In this Specialization, you’ll learn how to lead and design organizations for stronger performance—and connect those choices to competitive strategy. You’ll start by building practical management judgment: identifying common challenges managers face, improving decision-making, navigating ethical pitfalls, and using power strategically to lead change. You’ll also learn how culture and decision processes shape results, and how to turn real organizational problems into clear, workable recommendations.
Next, you’ll shift from managing within an organization to designing it. You’ll analyze organizations from multiple perspectives, plan for effective governance, and build systems that support growth and change. You’ll also learn how the external environment pressures organizations—and how leaders can respond with intentional design choices that help teams execute.
From there, you’ll build strategy skills at two levels. In Business Strategy, you’ll learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value, using tools like industry analysis (including five forces), business models, and strategic positioning to diagnose issues and evaluate alternatives. In Corporate Strategy, you’ll go beyond a single business unit to make decisions about corporate scope, corporate transactions, global strategy, governance, and stakeholder management.
Applied Learning Project
You’ll complete applied activities that build real leadership and strategy judgment. You’ll analyze management scenarios to identify decision pitfalls and ethical risks, then craft recommendations to improve organizational effectiveness. You’ll practice using power and influence to plan organizational change, and you’ll evaluate how culture and decision-making shape outcomes. In organization design work, you’ll assess business challenges from multiple perspectives, propose governance choices, and design systems that support growth and change while responding to external pressures. In strategy courses, you’ll use tools like five forces, business models, and strategic positioning to diagnose competitive situations, compare strategic alternatives, and produce a coherent, actionable strategy plan. At the corporate level, you’ll evaluate scope and transaction choices (like alliances or M&A), global expansion options, and governance and stakeholder tradeoffs.
