Business has never moved so fast as it does in today’s digital age. Standing still is not an option when your existing competitors are pushing forward into innovation, and newcomers are arriving from all angles with new ideas and strategies. In modern business, management is about far more than keeping an organization running smoothly – it needs to be about harnessing the power of positive change to drive progress and development.
Some people are born innovators, but even this natural aptitude benefits from a little nurturing, and that’s where the LEAD program from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB) comes in. Offering an intensive and highly immersive course in online format, the LEAD certificate from Stanford Graduate School of Business will give top level managers the cutting edge skills and knowledge needed to play a full, leading part in 21st century commerce.
Course Focus and Topics
LEAD stands for Learn, Engage, Accelerate, and Disrupt – and this gives a strong clue to the focus of the course. Innovation, change, and development are the watchwords, rather than dry management techniques from business times past. Of course, a basis of sound business knowledge is necessary alongside the capacity to innovate, so the program offers in-depth foundation courses covering the following topics and more – but always with the emphasis firmly on the power of change.
Business Finance – including interpreting balance sheets and reports, measuring risks and rewards, evaluating projections, and constructing financial models.
Critical and Analytical Thinking Skills – including the foundations of logical reasoning, evaluating evidence, using analogies to clarify issues, and designing experiments to test decisions.
Strategy and Leadership – including evaluation and clarification of business strategy, influencing strategy through organizational design, and overall leadership skills.
Candidates can then customize their course using a changing selection of elective modules from such topics as:
- Business model construction and analysis.
- Negotiation and collaborative problem solving.
- Promoting innovation and creativity in an organization.
- Effective leadership of teams through change.
- Using neuroscience perspectives in customer experience design.
- Developing toolkits to implement change.
Each section of the course places a premium on creative real-world use of the knowledge gained. As well as being tested with quizzes and individual exercises, candidates will also have to apply their new skills in a hypothetical business situation, often in a group environment, to ensure that a deep understanding of the issues is attained rather than demonstrating simple rote learning.
Flexible Online Study Format
The cloud-based study is conducted online at the candidate’s own pace, covering eight separate course sections with over 200 hours of in-depth, relevant content. For maximum effect, the entire curriculum is covered over a one year period of intensive study, which as well as promoting academic rigor also ensures that the concepts covered remain at the cutting edge of both technology and business thinking.
The online format also allows close collaboration with fellow high-value students from across the world, which not only facilitates quick learning, but leads to the development of a global network of peers – invaluable for any manager with a driving ambition to innovate.
Tap Into the Silicon Valley Culture
Stanford are well known as pioneers of the culture of change and leaders of the developmental culture of Silicon Valley. Now, through the LEAD certificate, managers the world over can benefit from their experience and outlook and learn how to incorporate the same drive towards innovative success within their own organizations.
Earning the right to display the LEAD certificate on LinkedIn or include it in a resume will show much more than a solid grasp of business principles – it will advertise a select understanding of the power of positive change, both in modern business and in the wider world.
