If you want to progress in your career as a leader, it’s worth taking an organizational leadership course. Before committing, consider what you could gain and whether it’s worth the time, effort, and potential cost.
According to a Research.com report, leadership training has been shown to increase organizational outcomes by 25 percent and individual leadership behaviors by 28 percent. If that’s not enough, the report links it to increased employee engagement and retention rates.
Here’s a primer on what an organizational leadership course is, who should take one, and nine reasons it’s worth enrolling.
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An organizational leadership course is a professional development program designed to help experienced leaders and aspiring executives gain the skills to take on expanded leadership roles and successfully lead at an organizational level.
This type of course is right for professionals with experience leading teams and entrepreneurs whose startups are entering the growth stage. These courses go beyond foundational leadership skills to equip you to handle new challenges.
Organizational leadership courses can come in several formats—such as online, in-person, and hybrid—and each varies in content, instructors, and learning features.
Harvard Business School Online offers the course Organizational Leadership, taught by HBS professors Anthony Mayo and Joshua Margolis. It features an active, social learning experience that enables you to apply what you’ve learned through real-world business examples.
9 Reasons an Organizational Leadership Course Is Worth It
1. It Can Broaden Your Leadership Scale and Scope
If you’re an experienced team leader, chances are you already have foundational leadership skills. These include developing your personal leadership style, managing the conditions that drive team performance, delivering constructive feedback, and learning to manage the stress that can accompany leadership.
Yet, new leadership opportunities—for instance, leading multiple teams, global groups, or an entire organization—require new skills.
An organizational leadership course can build on your existing knowledge to help you prepare for increased scale (number of people, teams, or departments) and scope (range and diversity of responsibilities).
For instance, the course Leadership Principles equips learners with foundational leadership skills, and Organizational Leadership prepares experienced leaders to take on the next set of challenges.
Related: Leadership Principles vs. Organizational Leadership: Which Course Is Right for You?
2. It Can Connect You to a Network of Other Organizational Leaders
While not all organizational leadership courses are created equal, some offer the chance to engage with other professionals before, during, and after the course.
HBS Online learners, for example, can network through the HBS Online Community platform, as well as share thoughts and feedback with peers during the course itself.
Building a network can help you advance your career, gain new perspectives, and connect with organizational leaders tackling the same challenges as you.
3. It Can Help You Set and Communicate Direction
Whether you’re an aspiring executive or a team leader, you’ll need to set a strategic direction and clearly communicate it to your organization.
“Formulating your organization’s direction in writing is a crucial first step for you to figure out where the organization is headed,” Mayo says in Organizational Leadership. “Communicating it to others is how you bring that direction to life.”
An organizational leadership course can provide concrete frameworks for setting and communicating direction that you can practice applying to your organization as you learn.
4. It Can Teach You to Build a Strong Corporate Culture
With increased leadership comes the responsibility to create a strong corporate culture. A company’s culture permeates every level and can impact productivity, happiness, retention rates, and whether an organization reaches its goals.
There are facets of your company’s culture that are more foundational—for instance, whether your employees feel safe at work—and others that can elevate your organization, such as fostering an environment where experimentation is rewarded to promote innovation.
5. It Can Help You Transition from a Startup to a Growth-Stage Business
If you’re a business owner, you know that each stage of entrepreneurship comes with challenges. When transitioning from a startup to a growth-stage business, you may face leadership challenges you’ve yet to encounter.
An organizational leadership course can provide you with the skills to set and communicate direction, lead change, create culture, and manage a growing team.
6. It Can Enable You to Lead Organizational Change
Organizations regularly undergo changes. As a leader, you must be able to effectively guide your organization through them.
Whether they’re adaptive changes (such as transitioning to a new project management system) or transformational changes (such as an organization-wide restructuring), an organizational leadership course can prepare you to diagnose the need for change, use a proven framework to implement it successfully, and navigate resistance through purposeful communication.
Related: Organizational Change Management: What It Is & Why It’s Important
7. It Can Guide Your Design for Value Creation
As a business leader, value creation should always be at the forefront of your mind. An organizational leadership course can help you identify your business’s stakeholders (for instance, employees, investors, suppliers, and customers) and guide you in designing organizational structures and processes that create the greatest value for all parties.
Imagine your organization is failing to meet its target on a specific metric. Using the skills gained in an organizational leadership course, you can identify the issue's root as a lack of employee motivation, experiment with which structure or process could be causing it, and execute the necessary change.
8. It Can Give You New Perspectives from Real-World Examples
Learning doesn’t happen in a vacuum. When researching organizational leadership courses, search for one that uses real-world examples to illustrate concepts and prompt critical thinking.
These real-world business cases are a hallmark of the HBS Online learning model; Organizational Leadership features executives and high-level managers from companies including General Mills, McAfee, Medtronic, and Levi Strauss & Co. These leaders discuss business challenges they’ve faced and ask learners to consider what they would have done in those situations.
After reflection, learners discover how each professional approached their unique situations, gaining valuable insight and perspective in the process.
When transitioning into an organizational leadership role, you’re bound to encounter challenges others have faced. Taking a course that features those examples can prepare you for when similar situations arise.
9. It Can Prompt Introspection and Reflection
Ultimately, an organizational leadership course is about taking stock of yourself as a leader so you can develop your skills.
Organizational Leadership regularly prompts learners to reflect on how they’d approach a leadership challenge and apply tools, frameworks, and concepts to their organizations.
The process of professional development requires introspection and reflection to gain the self-awareness needed to improve. Once you’re aware of your leadership shortcomings, you can develop your skills and empower others.
Taking Your Leadership Skills to the Next Level
If you’re an experienced leader, gaining the skills to take on the challenges that come with the next level of leadership is an investment in your career and organization. Enrolling in an organizational leadership course can give you the skills to lead at scope and scale.
When researching which course to take, ensure it has the features to meet your needs—like social networking components and real-world examples—because the right program can set you up for success.
Are you interested in elevating your leadership skills? Explore Organizational Leadership—one of our online leadership and management courses—and learn how to communicate direction and lead at scale. Not sure which course is right for you? Download our free flowchart.
