Copenhagen Business School
Leadership in 21st Century Organizations
Copenhagen Business School

Leadership in 21st Century Organizations

Robert Austin
Shannon Hessel

Instructors: Robert Austin

89,803 already enrolled

Included with Coursera Plus

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.7

(1,189 reviews)

38 hours to complete
3 weeks at 12 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace
94%
Most learners liked this course
Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.7

(1,189 reviews)

38 hours to complete
3 weeks at 12 hours a week
Flexible schedule
Learn at your own pace
94%
Most learners liked this course

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

Assessments

26 assignments

Taught in English

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Placeholder
Placeholder

Earn a career certificate

Add this credential to your LinkedIn profile, resume, or CV

Share it on social media and in your performance review

Placeholder

There are 19 modules in this course

Join Jim Barton on a leadership journey...that quickly becomes tougher than expected!

What's included

3 videos4 readings

So you've been presented with a new leadership "opportunity"...should you accept it? Should Jim Barton have taken this job? How would YOU decide?

What's included

2 videos4 readings1 assignment

As a new leader, the first order of business is to survey the landscape, get your bearings, and figure out what's really going on. Perhaps the most crucial part of that is assessing the team you've inherited. Who will be an ally in what you need to accomplish? Who will be an obstacle? Who should stay, and who should go? How will YOU decide?

What's included

4 videos6 readings2 assignments

In an age of social media and super hackers, leaders have to worry more than ever about secrets getting out, making hard decisions under scrutiny, and people misinterpreting what the company and its leaders are doing. Thanks primarily to the advance of technology, the organizational activities have never been more transparent. How should a leader take this new 21st century reality into account? Do past communications and PR approaches need to change? How would YOU do it?

What's included

6 videos5 readings2 assignments

When you're building something as complicated as an airplane, people have to work together. As a leader, it's a part of your job to populate teams, develop relationships, orchestrate process, and set up conducive environments to maximize the effectiveness of collaborative work. How is this done? How would YOU accomplish it?

What's included

6 videos7 readings3 assignments

A leader must be able to move other people -- potentially in directions those others do not wish to go. A very important part of a leader's role, then, is to motivate people -- to somehow provide the impulse to move others in a particular direction. Indeed, a leader often needs to get people moving together, in a similar direction. But there are different ways of doing this. Incentives, for example, operate differently than inspiration, and the two might not work equally well in a particular circumstance. How should the 21st century leader motivate people? What would YOU do?

What's included

5 videos5 readings2 assignments

A leader operates within a framework that outlines her or his responsibilities, range of authority, and access to resources -- we call such frameworks "governance." Governance empowers a leader but also looks over her or his shoulder. A precondition for effectiveness as a leader is having a foundation of sound governance. And although it can be rather tricky, leaders sometimes have to try to make changes to the governance framework within which they work. If you're a CEO and you decide you have an ineffective board of directors -- to whom you report -- what would YOU do?

What's included

7 videos5 readings1 assignment

Convincing people to change their ways might be THE hardest job a leader has to do. And if getting people to change is hard, getting groups -- who work together in the old ways and reinforce each other's sense of "the way it's always been" -- is even harder. But if you're going to transform a company, you're going to have to change things, in a big way. How would YOU go about it?

What's included

3 videos2 readings2 assignments

In the 21st century, the biggest assets an organization has are its people what they can do. The evidence of this? Apple, Google, and Microsoft all have market values higher than Exxon (a company with vastly more physical assets). A very important job of a 21st century leader, then, is to attract, retain, and continue to develop the talents and skills of the people within the organization. Talent is a success multiplier, and an organization's leader is its talent-developer-in-chief. How should this be done? How would you do it?

What's included

8 videos5 readings1 assignment

No matter how effective you are as a leader, sometimes things go wrong. In a crisis, a leader must make tough decision under the pressure of a ticking clock. That's really hard, partly because crises are (thankfully) rare and few people have a lot of experience with them. And yet, you need to get it right. The stakes, in a crisis, are often very, very high, for the organization and for a leader's career. As a leader, sooner or later you will have to deal with a crisis. How will YOU measure up?

