Message from the faculty about the capstone project

Message from the faculty about the capstone

Congratulations to all of you for successfully going through the ExpertTrack and reaching the capstone. We’re really proud of your engagement, your commitment, and your accomplishments.

Many of you have shared your stories online here in the FutureLearn platform and have reached out to us on LinkedIn to stay in touch, and we are very grateful for this. As you go through the capstone, please continue to engage with one another by posting questions. If you have a question or a reflection you want to share, chances are someone else has a similar question, and the ensuing discussion can benefit many of us here.

Now, this capstone assignment was developed based on the feedback from thousands of learners who have taken the leading people in team ExpertTrack before you. In particular, our learners ask for a capstone assignment that would allow them to accomplish three things.

1. Apply and practice the insights they learned in the specialization.
2. Connect the course to their own careers in leadership development.
3. Personalized leadership skills and tools.

So based on this feedback, in this capstone assignment, we asked you to prepare and deliver responses to interview questions. Imagine you’re interviewing for a new job or a leadership position. And you want to demonstrate your leadership capabilities in the interview. Within the context of this interview, your primary objective for the capstone assignment is to use the content from the expert track to demonstrate your knowledge of key leadership skills.

You’re well aware that interviews and organizations constitute a cornerstone of telling selection promotion practices. One of the key goals of the interview process is to understand how you would approach a variety of leadership challenges at work, given your knowledge, expertise and prior work experience. In responding to these questions, we ask that you be guided by and apply the content of the expert track. For example, in responding to the question, what motivates you at work, you may choose to discuss the work motivators we covered in the expert track, such as job autonomy, learning, and purpose. Using the course concepts will not only demonstrate your learning, but it will also help you provide a well-structured and more complete response to the interview questions. Similarly, your knowledge from the ExpertTrack related to optimal team structures and processes can provide you with specific points of reference in describing how you would manage teams or handle a particular team leadership challenge. Just like in a real interview, you should avoid an overly lengthy response that is filled with scientific jargon. In other words, it may not be necessary to talk about valence equity or full wording or using exact terms. If you’re asked the question about addressing a demotivated individual, instead of using scientific terms, you could explain how you would consider strategies, including those related to the person’s needs in relation to the offered rewards, his or her perceptions of fairness with respect to the offered rewards, and whether they offered rewards are aligned with the desired behaviors.

The benefits of incorporating the ExpertTrack content into your interview responses extend well beyond the leading people in team ExpertTrack. Thinking about your past work experiences using the concepts, tools and frameworks you learned in the expert track , will enable you to reflect more deeply on your past actions and their outcomes. Research and leadership development is unambiguous that such systematic reflection is critically important for your past experience to help you grow and develop into a better leader. Similarly, applying leadership tools, concepts and frameworks to potential future leadership challenges is a central pillar of leadership education worldwide. In the sense you will also develop your analytical skills by thinking through these hypothetical challenges.

Furthermore, we selected questions for the interview in this capstone from actual job interviews. In other words, in your future job interviews, you will likely be asked similar questions. That’s by working through the capstone. You will be investing in your own interview preparation and increasing the likelihood of performing well in your future interviews.

You have the option of submitting your interview responses, either in writing or as a video recording. In actual interviews, you will be asked to talk through a particular leadership challenge or situation rather than submit your responses in writing. We therefore recommend you consider doing a video submission. The option that most closely matches the realities of work. Also, by submitting a video response, you’ll get richer feedback from your peers, including feedback or non-verbals, levels of energy and overall demeanor. Should a video submission not be possible, however, you may submit your responses in writing instead. Please know that you will not be penalized in any way for choosing to submit your responses in writing. We hope you find the capstone experience thought provoking and useful for your own careers. Good luck and we can’t wait to see your sub missions.