Hello, my name is Paul Nesbitt and I'm an Associate Professor of Management at Macquarie University. Over the years, I've worked with many managers seeking to learn and adapt to the changing world of work. In the following six weeks, I would like to share with you many of these insights about the process of developing yourself as a leader. You know that we are all experiencing rapidly changing work environments. Innovation in technology and increasingly globalized markets are reshaping organizations, their structures, the human interactions within them, and importantly, the nature of leadership of people. You also know that those in leadership positions, not just those at the top, but throughout the organizations, these managers matter. In changing work environments, there is a continuous demand on the leaders to update and develop their skills and knowledge. They need to be continuously learning and developing. Today, you need to continually reflect on your skills and performance and adapt and develop new skills and behaviors to lead in a changing world. This course will help you do so. In week one, you'll explore the big picture of organizational change and the increasing need for self-directed learning. You'll also be introduced to a model to guide you in your self-development efforts. This model highlights two important phases, the self-understanding phase, where you seek to become aware of your leadership style, and what you do well, and what you need to develop and also a self-change phase, which is all about the process of making self-directed changes to your leadership skills. The self-development model will form the broad foundation, in fact, for the rest of the course. In week two, you'll discuss the importance of accurate self-awareness for yourself-development. It may surprise you to hear that research suggests that accurate self-awareness is not easy to achieve. You'll find out why this is the case and what you can do to increase the accuracy and relevance of your self awareness. You will also explore the sources of feedback that provide the data that we all use for self-awareness. An important aspect of self-development is the quality of your self-reflection. In week three, you'll explore self-reflection processes in more depth and how they support your development. One problem that can happen when you reflect on feedback, is that you produce emotional reactions that prevent you from learning. You'll look at some of these emotions and what you can do to manage them. Global MBA degree students will also explore the role of emotional intelligence in leadership and in their self-development. Having explored self-understanding processes to highlight leader development needs in the first three weeks, you'll then focus on what you can do about these needs. In week four, you'll explore the self-change process, beginning with investigating why personal change is difficult. Many people think lack of success in making lasting personal changes suggests a lack of willpower. Sure, it is important, but there is more you need to understand about making changes. Nevertheless, before you go on to explore these other issues in week five and six, you need to consider the nature of willpower and its relevance in your self-development. You will also find out what you can do to enhance your willpower to support your self development efforts. In week five, you'll focus on the process of self-regulation, which is the name that psychologists give to various processes of self-change. In this course, we'll be taking a social cognitive perspective of change. Social cognitive theory highlights the importance of your thoughts and feelings and the environment in any plans you make for personal change. In this week, you will start to delve into the application and social cognitive perspectives of change. For example, you will change broad aspirational goals from your development insights into specific action goals and you will also examine your commitment to your development. Finally, in week six, you'll focus on a number of clear strategies that will typically underpin your self-development action plan. These include strategies that you can carry out to reach development goals. Strategies to deal with a range of thoughts and feelings that arise as you pursue your self-development, as well as how to make the social and physical environment more supportive for your change efforts. With the information and strategies you'll learn in this course, you'll be in a very good position to engage and successfully make changes to your leadership skills to help you thrive in the changing work environment. Thank you for joining me to explore how to develop your leadership skills to improve yourself always.
