Leadership Through Design Innovation (Coursera)

Leadership Through Design Innovation (Coursera)

Today’s workplace calls for a new style of leadership to embolden and accelerate innovation. Design offers a novel way of discovering opportunities and bringing new approaches to life in ways that benefit all stakeholders. Learn how to engage with end users, effectively frame problems, identify potential solutions, and build prototypes to test assumptions and learn what works (and doesn’t). Then dive into a range of ways large and small to bring design innovation into your organization.

Class Deals by MOOC List - Click here and see Coursera's Active Discounts, Deals, and Promo Codes.

Course 5 of 6 in the Organizational Leadership Specialization.

Syllabus

WEEK 1
Using Design Principles to Innovate and Find Opportunities
You will learn that the first step in the design process is finding opportunities. Human-centered designers do so by immersing themselves in a particular user context to identify areas of focus for design innovation.

WEEK 2
Exploring Ideas
How do we take the opportunities that we've uncovered and turn them into new possibilities? In this module we'll explore ideation, sketching, and storyboarding as tools to generate and communicate ideas.

WEEK 3
Prototyping to Learn
It is easy to think of prototypes as “drafts” of the final design, but in this module we’ll teach you to think of prototypes a bit differently: as tools for learning. We will discuss approaches for maximizing the amount that you learn from prototypes, and iterating your way rapidly toward outstanding results.

WEEK 4
Leading Design Innovation
How do you bring design innovation to your organization and sustain it over time? In this module we will learn theory and practical techniques to help you lead an organization that routinely produces innovative products, services, and systems.

Go to Class
MOOC List is learner-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Related Courses

Introduction to the Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Organizations, Nonprofit Leadership and Governance (Coursera) Coursera
The State University of New York

Introduction to the Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Organizations, Nonprofit Leadership and Governance (Coursera)

This course introduces you to the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, and the concepts of leadership and governance. While this course has been developed with North American culture in mind, we do appreciate that in other parts of the world the nature of the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, nonprofit leadership and governance may not be the same. Nevertheless, it is our hope that much of the course content will still be of value to those in other parts of the world.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Fundamentals of Effective Team Management (Coursera) Coursera
Starweaver

Fundamentals of Effective Team Management (Coursera)

Welcome to our comprehensive course on team management! In today's dynamic and interconnected world, the ability to lead and manage teams effectively is a critical skill for success in various professional domains. This course has been thoughtfully designed to provide you with the knowledge, strategies, and tools necessary to excel in team management. Throughout the program, we will explore various aspects of team leadership, from building high-performing teams to fostering a culture of trust and productivity.

Aug 24th 2026
1 Week
Writing Skills for Engineering Leaders (Coursera) Coursera
Rice University

Writing Skills for Engineering Leaders (Coursera)

Engineering leaders must write extensively for their jobs, and their writing needs to be professional, reader-focused, and error-free. What leaders write in particular can affect productivity and the bottom line, so the written communication that leaders create must be clear and concise. In this course, you’ll learn essential writing skills that you can apply in your daily activities on the job as an engineering leader.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
Ethical Leadership Through Giving Voice to Values (Coursera) Coursera
University of Virginia

Ethical Leadership Through Giving Voice to Values (Coursera)

This course offers an action-oriented introduction to Giving Voice to Values (or GVV), an exciting new approach to values-driven leadership development in the workplace, in business education and in life. GVV is not about persuading people to be more ethical, but instead it starts from the premise that most of us already want to act on our values, but that we also want to feel that we have a reasonable chance of doing so effectively.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing (Coursera) Coursera
Copenhagen Business School

An Introduction to Consumer Neuroscience & Neuromarketing (Coursera)

How do we make decisions as consumers? What do we pay attention to, and how do our initial responses predict our final choices? To what extent are these processes unconscious and cannot be reflected in overt reports? This course will provide you with an introduction to some of the most basic methods in the emerging fields of consumer neuroscience and neuromarketing. You will learn about the methods employed and what they mean. You will learn about the basic brain mechanisms in consumer choice, and how to stay updated on these topics. The course will give an overview of the current and future uses of neuroscience in business.

Aug 24th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Design Research para Estratégia e Inovação (Coursera) Coursera
FIA Business School

Design Research para Estratégia e Inovação (Coursera)

Nossas boas-vindas ao Curso Design Research para Estratégia e Inovação.Neste curso, você aprenderá sobre os principais elementos da Design Research (DR) aplicada à geração de inovação e estratégia. Tal método é fundamental para a criação de produtos, serviços e sistemas que atendam às necessidades humanas. No entanto, apesar de sua utilidade, a DR é amplamente negligenciada por muitas instituições e executivos. A DR, em essência, orienta as equipes para descobrir insights e desenvolver experiências de usuário que gerem valor.

Aug 24th 2026
4 Weeks
Management Foundations in the Hospitality Industry (Coursera) Coursera
University of North Texas

Management Foundations in the Hospitality Industry (Coursera)

This course is an introduction to motivation, leadership, communications, decision making, and leading people through effective management of human resources (HR), ethics, social responsibility, and managing consumer experiences in the hospitality industry by examining service-driven management foundations.

Aug 24th 2026
4 Weeks
Generative AI for Leaders (Coursera) Coursera
Vanderbilt University

Generative AI for Leaders (Coursera)

Leaders are constantly seeking innovative tools to amplify their impact. Dive into the realm of Generative AI, a groundbreaking technology poised to redefine the leadership landscape more profoundly than the Internet itself. This course offers a comprehensive journey into understanding, applying, and mastering Generative AI as a robust tool to amplify leadership capabilities.

Aug 24th 2026
3 Weeks
Interpersonal Communication for Engineering Leaders (Coursera) Coursera
Rice University

Interpersonal Communication for Engineering Leaders (Coursera)

This course covers communication skills that engineering leaders use every day to motivate, inspire, and support the people in their organizations. Speaking and writing are basic leadership communication skills. (We covered these topics in the Specialization course 1 and 3.) However, leaders also need to be skillful interpersonal communicators.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
Business English: Finance and Economics (Coursera) Coursera
Arizona State University

Business English: Finance and Economics (Coursera)

Do you work in finance or interact with finance professionals? Is it necessary to speak, write or understand English in your career? Follow the authentic characters in this course as they work through common business situations in finance and economics. Learn from your successes and failure, and think critically about your own communication options.

Aug 17th 2026
5-12 Weeks
Machine Learning Rapid Prototyping with IBM Watson Studio (Coursera) Coursera
IBM

Machine Learning Rapid Prototyping with IBM Watson Studio (Coursera)

An emerging trend in AI is the availability of technologies in which automation is used to select a best-fit model, perform feature engineering and improve model performance via hyperparameter optimization. This automation will provide rapid-prototyping of models and allow the Data Scientist to focus their efforts on applying domain knowledge to fine-tune models. This course will take the learner through the creation of an end-to-end automated pipeline built by Watson Studio’s AutoAI experiment tool, explaining the underlying technology at work as developed by IBM Research.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks
Managing Innovation: Ambidexterity, Teams and Leading Change (Coursera) Coursera
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Managing Innovation: Ambidexterity, Teams and Leading Change (Coursera)

You may have noticed that what is new often behaves differently than what has become accepted over time, whether it is in a market, or a technology, or involves people and firms. Much research supports these general ideas, and one implication is that management of innovation often requires different approaches and skills than management in established arenas. This course helps you develop a perspective on managing innovation. That is, you will build your capability to lead and design your organization to effectively implement innovation initiatives and achieve their strategic intent.

Aug 17th 2026
4 Weeks