New Leader Crash Course

A career is more than a job. Learn how to focus on completing short-term objectives in order to achieve long-term goals & maximize your career opportunities.

You need to know where you are before you can get to where you want to go. Find your starting point by exploring your personal satisfaction. Use these questions to help you determine how satisfied you are in your current position.

Examine your history to figure out where you want to go. This includes your childhood dreams as well as your recent job roles. These signposts & markers will help you visualize your future.

Career satisfaction comes from using your skills & knowledge productively, satisfying practical & emotional needs & achieving goals. Of course, in order for you to accomplish these things, you need to know what they are for you. Figure it all out by thinking through these questions.

The rapid acceleration of technological innovation has brought changes to job descriptions, professions, & career paths. No one can predict exactly what the future holds, but here are some guidelines to adapt to an ever-changing job landscape.

A far-reaching network is a valuable tool. It can help you in times of need or in times of change. Follow these tips to widen & grow your network.

Think about this final piece of advice & how helping others can help you manage your career.

You can make an impact at all levels of your organization. Use these tools to extend influence & cultivate credibility.

When you look at your relationships through “The Lens of Leadership” you'll find that the vital first principle is service. Serving starts with followership & followership is a set of learnable skills that makes you professionally essential.

“Timeless, pure, career-management gold” – that's what Cory Bouck calls these next 4 tips. Influence & credibility is a natural by-product when you use Bouck's advice to consistently act with professionalism.

You build trust when you speak up with integrity & respect. This can be a challenging choice, especially when it comes to rumors, but these techniques make it easier.

Think about this final piece of advice & don't be afraid to focus on incremental improvements that build upward relationships.

If you've got a project, you need to manage it before it manages you. Project management keeps your goals out in front of you and helps you focus your energy to get the job done.

If you don't know where you're going, you won't get there anytime soon. Learn how to define the project's goal so everyone's moving towards the same target.

You want the right people for the job, but forming your team is easier said than done. Find out what points you should consider when assigning roles for any given project.

You define the parameters of a project by determining its scope. Learn how to define scope through Agile project management techniques like user stories & the INVESTU criteria.

Discover how to create top-down & bottom-up plans to keep track of project work & maximize efficiency.

Consider this final piece of advice on managing risk as you take on project management.

Take your project management skills to the next level. In part 2 of this course you'll learn to hit moving targets with skills such as estimating the work, how to manage change & what goes into making a schedule. Issues & changes can sometimes be one & the same, but with these skills you'll be more likely to handle them with ease. It's time to start mastering project management.

Start with a top-down estimate to get to your bottom-up estimate. Find how out how these two estimates work together to make your project successful.

Don't compromise your sanity for your schedule. Learn how to use tools like SQERTS & understand how top-down & bottom-up schedules can aid in keeping your project on course.

When an issue arises, know what type you have & how to handle it. Learn how to track issues, who you want to assign them to & what priority level they require.

You want your project to adapt to the variety of changes that can happen. Find out what comes with particular changes & how you can work with, not against, them.

Consider this final piece of advice on keeping open & transparent lines of communication as you work to master project management.

Meetings are like cookies! With the proper preparation and the right mix of ingredients, you'll end up with a palatable solution everyone can enjoy.

To produce workable outcomes, 80% of your work will be done before the meeting. Find out how to prepare to get your meeting on track before it happens.

An agenda helps everyone prepare for the meeting. Discover how to develop a clear agenda that's easy for everyone to follow along.

Chances are if you're organizing the meeting, you'll be facilitating it as well. But there are other roles you'll want to assign before the meeting happens. Understand who you'll need to invite and which roles you'll need to clarify ahead of time.

After the meeting concludes, you'll want to create an action plan geared towards achieving the meeting objectives. Find out the key steps to creating an action plan and how you can build one with your team.

Consider this final piece of advice on asking for feedback after you've concluded a meeting.

Effective time management skills are essential to your business & personal success. Time is the one resource that renews every day, so it's never too late to start fresh & learn to be more productive.

To understand how you can better balance your time, you need to know how you currently spend it. Find out how to identify where your time management skills need work.

Be proactive, begin with the end in mind & put first things first. Learn how to use these three steps & the importance of goal setting to get your time management on track.

SMART goals are a way to set & create goals that are actually workable. Master the SMART goals & you'll be well on your way to better time management.

Time management means you probably need to wrestle with procrastination. Learn about the different types of procrastination & see which kind you often struggle with to understand where you can make the most effective change.

You & your time are limited commodities. Find out how to respect your time & value yourself more in the process.

Interruptions can take up valuable moments in your day. Figuring out how to manage interruptions, both before & after they happen, can add time back to your schedule.

Feel like you're wasting your time in meetings? Find out how to reclaim that time & make meetings more efficient.

Odds are you have quite a few powerful time management tools at your disposal; you just have to know how to use them. Discover different techniques to make readily available time management tools work for you.

The Law of Diminishing Intent can stall any good idea or project. Understanding why LODI happens & what you can do to keep it at bay will keep you moving forward.

Think about this final piece of advice on the 80/20 rule as you develop better time management.

Whether your organization is going global or you're bringing on remote hires, there are a few things you'll need to do consistently to form an effective virtual team.

The environment surrounding your team matters to your management strategy. Consider how physical location, time difference, & cultural norms will affect how you & your team interact.

Extra, open & honest communication is needed to keep a virtual team running smoothly. Learn how clearly defined roles & designated responsibilities will keep things on track.

Trust is critical for all teams, but how do you foster trust when people are separated? Discover how to build rapport, either in person or online, to help your virtual team members learn to trust one another.

Getting everyone on the same page on a virtual team means being thorough & specific with your communication details. Find out how to select the right technological tools & use agreed upon terms to make communication easier.

Consider this final piece of advice on how to keep team members engaged through casual communication channels as you work to form your virtual team.

What's your role as the leader of a virtual team? It starts with your ability to communicate clearly and effectively.

Leading a good meeting is hard. Leading a good virtual meeting is even harder. Find out what you can do to make your virtual meetings successful from day one.

Conflict happens. Learn how to diffuse tension and manage situations appropriately with the three C's of conflict management.

Move beyond simply managing your virtual team to coaching them and building relationships that foster results.

Consider this final piece of advice about body language as you lead your virtual team.