Companies are increasingly demanding leaders who empathetic and compassionate. Leaders who can motivate and engage employees, promote wellbeing and improve productivity. These concerns have come into sharper relief because of the coronavirus pandemic, the pressures of remote working, and the growing calls for greater diversity in the workplace.
In response to such calls, business schools and their executive education departments are not standing still. A number of schools have created courses focused on “positive leadership”, which focus on the virtues of trust, inclusivity, gratitude, and generosity. Participants learn how to transform working relationships so that employees are focused on collective gains.
Other courses focus on specific aspects of positive leadership, including diversity and inclusion, which has become a business imperative. Some schools empathize emotional intelligence, which helps leaders harness the power of emotions to boost motivation and performance. Many of the programs are action-orientated, with the executives working on real challenges faced by their companies, helping to diagnose dysfunctional processes and toxic cultures. They walk away with a concrete plan of action for change – and the tools to achieve it.
The “Become a Positive Leader to Accelerate Positive Change” program is run jointly by IESE Business School in Spain with University of Michigan Ross School of Business of the US. In this course, participants learn how to cultivate a mindful and mission-driven workplace that empowers and engages employees. They also design a step-by-step plan to address leadership challenges in their business.
View School ProfileINSEAD runs the “Challenge of Leadership” course in France. It aims to help participants understand how human behavior affects performance and how to improve the health and effectiveness of individuals. They also learn how to build teams with a collective mission and diagnose dysfunctional processes and toxic cultures.
View School ProfileThe Wharton School, at the University of Pennsylvania, offers the “Advanced Management Program”, which helps participants master key aspects of positive leadership, including the power of emotional intelligence, deepening their self-awareness, and leading with greater purpose to inspire others.
View School ProfileNew York’s Columbia Business School focuses on inclusive leadership in its “Harnessing the Power of Diversity” course. The program equips executives with the skills to motivate and engage teams and organizations. They work on a real-life diversity or inclusion challenge they face, and leave with an action plan to tackle the problem.
View School Profile“Inclusive Leadership: Empowering the Diverse Workforce” is an executive program run by UCLA Anderson School of Management, in Los Angeles. Delivered online in a live format, the program equips leaders with evidence-based insights to design effective processes for equitable, diverse, and inclusive workforces.
View School ProfileThe “Transformational Leadership” program at Cambridge Judge Business School in the UK nurtures social and emotional skills, including how to motivate employees without using formal authority; how to have difficult conversations with colleagues; and how to promote organizational change in an effective way.
View School ProfileOn the “Leading With Emotional Intelligence” program at the Tepper School of business, at Carnegie Mellon University, helps leaders to better leverage their emotional intelligence to support their teams. They also discover their own personal emotional intelligence quotient, and how it impacts stress management, decision-making, and interpersonal relationships.
View School ProfileThe Carlson School of Management, at the University of Minnesota, runs the “Inclusive Leadership” online course which focuses on diversity and inclusion, and providing leaders with the communication tools they need to get the most out of diverse teams by making every person they work with feel included.
View School ProfileThe Rady School of Management, at UC San Diego, runs the “Emotional Intelligence & Peak Performance” course, which builds a framework for understanding and managing EQ. Participants learn the skills to recognize and regulate emotion states in themselves and others, along with how to harness the power of emotions to boost motivation and performance.
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