Leading the Life You Want (Coursera)

Leading the Life You Want (Coursera)

Pursue a meaningful life and improve your performance as a leader. Taught by acclaimed Wharton professor, best-selling author, and former Ford Motor Company executive and head of its Leadership Development Center, Stew Friedman, Leading the Life You Want provides you with the skills you need to lead in all four domains of your life: at work, at home, in the community, and in your private self (mind, body, and spirit).

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

You'll explore the core principles of leadership and learn the skills you need to bring them to life. You'll see these skills illustrated in the inspiring yet imperfect lives of six remarkable leaders: Tom Tierney (former CEO of Bain), Sheryl Sandberg (COO of Facebook), Michelle Obama (former First Lady), Eric Greitens (Republican Governor of Missouri), Julie Foudy (world champion soccer star and three-time Olympic medalist), and Bruce Springsteen (world-famous rock musician). You'll have the opportunity to assess your own leadership skills, and learn simple, proven exercises to practice them. By the end of this course, you'll have the tools you need to develop your skills so you can grow as a leader in all areas of your life and create greater harmony among them.
Course 1 of 3 in the Achieving Personal and Professional Success Specialization.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
This module is designed to introduce you to the core principles of leadership from the point of view of the whole person, describe the 18 skills that bring these principles to life, and provide you with a self-assessment tool to determine your skills and establish a baseline for your development. Through the case study of Tom Tierney, former CEO of Bain & Company and co-Founder of the Bridgespan Group, you’ll learn the skills of envisioning your legacy, weaving together the disparate strands of your life, and seeing new ways of doing things. You’ll also learn exercises for developing each one of these skills. By the end of this module, you'll understand the leadership principles of being real, being whole, and being innovative, know the skills needed for improving your performance as a leader in all parts of life, identify your strengths and weaknesses, and learn exercises for building your capacity to envision your legacy, weave the disparate strands, and see new ways of doing things.

WEEK 2
This module is designed to help you understand and develop the six leadership skills of conveying values through stories, building supportive networks, resolving conflicts, holding yourself accountable, applying all your resources, and focusing on results. You’ll see these skills illustrated in the lives of Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, and Eric Greitens, Republican Governor of Missouri, and learn how they can be applied in very different circumstances. By the end of this module, you'll be able to identify the stories that convey your values, create a plan for holding yourself accountable, build supportive networks, and focus on goals that matter.

WEEK 3
In this module, you’ll learn the six leadership skills of aligning actions and values, managing boundaries intelligently, embracing change courageously, knowing what matters, helping others, and challenging the status quo. Through the remarkable stories of former First Lady Michelle Obama and Olympic Gold Medalist Julie Foudy, you’ll see these skills in action as they redefined success for women across the world and demonstrated leadership in service to others. By the end of this module, you'll be able to define your core values, manage boundaries so you can pay attention to who matters most, act with courage to take smart risks, lead through helping others, and question the status quo to create positive change in your world.

WEEK 4
In this module, you'll learn the essential leadership skills of embodying values consistently, clarifying expectations, and creating a culture of innovation. You'll see how these skills are applied in the leadership of world-renowned rock star and author Bruce Springsteen. You’ll learn how to combine all 18 leadership skills to make full use of your talents and passions to serve others and lead the life you want, no matter what your work setting, family circumstances, or cultural background. By the end of this module, you'll be able to embody your values by aligning them with your actions, develop a process for correctly identifying what people really want from you, and use teaching as a way to create cultures of innovation wherever you work.

