Boost Your Leadership Skills with These 4 Free Courses

HR leaders are standing at the center of a massive transformation. You’re in the spotlight, called on to meet urgent priorities for the business, including navigating hybrid work and closing skills gaps. With the added pressures of a competitive talent market and ongoing economic uncertainty, tackling these growing responsibilities and expectations takes new skills.

When you invest in new skills, you invest in yourself and your career. It’s how you keep up — and get ahead.

As part of Course Club, LinkedIn has unlocked four courses until December 31, 2022. Check them out to sharpen your leadership skills and advance your career.

1. Coaching and Developing Employees with Lisa Gates

According to McKinsey, the top reason workers quit jobs between April 2021 and April 2022 was a lack of career development and advancement. As a team leader, how do you support the growth that employees are so hungry for? Heed the advice from this course: direct less, coach more. 

What you’ll learn: Coaching isn’t only for employees who need remedial help; it’s also for your high performers. Lisa Gates explains how to have conversations that focus on self-awareness, growth, and taking action toward personal and organizational goals. As you learn to become more curious and collaborative, you’ll be able to better navigate “the messy terrain of career development.” 

Sneak peek: Being a great coach starts with asking great questions. Lisa has you covered on that front, with a host of open-ended questions to help employees solve problems on their own. (Here’s one: What needs to happen that isn’t happening now?)

2. Promoting Internal Mobility as a Manager with Alisa Cohn

Organizations are embracing internal mobility. Filling positions internally reduces onboarding and training time and cuts hiring costs by nearly 20%. Plus, when employees have opportunities to grow within a company, they’re more likely to stay. 

In this environment where internal moves are encouraged, how can you benefit as a manager? This course explains. 

What you’ll learn: Alisa Cohn makes the challenges of internal mobility more manageable for team leaders, with fresh ideas on how to nurture your employees’ careers and recruit new people to your team. (Talent magnet, anyone?) Best of all, once you put her strategies to work, you can direct them back on yourself to accelerate your own career mobility.

Sneak peek: Everyone’s heard of the exit interview, but have you ever done a stay interview? Alisa shows how it can be your secret weapon to retain employees.

3. Cultivating a Growth Mindset with Gemma Leigh Roberts

If you’re reading this post, you’re already showing up with a growth mindset that welcomes lifelong learning — and that’s all to the good. 

Especially now, when we’re all experiencing the tremors of a shifting workplace, a growth mindset will help you reach your goals in the face of the toughest challenges. This course will help you stretch your mind with small steps that lead to big changes over time. 

What you’ll learn: Gemma Leigh Roberts combines research in the fields of performance and psychology with real-world examples, offering practical tips on how you can adopt and — this one’s tougher — maintain a growth mindset. As you work on your growth mindset, you’re bound to enter unfamiliar territory that may be exciting or uncomfortable, or both. Not to worry: Gemma offers a plan to help you handle the challenges that come with growth. 

Sneak peek: After Steve Jobs dropped out of Reed College, he dropped in on a calligraphy class, Gemma notes. Years later, while he was working on the first Macintosh computers, that class and Steve’s love of calligraphy led to computers with beautiful and variable typography. What piques your interest? That tiny curiosity may end up having a big impact on your career. 

4. Moving Past Change Fatigue to the Growth Edge with Charlene Li

As the last couple of years have shown, a crisis can prompt new ways to work, collaborate, and live. The challenge is how to sustain your ability to innovate and adapt without burning out. This course shows you how.

What you’ll learn: Organizations that succeed at being disruptive have one thing in common — leaders who can stretch their teams without stressing them out. Charlene Li explains exactly how to do this, with detailed advice for establishing clear boundaries and structures, managing change fatigue, and pushing yourself and your team out of your comfort zone and toward growth.

Sneak peek: Without rules, disruption turns into chaos, Charlene says. It’s easy to define what not to do, but don’t forget to articulate what is allowed and encouraged. Master this — and her other rules — and you’ll create the safe space people need to try new things.

Final thoughts: The power of leaders learning

Don’t underestimate the impact your own learning has on your employees. According to LinkedIn’s Skills Advantage Report, 91% of employees say it’s important for managers to inspire learning and experimentation. 

When you focus on building your own skills, you model the learning employees need to advance their careers. And together, you build the skills the organization needs for the future.  

To access these current courses as well as new courses every quarter, sign up for Course Club here. 

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