leadership will show you how to implement changes in your organization through effective initiatives.
Conclusion
As an established learning platform that collaborates with leading universities and companies, edX provides some of the best and most comprehensible leadership courses online. Some of these are introductory courses that teach you the fundamentals of core leadership principles. On the other hand, some courses are designed for aspiring leaders that wish to move their careers forward.
Programs and edX courses that offer MicroMasters certificates are particularly interesting if you’re planning on pursuing a master’s degree in business. While these programs come at a somewhat higher price, the value you can get from them might make it an excellent investment.
Now that you’ve seen the best leadership courses on edX, you’ll be able to make a well-informed decision based on your interests and budget. If you want even more leadership course options, browse the Coursary website.