Harvard Business School Online – Leadership Principles

Develop the Leadership Skills to Advance Your Career, Team, and Organization

Leadership Principles is designed to help new and aspiring leaders unleash the potential in themselves and others, and cultivate high-performing teams. Become a more versatile leader who can mobilize others by immersing yourself in real-world leadership challenges, self-assessments, and 360-degree feedback from colleagues and peers.

• Understand your motivational drivers, emotional intelligence, and communication methods to establish a personal leadership style
• Apply or adapt your leadership style to meet specific challenges
• Manage the conditions that drive team performance
• Coach colleagues and share feedback in ways that enable them to develop and deliver
• Handle stressful and demanding leadership situations
• Take charge of your professional development as you navigate the challenges of transitioning from an individual contributor to a leader

What You’ll Learn In Leadership Principles?

Module 1: Taking Charge

• Appreciate how the work of leadership is different in supporting, driving, and guiding others
• See how a leader’s self-perception and mindset must change in order to bring out the best in others
• Understand the importance of emotional intelligence in transitioning to a leadership position

Module 2: Leading Your Team

• Learn dashboard indicators of team effectiveness
• Explore how to manage the conditions that drive team performance through team purpose, composition, processes, and launch

Module 3: Unleashing Potential in Yourself and Others

• Understand the dimensions, functions, and drives of your leadership style and how to apply or expand it to meet specific challenges
• Learn how to motivate and equip your team and unleash each individual’s unique talents

Module 4: Your Network

• Learn techniques for coaching and delivering feedback and how to influence with and without authority
• Learn how to leverage strategic, operational, and developmental networks, and explore ways to expand and develop them
• Explore avenues for managing the stress of leadership

Who is Leadership Principles for?

Early- and Mid-Career Professionals

• Prepare for leadership roles after working as an individual contributor or functional specialist.

New Leaders

• Build greater self-awareness and explore how you can adapt your leadership style to meet specific organizational challenges.

Early-Stage or Aspiring Entrepreneurs

• Develop techniques for building high-performing teams, coaching, delivering feedback, and handling stressful leadership situations.

About Instructors

Joshua Margolis is the James Dinan and Elizabeth Miller Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Unit Head of the School’s Organizational Behavior Unit, and Faculty Chair of the Program for Leadership Development and the Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning. He is co-author of the book People and Profits: The Search for a Link between a Company’s Social and Financial Performance, and has won numerous awards, including the Robert F. Greenhill Award and the Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching.

Anthony Mayo is the Thomas S. Murphy Senior Lecturer of Business Administration and C. Roland Christensen Distinguished Management Educator in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. He served as director of the School’s Leadership Initiative for 16 years and was previously the course head for FIELD, a required experiential, field-based course in the first year of the MBA program. He is co-editor of the volume Race, Work, and Leadership: New Perspectives on the Black Experience.