There is such a dearth of good leaders everywhere that they are the best paid people in any organization. It is a well known fact that effective leaders make effective teams and organizations. Such leaders not only put their teams on a higher trajectory but also increase the pace of their own careers. This course intends to sharpen the leadership skills of managers and would be managers.

The course takes a comprehensive look at leadership from most perspectives so as to give the trainees a deep understanding of the roles that they are playing or may be expected to play. At the end of the course the participants will be knowledgeable enough to confidently face the task of leading people in their teams and organizations.

Reading: The participant will have to read between 15 to 20 pages of the book “Leadership Theory and Practice, Third Edition”, in a week. The pages which are to be read will be indicated in the weekly guideline to the students. This should not take more than 30 minutes of the student’s time in a week.

Quiz: To reinforce the reading the participants will be required to take a brief quiz every week, which will take 15 minutes.

Assignment: The weekly assignment will comprise of 200 words on a MS-Word page document. This assignment will be based on one of the questionnaires given in the text that is related to the reading assigned for the week.This is to help relate the reading to practice for the participant. Time commitment for this activity is 30 minutes a week.

Case Discussion: The participants will be required to participate in a Case Discussion in the Discussion Forum for the week; this will help connect the matter studied with the real world of practice. The time estimated for this activity is 45 minutes in a week.

Expect to spend 12 Hours of study time spread over 6 weeks.

• Describe the nature of leadership.
• List the qualities that effective leaders have.
• Relate with the skills that leaders are expected to have.
• Discuss the dimensions of a leader’s behavior.
• Apply suitable leadership behavior depending on the follower’s enthusiasm and ability to perform the assigned task.
• Select the leadership behavior that is most effective in different work situations.
• Analyze the leader’s role in facilitating good performance of the subordinates given different characteristics of followers and the task at hand.
• Predict the effect of leader follower relationships on work place results.
• Raise the follower performance to exceptional levels.
• Form and maintain high performing teams.  

• Contributions to the discussion board: 40 %
• Weekly online quiz: 40%
• Weekly one page assignment: 20%
• All the assessment exercises are aimed at evaluating understanding of conceptual knowledge and its application to real life situations.
• Score of 80 % and above will earn the student A Grade, scores between 60 % and 80 % will earn B Grade, between 40% and 60 % the score will imply C Grade and between 20% and 40 % the score shall lead to D Grade.