Before we can lead others well, we must first learn to lead ourselves well. Knowing thyself is the starting point on this journey. In this course, you will come to understand the importance of three forms of awareness, craft a personal identity, gain understanding of how you work best, learn to be strategic with your time and energy, manage cognitive biases, mental models and better understand your worldview.
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This course can be taken for academic credit as part of CU Boulder’s Master of Engineering in Engineering Management (ME-EM) degree offered on the Coursera platform. The ME-EM is designed to help engineers, scientists, and technical professionals move into leadership and management roles in the engineering and technical sectors. With performance-based admissions and no application process, the ME-EM is ideal for individuals with a broad range of undergraduate education and/or professional experience.
Course 1 of 3 in the Principles of Leadership: Leading Oneself Specialization.
What You Will Learn
- Describe the importance of self-awareness and create a plan to parctice and habitualize it.
- Describe how intentional change theory operates and how effective implementation of this theory can drive behavior change
- Understand what factors shape and influence our worldview and how we react
Syllabus
WEEK 1
Increasing Awareness Leads to Understanding
Awareness, the most important part of this course, is covered in week 1. We will lay the foundation to know ourselves in a more intimate way. Before we can lead ourselves better, we must first learn to be curious, and pay attention to our motivations and behavior. We can start to develop self-awareness habit to ask why you act the way you do in certain situations. We do this through self, situational and social awareness.
WEEK 2
Exploring Strengths to be Our Best
In week 2, we continue the work we have done with awareness and self, to move into strengths and core values. Research has shown that focusing on our strengths is superior to focusing on weaknesses too much. We will identify your strengths, values and superpowers and keep most of our attention there. Weaknesses will be addressed to keep them from being a liability, but resist the urge to turn them into a strength.
WEEK 3
Developing Personal Identity for Intentional Change
In week 3, we will examine different models of “self.” We will explore how our view of “self” shapes our behavior. With the help of intentional change theory, we will explore three versions of self: ideal, real and ought. Then we will contrast these concepts with narrative self and future self. Once we have a firm grasp on our sense of self, we will create an “alter ego,” which is commonly used by high performers to execute at their best.
WEEK 4
Becoming Strategic With Energy to Be More Effective
This week, we turn our attention to time and energy. Both are important, but you will come to learn that one is slightly more important. It is often not what you would expect. This idea is a game changer. In addition to managing time and energy, we will work to understand when you work best. Timing matters. Once we know this, we can strategically plan our day to take advantage of peaks and troughs that inevitably occur.
WEEK 5
Understanding How Cognitive Patterns Drive Behavior
Our final week in the course examines how we see the world and what influences this view for each individual. The mechanisms that drive our view of the world are mental models, schema, cognitive biases, among others. With an understanding of how these psychological principles work and why, you will see the world, and those we interact with, differently.
