Inspiring and Motivating Individuals (Coursera)

Inspiring and Motivating Individuals (Coursera)

In this course, you will learn how to create a shared vision for your team and effectively communicate it to your teammates. You will also learn how to set effective goals and expectations in a way that best enables your team to attain the shared vision. Finally, you will understand the most important needs and drivers of performance across cultures, and will learn to align rewards with desired behaviors so that your teammates are motivated to attain the team’s objectives.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Motivation represents a crucial challenge for contemporary organizations: A recent Gallup poll revealed that only 13% of workers worldwide exhibit high levels of engagement and motivation. We will show you why these motivation problems are not simply due to a “bad” or “unmotivated” team member. Rather, motivation is very much driven by what work conditions we create for our teammates, how we structure goals and objectives, and how we reward people for the accomplishment of those goals. This course will help you diagnose and solve motivation problems so that you can bring out the best in your people.
Course 1 of 5 in the Leading People and Teams Specialization
Syllabus

WEEK 1
Becoming a Visionary Leader
Every team needs a vision consisting of a shared purpose, core values and stretch goals. As a team leader, it is your responsibility to to create and communicate this vision. In this module, you will learn how to become a visionary leader.

WEEK 2
Setting Effective Goals and Expectations
As a leader, one of your most important roles is to set clear goals and expectations. In this module, you will learn what makes for an effective goal, how to make goals meaningful and motivating, and the risks of setting goals that are too challenging or too specific.

WEEK 3
Understanding Human Needs and Drivers of Performance Across Cultures
To lead people, you must understand what motivates people to take action and contribute to the team. In this module, you will learn the fundamental needs that drive human behavior, and learn how to leverage these needs to enhance motivation in your team.

WEEK 4
Aligning Rewards and Behavior
One of the most common problems in organizations is that rewards are not aligned with desired behavior. Another common problem is ineffective feedback on performance. In this module, you will learn how to align rewards with behavior and deliver effective feedback to drive performance in your team.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Accounting for Business Decision Making: Strategy Assessment and Control (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Accounting for Business Decision Making: Strategy Assessment and Control (Coursera)

Accounting information is the lifeblood of the organization, as it facilitates and influences operational and strategic decisions intended to achieve organizational goals. Organizations benefit from three decision-oriented roles of accounting: measurement, control, and communication. This course provides an introduction to accounting’s role in helping managers develop and implement, and improve the organization’s strategy. In particular, you will learn how non-financial and financial information is created, organized, and communicated to help managers make strategic decisions, as well as measure strategic success.

Jun 1st 2026
4 Weeks
Influencing People (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Influencing People (Coursera)

This course will improve your ability to influence people in situations where you cannot use formal authority. You will learn about effective ways to build, develop, and sustain a power base in your organization. You will also learn influence tactics that enable you to be more persuasive and influential in working with your superiors, peers, and even subordinates. In addition, you will learn how to build and maintain high-quality relationships to further maximize your informal power and ability to influence others. Importantly, you will distinguish between influence and manipulation and learn how to protect yourself from the unwanted influence of others.

Jun 1st 2026
4 Weeks
International Leadership and Organizational Behavior (Coursera) Coursera
Università Bocconi

International Leadership and Organizational Behavior (Coursera)

Leaders in business and non-profit organizations increasingly work across national boarders and in multi-cultural environments. You may work regularly with customers or suppliers abroad, or be part of a globally dispersed cross-functional team, or an expatriate manager on an international assignment. You may be a member of a global online community, or a development aid worker collaborating with an international network of partner organizations. In all of these contexts, your effectiveness as a leader depends on how well you understand and are able to manage individual and collective behaviors in an intercultural context.

Jun 1st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Building High-Performing Teams (Coursera) Coursera
University of Pennsylvania

Building High-Performing Teams (Coursera)

Teams are essential to the modern organization, but most never reach their potential. Co-workers miscommunicate, and groups struggle to adapt to changes in the market or their organizations. When teams lack self-awareness about these challenges, performance suffers. Based on years of team culture research and consulting experience, this course helps you understand the problems that hurt productivity, and gives you tools for creating positive change. This course also guides you through creating the ground rules and structure needed to set your team up for success.

