Understand the strategies you can use to become a more confident and influential leader, presenter, and decision-maker.

  • Duration

    4 weeks
  • Weekly study

    3 hours

Learn influencing tactics

Influence in the workplace is essential in making your voice heard and respected. It’s also a driving factor in helping you and your team collaborate effectively.

On this four-week course, you’ll build skills in influencing tactics to help with communication and gaining power in the workplace.

Understand how to influence people at work

You’ll start by learning specific strategies that are proven to work for gaining power and influencing people.

As you learn how to be more effective at pitching business ideas to your superiors and building coalitions across stakeholders, you’ll also examine the tactics needed to influence your customers to encourage sales.

You’ll understand how to build, develop, and maintain a power base in your organisation, as well as improving your ability to influence people in situations where you cannot use formal authority.

Influence vs Manipulation

This course will help you distinguish between influence and manipulation to enable you to be more persuasive in working with your line managers, peers, and direct reports.

You’ll understand how to build and maintain high-quality relationships to further increase power and ability to influence. You’ll also learn how to protect yourself from the unwanted influence of others.

Learn from leadership experts at the Michigan University

This course will enable you to improve your confidence and develop your leadership skills alongside specialists in team leading strategies at the University of Michigan.

By the end of this course, you’ll have the skills to become a more persuasive and influential leader in your workplace.

Syllabus

  • Week 1

    Building Your Base of Power

    • Building Your Base of Power

      To lead effectively, you must have power. Your power can be formally defined, for example your position or job title. Your power can be informal, for example your expertise or charisma give you power that enable you to influence o

    • Power: Benefits and Costs

      Power: Benefits and Costs

    • Where Does Power Come From?

      Where Does Power Come From?

    • Strategies and Tactics for Building Your Power

      Strategies and Tactics for Building Your Power

    • Recap: Building Your Base of Power

      Recap: Building Your Base of Power

  • Week 2

    Influencing People Without Relying on Formal Authority

    • Influencing People Without Relying on Formal Authority

      Influencing People Without Relying on Formal Authority

  • Week 3

    Developing High‐Quality Relationships to Enhance Influence and Power

    • Developing High‐Quality Relationships to Enhance Influence and power

      Developing High‐Quality Relationships to Enhance Influence and power

  • Week 4

    Protect Yourself from Unwanted Influence

    • Protecting Yourself: Influence vs. Manipulation

      Protecting Yourself: Influence vs. Manipulation

    • Strategies to Protect Yourself

      Strategies to Protect Yourself

    • Recap: Protect Yourself from Unwanted Influence

      Recap: Protect Yourself from Unwanted Influence

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...

  • Apply strategies for effective ways to build, develop, and sustain a power base in your organization.
  • Apply influence tactics that enable you to be more persuasive and influential in working with your superiors, peers, and even subordinates.

Who is the course for?

This course is designed for anyone looking to become a more influential leader in the workplace and build your confidence in decision-making and leadership.

Who developed the course?

University of Michigan

As the #1 public research university in the United States, U-M has been a leader in research, learning, and teaching for more than 200 years, with 102 Grad programs in the top 10 — U.S. News & World Report (2019).

  • Established

    1817
  • Location

    Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
  • World ranking

    Top 30Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020

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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