5 Ways to Get the Most Out of Leadership Courses

This article is sponsored by the University of Western Australia Business School. Learn more about its MBA program.

Although there are many different types of leadership styles, only the lucky few are natural leaders. An increasing number of MBA programs believe leadership can be taught. At the University of Western Australia, the leadership training and development is about not only how you lead others but also how you lead yourself.

Founded over a century ago, the Perth based school is in the top 100 in QS World University Rankings. The school will launch a full-time MBA program next year. UWA’s MBA program director, Dr Michele Roberts, discussed five ways you can develop good leadership skills.

1. Know your strengths and weaknesses

It’s impossible to lead others without first knowing your own strengths and weaknesses. There are myriad ways to discover your strengths and weaknesses, but UWA offers full-time MBA students a 360° feedback survey utilizing feedback from managers and colleagues, along with direct reports. As Dr Roberts explains, this is combined “with a range of other surveys that provide insights into your personality, values, strengths, and development areas”.               

UWA reports on their website that their leadership development program’s new module’s core assumption “is that you will be more successful at whatever you do if you have an accurate understanding of yourself, and if you use this understanding to try new ways of thinking and behaving”.

Self-examination can also be achieved by personality tests along with evaluations at your current workplace and college assessments. Ultimately, you will not only learn your own strengths and weaknesses, but also your own personality type – whether you are introverted or extroverted, whether you make decisions based upon information or intuition and a whole host of other variables. This can help you get to grips with your leadership style.

2. Understand your leadership style

You are the product of your experiences. Everything that has happened in your life has led you to where you are right at this moment. “Research evidence tells us that every individual’s leadership development journey is unique,” UWA’s Dr. Roberts explains. “The path you take depends upon your personality, skills, life experiences, and a range of other factors.”

Although your leadership style may be innate, by understanding why you lead as you do you’ll be able to learn what works and what doesn’t. Perhaps you place too much emphasis on rigidly following the rules or conversely are too disorganized to accomplish your goals. The best leadership courses will enable you to improve your leadership style, helping you refine what is effective and discard what isn’t. At UWA, Roberts points out that the leadership courses utilize such approaches as “...mindful reflection, peer coaching, and participation in challenging experiential activities that will accelerate you toward realizing your leadership potential.”

3. Training and development

Knowledge is useless unless properly applied. That’s why it’s vital to participate in a program of training and development that forces you to apply the knowledge and develop skill sets you’ll use as an effective leader. In every endeavor proper training requires the best teachers.  Since most MBA programs offer leadership courses, Roberts believes “it is important to choose a leadership development program based on evidence-based research, and developed by recognized experts.” She notes that UWA’s MBA team includes Australian Research Council Future Fellow and co-director of UWA’s Accelerated Learning Laboratory Professor Sharon Parker, Woodside Chair in Leadership and Management Professor David Day and Professor Cristina Gibson, who was recently named in the top 1% of influential scholars worldwide in the field of economics and business.

4. Develop good leadership skills for a global workforce

In our interconnected, global world the leaders who best adapt to a variety of environments are the ones who will be the most successful. Their good leadership skills will be in demand. As Roberts points out, today many organizations have team members who are geographically spread out. Because they rely on technology to communicate, leading such groups presents its own unique challenges. Some of these challenges, Roberts says, “include selecting team members who can adapt to a global environment, being mindful of technology choices, and facilitating healthy interactions” using technologies like email and video conferencing. Successful leadership training and development must also recognize that what works for a small company in Western Europe may not succeed in a US based multinational or at corporate headquarters in Tokyo.

5. Learn by doing

It’s not uncommon for students to report retaining less than 10% of the information from classroom lectures. That’s why it’s vital for leadership development programs to provide real world experiences and hands-on education. Schools like UWA are increasingly partnering with corporations, bringing in top executives for lectures and offering students direct industry project opportunities. Regardless of what school a future MBA student chooses, polishing their leadership skills will put them on the fast track to their ideal career.

This article is sponsored by the University of Western Australia Business School.