Jun 1st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Business Strategy (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Business Strategy (Coursera)

In this course you will learn how organizations create, capture, and maintain value, and how it is fundamental for sustainable competitive advantage. You will be able to better understand value creation and capture, and learn the tools to analyze both competition and cooperation from a variety of perspectives, including the industry level (e.g., five forces analysis), and the firm level (e.g., business models and strategic positioning).

Jun 1st 2026
4 Weeks
L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (Coursera) Coursera
ESSEC Business School

L'avenir de la décision : connaître et agir en complexité (Coursera)

Ce MOOC a l’intention d’affronter et traiter des problèmes que rencontrent chaque personne, chaque groupe, chaque entreprise, chaque société, de façon de plus en plus aiguë et pressante ; dans notre temps d’évolution accélérée, de transformations ininterrompues, de mondialisation incontrôlée, d’incertitudes.

Jun 1st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Adapt your leadership style (Coursera) Coursera
Macquarie University

Adapt your leadership style (Coursera)

Why are organisational misbehaviours such as cynicism, apathy, bullying and disengagement increasingly prevalent in the workplace? This course examines these tensions and how transformational, authentic and inclusive leadership styles offer an alternative to the more autocratic, job-centred and controlling leadership styles of the past.

Jun 1st 2026
5-12 Weeks
Professional Skills for International Business (Coursera) Coursera
University of London

Professional Skills for International Business (Coursera)

This course provides insight into the key professional skills needed by managers at all levels of an organisation. You’ll learn key skills such as how to make a positive first impression; how to become a role model at work; effective time and resource management; and networking. This course forms part of a specialisation from the University of London designed to help you develop and build the essential business, academic, and cultural skills necessary to succeed in international business, or in further study.

Jun 1st 2026
4 Weeks
Resilience & Leadership: Concepts, Definitions, & Frameworks (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado Boulder

Resilience & Leadership: Concepts, Definitions, & Frameworks (Coursera)

Resilience & Leadership: Concepts, Definitions, & Frameworks is the first course in the specialization ‘Resilience Engineering and Leadership in Crisis’. The course introduces the common terms, definitions, and concepts that characterize resilient systems. Frameworks for resilience engineering and leadership in crisis are applied to complex systems and the built environment. Learners will explore a holistic approach to critical infrastructure resilience and apply a hazard and threat assessment protocol to a project scenario.

Jun 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Teamwork Skills: Communicating Effectively in Groups (Coursera) Coursera
University of Colorado Boulder

Teamwork Skills: Communicating Effectively in Groups (Coursera)

Effective teamwork and group communication are essential for your professional and personal success. In this course you will learn to: make better decisions, be more creative and innovative, manage conflict and work with difficult group members, negotiate for preferred outcomes, improve group communication in virtual environments, develop a better overall understanding of human interaction, and work more effectively as a team. Our goal is to help you understand these important dynamics of group communication and learn how to put them into practice to improve your overall teamwork.

Jun 7th 2026
4 Weeks
Sustainable Innovation for Subsistence Marketplaces (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Sustainable Innovation for Subsistence Marketplaces (Coursera)

This course focuses on understanding subsistence marketplaces and designing business solutions for the billions of people living in poverty in the global marketplace. To develop understanding of subsistence marketplaces, we use exercises to enable participants to view the world from the eyes of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs, facilitate bottom‐up understanding generated by participants, and provide insights from extensive research. More broadly, the course uses the context of extreme resource constrained contexts to learn about the bottom-up approach pioneered through the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative, and apply it in any context.

Jun 1st 2026
4 Weeks
Personal Leadership Development Planning and Leading High Performing Teams (Coursera) Coursera
Rice University

Personal Leadership Development Planning and Leading High Performing Teams (Coursera)

An actionable leadership improvement plan enables you to leverage strengths and close the gaps on weaknesses. In this course, you will build your own plan that you can put into practice immediately and realize goals within the next two years. It lays the foundation for an evergreen process of selection and prioritization of skills, and action planning for sustained leadership development.

Jun 1st 2026
4 Weeks