Support yourself during a move into a leadership role by implementing effective strategies for success.
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Duration
4 weeksWeekly study
1 hour
Transitioning From Friend To Leader
This course has been certified by the CPD Certification Service as conforming to continuing professional development principles. Find out more.
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Support yourself to move into a leadership position, and develop your own style.
This course presents you with frameworks, theories and skills to support you in the transition from colleague and friend, to leader and manager. It is very common to move from an existing team into a management position, but making that leap is often under-supported. Through this course you will gain an understanding of the behaviours that are common in leaders, as well as the behaviours to curb during your transition into leadership. Topics such as emotional intelligence, authenticity and interpersonal communication will help you cultivate confidence.
Being a good leader does not preclude being friends with your reports, it does however require you to be mindful of your relationships and acting in a way that promotes success within your team.
Syllabus
Week 1
Understanding and transitioning work relationships
Introduction
While it may be a shock to those who experience it for the first time, the challenge of transitioning from the role of colleague and/or friend to supervisor is a common experience.
Leader and follower relationships
As we have seen, roles influence relationships. We are now looking at an integrative leadership model, leader-member exchange, and how to achieve more positive working relationships through its application.
Week 2
Transformational leadership
Transforming leadership in practice
When leadership results in change in its individual members and social systems, it is considered to be transformational. Ideally, it is positive and involves the development of followers into leaders themselves.
Transformational versus transactional approaches
There are clear differences between transactional and transforming leaders. Transformational leadership is about eliciting positive change including growth in followers. Transactional leadership is about an exchange of resources.
Week 3
Authentic leadership
Characteristics of an authentic leader
What are the attributes and skills of Authentic leaders? And how can aspiring or new leaders embed some of these elements to be more effective?
Trust
Trust is increasingly in focus in leadership research, and plays a critical role in the relationship between leaders and followers.
Authentic leadership and collective interests
Moving from friend to leader involves a shifting of agenda and interests. This section explores authentic leadership from the perspective of individual and collective interests and identity.
Week 4
Managing the transition
Friendships in the workplace
The transition from being a team member to team leader can generate a range of challenges, and in particular, can bring new complexities to former friendship relationships with co-workers.
The role of emotions
Rather than seeing the discussion of emotion as unprofessional, increasingly emotional intelligence is viewed as a key leadership attribute. Understanding and managing your emotions will ease the transition.
Putting it all together
Now you have considered a range of experiences, theories and strategies, it is time to put together a plan for yourself to support you reach your leadership goals.
Final quiz
The following quiz contains a mix of 10 multiple choice and true false questions based on the four weeks of content.
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Accurately summarise and reflect on leadership theories and their value in a given context
- Effectively communicate complex leadership ideas through appropriate models
- Understand interpersonal relationship theories for workplaces
- Demonstrate capacity to provide effective feedback
Who is the course for?
This course will be helpful for anyone new to leadership, looking to transition into a leadership role or struggling with interpersonal relationships at work either for yourself or for a member of your leadership team.
Who developed the course?
University of Southern Queensland
UniSQ provides career-focused, quality on-campus and online education and has done for over 50 years. UniSQ has scored five stars for employability and internationalisation (QS Stars rankings, 2019) and is Australia’s No. 1 university for the highest graduate starting salary (Good Universities Guide 2018-20).
Established
1967Location
Toowoomba, Springfield and Ipswich in Queensland, Australia
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
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