Be a Better Leader with These 11 Free Online Management Courses from the World’s Best Universities
The pandemic might have ruined our chances of in-person learning anytime soon, but the world's best business schools are letting you learn online.
You’ve settled into a new system of operating. Your team’s at home, you’ve figured out how to keep the business running, and now you can feel an entrepreneur’s worst nightmare setting in: complacency.
Just because the world feels like it’s come to a standstill doesn’t mean you can’t use this as an opportunity to innovate. If you have a few extra hours per week now, become a better leader using these top-rated free courses from some of the world’s best universities.
From what entrepreneurs can learn from philosophers to how to lead your company’s digital transformation, from data-driven management solutions to how to make your company a happier place to work, there’s something in here for every entrepreneur.
All of the below are free to audit, with the option to pay a fee and receive an official certificate.
1. The Foundations of Happiness at Work
It’s not difficult to see that happiness at work improves performance, increasing innovation, productivity, engagement, retention and the quality of work. Learn how to cultivate and maximise happiness at work, for yourself and your company.
From: University of California Berkeley
This course couldn’t possibly be better-timed, as nearly every business on the planet faces the biggest disruption in living memory. Learn to assess and counteract current and future disruptions according to stage, speed and impact.
From: RWTH Aachen University
We also included this in last week’s list of Ivy League data science courses, and for good reason. This course explores the marriage between data and leadership, and the data-driven techniques to recruit and retain great people. “For the first time in history, business leaders can make decisions about their people based on deep analysis of data rather than the traditional methods of personal relationships,” reads the course description.
From: University of Pennsylvania
4. Leadership in Digital Transformation
As more entrepreneurs are forced to pivot to the digital world than ever before, this course offers an important caveat: “Digital transformation is first and foremost not about new technologies...It is an organisational change process that reaches every corner of the company.” Learn how to lead your company into the digital realm.
From: Technische Universität München
5. Improving Your Business Through A Culture of Health
Named Runner Up for Best Online Program of 2018 by ProEd, this course can help you learn to improve the wellbeing of your employees and company, while simultaneously increasing revenue.
From: Harvard University
6. Developing Breakthrough Innovations with the Three Box Solution
Leading innovation expert Vijay Govindarajan (VG) teaches the famous Three Box Solution, designed to help companies transform their business models by managing the present at peak efficiency, selectively forgetting the past, and developing and converting ideas to create the future.
From: Dartmouth University
Anthropologist Greg Urban teaches how to recognise, build, and maintain team culture, and what teams can do in times of crisis.
From: University of Pennsylvania
8. What Managers Can Learn from Philosophy
It might seem like the worlds of business and philosophy are diametrically opposed, but according to this highly-rated course, there’s a lot that the likes of Heraclites can teach entrepreneurs about maintaining dynamism in management.
From: CentraleSupélec
9. Successful Negotiation: Essential Strategies and Skills
You’ve heard it before, that we negotiate on a daily basis, with everyone around us, all the time. With over 7,000 course reviews and 66,000 content reviews, this course is the perfect place to learn from scratch or brush up on your skills.
From: University of Michigan
10. Managing the Company of the Future
Understand both traditional and alternative principles of management that are becoming increasingly important as companies pivot towards the industries of the future. (Bonus: this course is offering a free certificate for a limited time.)
From: University of London
11. Influence
Go back to a time before the word denoted numbers of Instagram followers, and learn how to be an influential leader, understand frameworks of power, and how to develop your skills of persuasion and leverage.
From: University of Pennsylvania
