Online Microcredential in Business & Management

Data-Driven Leadership Skills

Gain essential data-driven leadership skills and discover the latest theories for leading agile teams in the digital age

Created by

The University of GlasgowThe University of Glasgow

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Accredited by

The Institute of Leadership and ManagementThe Institute of Leadership and Management

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Digital leadership training that prepares you for the future of business

This microcredential is designed for a wide range of professionals. You could be in a management structure, leadership role, or looking to gain more knowledge to develop the leadership and management skills required to lead engaged, productive, and high-achieving teams in business today and into the future.

You’ll discover new leadership strategies and methodologies that build on traditional leadership models, incorporating the new challenges and opportunities impacting leaders in the age of data and digital technology.

Boost your knowledge of data driven leadership

The impact of the 21st century’s fourth industrial revolution means that many traditional leadership research and models are now outdated.

Traditional leadership training encourages leaders to be responsible for analysing all information and then to make decisions. This course shows how modern leadership models can be more agile and responsive by sharing data analysis and decision-making.

Analyse and evaluate traditional models of leadership and management

On this microcredential, you’ll delve into traditional leadership models and ask how these traditional theories of leadership can be critiqued in light of how businesses operate today.

You’ll discover decision science tools for organising and managing data as a leader and learn how to apply lean principles to the integration and optimisation of information.

You’ll also be introduced to traditional management science concepts and learn why their data-based origins mean they’re still relevant today.

Discover new strategic leadership planning tools

As you consider traditional leadership planning tools, you’ll familiarise yourself with the planning paradox, whereby the efficiency of 20th Century planning tools – like PESTLE and SWOT analyses – are limited in dynamic 21st century contexts.

Starting with early commentators like Henry Minzberg, you’ll trace critical approaches to leadership and strategy using more exploratory tools such as Cynefin.

You’ll discover how to interpret data as a leader using your lecturer’s own data driven strategic decision making tool, and practice using the SWAN model as well as military tools used for dynamic planning.

Explore efficient and agile leadership structures

As agile leadership continues to dominate 21st Century organisations and decision-making, you’ll identify how agile models differ from 20th century hierarchies.

You’ll evaluate how a move towards agile working is affecting modern leadership and collective decision-making, before learning how agility can be coded into any organisation.

Using real-world case studies, you’ll explore the differences between agility and efficiency, and assess how to balance this dichotomy when applying agile and responsive leadership practices.

Assess your identity and role as a leader in data rich environments

The final sections of the course explore how holding on to a traditional view of leadership can deter leaders from identifying with data skills – to their own detriment.

You’ll consider how this can lead to data skills being siloed from leadership and decision making, as well as leaders being overwhelmed with data instead of harnessing the power of collaborative decision making.

You’ll be encouraged to explore the role data has to play in your future as a leader, and define how your leadership experiences match the evolving digital workplace.

Learn with experts at the University of Glasgow’s triple-accredited business school

This microcredential is offered by the business school at top Russell Group university, the University of Glasgow.

You’ll learn with esteemed lecturer, Dr. Matt Offord, a former Naval Officer with extensive experience leading agile 21st-century teams in high technology and data rich environments.

Dr. Offord has also published research into agile information- and data-based leadership behaviours and informal decision-making networks, and is a regular speaker on data-driven leadership and communication at the UK Defence Academy. Data-Driven Leadership Skills flyer

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Skip to 0 minutes and 17 seconds Data is the new oil and we can see the workplace reorganizing around data. As leaders we need to be sensitive to this and lead  accordingly. In this course we will explore how traditional leadership narratives were created to organize and control huge workforces around specialized and complicated engineering processes. We will look at the development of leadership theory from Plato to Thomas Carlyle and we will challenge how this theory helps us in today’s network data flooded workplaces.

Skip to 0 minutes and 50 seconds I am doctor Matt Offord a leadership scholar at the Adam Smith Business School. This course focuses on the changes we are currently experiencing in the workplace and how this will affect the skills leaders need to be successful. This is not about coronavirus, although we can learn many lessons from this and other crises. It’s about the 4th Industrial Revolution, the age of data. We will draw on the emerging need for agility and responsive strategy that has been developed by 21st century military teams and is now being used in business.

Skip to 1 minute and 21 seconds You’ll be supported in your learning from the triple accredited Adam Smith Business School situated in the University of Glasgow, a leading Russell Group University recently voted University of the Year by the Times. This course will equip you with the skills you need for the 21st century, help you to understand the legacy of traditional leadership, and how both combine in successful modern leadership.