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

Related Courses

Introducción a la Gestión de Operaciones (Coursera) Coursera
Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Introducción a la Gestión de Operaciones (Coursera)

Aprende a analizar y a mejorar los procesos empresariales en servicios o en la industria. Aprende cómo incrementar la productividad y a ofrecer niveles de calidad mayores. Después de que finalices con éxito este curso, podrás aplicar estas habilidades en un reto empresarial del mundo real como parte de la Programa Especializado de Fundamentos Empresariales de Wharton.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Inspirar el liderazgo a través de la inteligencia emocional (Coursera) Coursera
Case Western Reserve University

Inspirar el liderazgo a través de la inteligencia emocional (Coursera)

La inteligencia emocional, la esperanza, la atención plena y la compasión ayudan a una persona a revertir el daño del estrés crónico y a construir excelentes relaciones de liderazgo. Los atractores emocionales positivos y negativos inspiran cambios y aprendizajes sostenidos y deseados en muchos niveles.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Arts and Heritage Management (Coursera) Coursera
Università Bocconi

Arts and Heritage Management (Coursera)

Today cultural institutions are facing important dilemmas in many aspects of their management. Over the past decades, a new figure has emerged that of the art manager. Imagine you went to work every day to connect artists with audiences, vision with reality, and money with a mission. That is what managers in the arts do, they play an essential role in transforming the minds, lives, and communities through creative expression. This course has been conceptualized to address the need of skills and techniques to help professionals and managers in running art and cultural institutions.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Moving the Needle at Work: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Moving the Needle at Work: Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (Coursera)

This course aims to assist managers and aspiring leaders to better understand their own identity, enhance their awareness of their own needs and the needs of others, improve their ability to lead inclusive teams, and create safe and thriving workplace environments where a diversity of opinions and perspectives are welcomed.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
L'innovation managériale en pratique (Coursera) Coursera
ESSEC Business School

L'innovation managériale en pratique (Coursera)

Hackathon, design thinking, codev, open innovation, co design, sociocratie, adhocratie, intelligence collective, shadow cabinet, atelier participatifs, entreprise libérante sont autant de dispositifs et pratiques qui illustrent les nouvelles manières de manager et de penser les fonctionnements collaboratifs des organisations.

Nov 2nd 2026
3 Weeks
Leadership & Organization Design (Coursera) Coursera
Illinois Tech

Leadership & Organization Design (Coursera)

To succeed in today’s knowledge intensive organizations managers need to understand how individual differences in personality, learning style and cultural values, group dynamics, organizational culture, and human resource management policies shape employee attitudes and behaviors. This course teaches managers creative problem-solving and ethical decision-making, change management, leadership techniques for enhancing social capital and influencing other organizational members, and management tools for multicultural and geographically dispersed teams.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Leading for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education (Coursera) Coursera
University of Michigan

Leading for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in Higher Education (Coursera)

This course is open to professionals interested in learning more about leadership in higher education for a changing demographic or interested in developing their own leadership skills. The very idea that individuals can be taught to lead is not without its skeptics. Reasonable people, even some scholars in the field, point to the important traits, skills, and attributes that are observed in many visible leaders and contend that certain qualities necessary for effective leadership are not easily transmitted.

Nov 2nd 2026
5-12 Weeks
Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship (Coursera) Coursera
University of Maryland, College Park

Developing Innovative Ideas for New Companies: The First Step in Entrepreneurship (Coursera)

This course assists aspiring and active entrepreneurs in developing great ideas into great companies. With strong economies presenting rich opportunities for new venture creation, and challenging economic times presenting the necessity for many to make their own job, the need to develop the skills to develop and act on innovative business opportunities is increasingly vital.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks
Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals (Coursera) Coursera
University of Virginia

Digital Product Management: Modern Fundamentals (Coursera)

Not so long ago, the job of product manager was about assessing market data, creating requirements, and managing the hand-off to sales/marketing. Maybe you’d talk to a customer somewhere in there and they’d tell you what features they wanted. But companies that manage product that way are dying. Being a product person today is a new game, and product managers are at the center of it. Today, particularly if your product is mostly digital, you might update it several times a day. Massive troves of data are available for making decisions and, at the same time, deep insights into customer motivation and experience are more important than ever.

Nov 2nd 2026
4 Weeks