What's included

6 videos5 readings1 assignment

Thanks to mature communications and transportation networks, it has never been easier for low cost producers to market low priced products and services all over the world. Because of this, companies -- especially those not located in low cost regions -- need to innovate, in order to keep offering products and services that are better, even if they aren't cheaper. In the 21st century, the capacity to innovate has become extremely important to business success. And it's the leader's job to create the conditions in which her or his people can innovate effectively. A leader must espouse principles, processes, and practices that allow the organization to innovation better than its rivals. How to do this? How would YOU do it?

What's included

4 videos6 readings2 assignments

It's "where the rubber hits the road." Execution. If you can't execute, it doesn't matter how well you strategize or how visionary you are. Execution is the art and science of getting it done. But how should a leader do that? How would YOU?

What's included

3 videos2 readings1 assignment

You've seen it all too often in the newspaper headlines: a prominent leader called on to resign, not because of failure to perform on the job, but because of something troubling (at least to some) that has transpired in their so-called "private life" that has become public. Where is the boundary between public life and private life for a leader? Indeed, is there a boundary? Why do so many leaders have problems with this? How does it bear on notions of leadership character and integrity? What is YOUR personal philosophy in this important area?

What's included

6 videos3 readings3 assignments

The eminent management thinker Peter Drucker once said that "Culture eats strategy for breakfast." Lou Gerstner, after he turned around IBM, often said that the importance of culture was the one thing he seriously underestimated. What is culture? According to the simplest definition, widely used, culture is "the way we do things around here." But how should the leader influence that? What would YOU do?

What's included

7 videos8 readings1 assignment

Leadership is an active, if fragmented, field of management research. In this module, you'll encounter some of the ideas researchers have come up with to describe and improve the practice of leadership. Some of these theories have had more influence than others. Some have had less influence on the practice of leadership than many of the ideas we've already seen in the course (e.g., economic agency theory). We offer these here to raise the possibility that some of these ideas might help YOU as you synthesize a personal approach to leadership in the 21st century.

What's included

1 video3 readings1 assignment

The early 21st century has seen some spectacular failures of leadership. From the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill, to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, to the 2008 financial crisis, we've seen a lot of major things go wrong with leadership. You could argue that these are examples of 20th century leadership applied to 21st century challenges...and that resulting failures demonstrate the need for a new leadership approach. In this module, we'll begin trying to understand some of the things that went wrong in the extremely complicated 2008 financial crisis.

What's included

1 video4 readings1 assignment

We continue our examination of the inner complexities of the 2008 financial crisis.

What's included

1 video3 readings1 assignment

We've met Jim Barton and followed him on his journey. In this module, we turn the ideas we've discussed and developed in the course so far to the case of a real leader. What is YOUR assessment of the leadership of Lord John Browne, former CEO of BP

What's included

1 video3 readings1 assignment

Putting it all together. Last thoughts and attempts to synthesize thoughts about 21st century leadership.

What's included

4 videos5 readings1 peer review

Instructors

Instructor ratings
4.8 (336 ratings)
Robert Austin
Copenhagen Business School
4 Courses211,625 learners
Shannon Hessel
Copenhagen Business School
2 Courses90,743 learners

Offered by

Recommended if you're interested in Leadership and Management

Why people choose Coursera for their career

Felipe M.
Learner since 2018
"To be able to take courses at my own pace and rhythm has been an amazing experience. I can learn whenever it fits my schedule and mood."
Jennifer J.
Learner since 2020
"I directly applied the concepts and skills I learned from my courses to an exciting new project at work."
Larry W.
Learner since 2021
"When I need courses on topics that my university doesn't offer, Coursera is one of the best places to go."
Chaitanya A.
"Learning isn't just about being better at your job: it's so much more than that. Coursera allows me to learn without limits."

Learner reviews

Showing 3 of 1189

4.7

1,189 reviews

  • 5 stars

    82.15%

  • 4 stars

    14.01%

  • 3 stars

    2.08%

  • 2 stars

    0.75%

  • 1 star

    1%

SK
5

Reviewed on May 10, 2020

IB
5

Reviewed on Sep 12, 2019

WS
5

Reviewed on Jun 13, 2021

New to Leadership and Management? Start here.

Placeholder

Open new doors with Coursera Plus

Unlimited access to 7,000+ world-class courses, hands-on projects, and job-ready certificate programs - all included in your subscription

Advance your career with an online degree

Earn a degree from world-class universities - 100% online

Join over 3,400 global companies that choose Coursera for Business

Upskill your employees to excel in the digital economy

Frequently asked questions