What skills will you learn?

  • Data-driven decision making
  • Data-driven leadership
  • Agile leadership
  • Building an agile team
  • Managing information supply chains
  • Leadership strategies
  • Leadership management
  • Leadership training

What you will achieve

By the end of the microcredential, you’ll be able to...

  • Critically evaluate, with particular reference to digital data, traditional leadership models
  • Distinguish between agile and efficient leadership structures and their relationship to data
  • Analyse the role of data, volume, quality and timeliness, in decision making
  • Analyse and assess leadership narratives and whether they help or hinder modern leaders in a digital age
  • Describe and evaluate the role of collective decision making and agile teams

Are you eligible for this microcredential?

Participants should normally be educated to degree level and have an IELTS equivalent of 6.5.

Candidates who have leadership and management experience at any level but wish to develop it may also be eligible.

Is this microcredential right for you?

This microcredential is designed for leaders and potential leaders looking to transform their leadership and management skills for the digital age.

If you’d like to learn effective leadership techniques and tools for working in increasingly data-rich and agile environments, then this microcredential is for you.

Or, if you’d like to understand why traditional leadership models are not set up for the intricacies of modern business – and how to implement strategies and leadership models that are – you’ll be empowered with the knowledge and skills to do so on this course.

Syllabus

What happens before, during, and after your microcredential

  • Before learning

    You’ll have access to our online welcome area where you’ll be able to start conversations with learners and read case studies, blogs, magazine articles, and academic articles relating to the course.

  • Course

    From 25 Apr 2022

    Data-Driven Leadership Skills

    Learn how leadership is explicitly dealing with the fourth industrial revolution: the age of data and digital technology.

    10 weeks

    10 hours per week

  • After learning

    Once you’ve successfully completed the microcredential, you’ll receive a HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Record) from the University of Glasgow. You’ll have ongoing, unlimited access to the course materials.

What you will receive

10 UK Credits at Postgraduate level from The University of Glasgow

Once you’ve successfully completed the microcredential, you’ll receive 10 Post Graduate level academic credits and a HEAR (Higher Education Achievement Record) from the University of Glasgow.

Find out how credits work and where you can use them in our FAQs.

What is a microcredential?

Microcredentials are designed to upskill you for work in rapidly-growing industries, without the time and cost commitment of a full degree. Your microcredential can stand alone as an independent credential, and some also offer academic credit to use towards a degree.

Learn online with expert instructors

Complete online courses led by experts over multiple weeks with a dedicated group of professionals.

Complete project-based assessments

Test your understanding with online tutor-marked assessments and exercises.

Earn a professional credential

Finish your learning and pass your assessments to gain an accredited credential.

Advance further in your career

Use your microcredential as evidence of your specialised skills and progress further in your industry.

Career-focused learning by The University of Glasgow

Founded in 1451, the University of Glasgow is the fourth oldest university in the English-speaking world. It is a member of the prestigious Russell Group of leading UK research universities.

  • Established

    1451
  • Location

    Glasgow, Scotland, UK
  • World ranking

    Top 70Source: QS World University Rankings 2020

This microcredential is accredited by The Institute of Leadership and Management

The Institute of Leadership & Management is delighted to work in partnership with Adam Smith Business School to accredit this Data-Driven Leadership Skills microcredential

Delivered by experts

I am a leadership scholar at the Adam Smith Business School and a former naval officer and business owner, leadership writer, blogger and podcaster talking about leadership in the age of data.

Learning on FutureLearn

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  • Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
  • Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
  • Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores

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  • Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
  • Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
  • Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others

Map your progress

  • As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
  • Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
  • Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate

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Enrolment for this microcredential is closed. We aim to run our microcredentials every few months. Register to find out more about this microcredential and future start dates.

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    FAQ

    We can accept payments made by card (Visa, Mastercard and American Express) or PayPal via our online system.

    You will have 14 days from the day the course starts to apply for a refund. If this Microcredential has any non-refundable costs they will be stated in the ‘Overview’ section above. You can find more information in our cancellation and refund policy.

    Microcredentials are designed to fit around your life and timezone.

    There may be live events as part of your studies, but these will be recorded and can be watched afterwards if you aren’t online for the live broadcast.

    No, microcredentials are designed to be taken anywhere in the world. You won’t need the right to study in the country where the university offering the microcredential is based.

    Want to know more? Read the microcredential FAQs, or contact us.