The Neuroscience of Leading High-Performance Teams

Overview

In a demanding business world, team performance matters. At a time in history when teams are less engaged and more unmotivated than ever before, this course we will help give you the competitive edge you are looking for. What if your teams were more motivated and engaged? What if we found a way to harness the primal power of storytelling to influence and collaborate with others? What if we created an environment of psychological safety and trust for the teams we lead? This course is part of the "Neuroscience of Leadership" specialization, which examines leadership techniques through the lens of social cognitive neuroscience and psychology. Utilizing the latest research, we develop a leadership practice based on the foundation of neuroscience. The focus of this course is leading and coaching high performance teams. You'll come away with new knowledge and techniques to enhance motivation, set better goals, build trust with your team, tell a compelling story, think well on your feet and coach your team effectively. 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. Learn more about the ME-EM program at https://www.coursera.org/degrees/me-engineering-management-boulder.

Syllabus

Motivation and Goal Setting

To achieve our goals, motivation toward goals is vitally important. In this module, you will gain insight on how the brain's reward network works for and against us. When we create clear goals and strategic plans, we are better able to stay motivated.

Psychological Safety

Psychological safety has been identified as one of the most important factors for high performing teams. You will learn how trust, the SCARF framework, engagement and the social brain hypothesis are all related to developing psycholocial safety in your teams.

Collaboration and Influence

We are social creatures. Our ancestors survival depended on collaborarting with members of our tribe. In this module, we will examine the neural underspinnings of collaboration and competition. You will come away with new understanding of the power of influence within a team.

Storytelling and Improvisation

Human beings are innately drawn to stories around the fire. For good reason, this was a primary source of communcation for our ancestors to share important information. In this module, you will learn the neuroscience of storytelling, and closely related improvisation. Both of which are critical tools to leading others well.

Transformative Power of Coaching

The future of leadership will most likely consist of empathy and compassion for those that we lead. At the heart of this new way to lead is coaching with compassion. In this module we'll examine how this approach is superior to coaching for compliance. You'll come away with tools for coaching your employees, and an understanding of how the brain approaches behavior change.