Some theories say that the qualities of a great leader are inherent, meaning some are born with it as a skill and some unfortunately aren’t. This is where online leadership courses can help.

We may not have the charisma of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, or the effective public appearance of Barack Obama, but there are certain qualities we can take away from these great examples.

Prof. Richard Wiseman of the University of Hertfordshire told Forbes that charisma is ‘50 percent innate and 50 percent trained’, meaning that with the right leadership courses, training and practice, you can be at least half as good as the greatest leaders of all time!

Developing strong leadership skills is a career game-changer, yet many miss out due to lack of time or accessible development options. This is where impactful online leadership courses bridge the gap – delivering transformative growth minus the disruption of in-person programs.

The top virtual courses distil teachings from world-class institutions and coaches into convenient digital formats – expansive video libraries, downloadable resources, interactive assessments and more. Packed with techniques to enhance communication, decision-making, emotional intelligence and organizational influence through devices you already own.

An expertly designed curriculum around strengths identification, team development, change management, and beyond creates rapid behavior shifts with just 5-10 hours of investment per month. Experience rich peer discussion and mentorship to apply lessons while building leadership muscles.

This review spotlights the highest ROI online leadership courses to amplify your capabilities and trajectory backed by measurable skill and mindset gains. Unlock your potential via structured digital programs without stepping foot inside a classroom.

The focus here is selling the life-changing convenience and credentials of virtual leadership development, setting the stage for evaluating specific courseware options.

In the digital age, it is easier than ever to look online and find leadership courses to help unlock your abilities and start benefiting in your workplace…

What is Leadership?

What is leadership? Conventional dictionaries hint at leadership as the action of motivating a group of people or an organisation towards achieving a common goal. What could this mean for your business?

Leadership depends heavily on the efficient communication of ideologies from one party to another, which will compel the receiver to act in the manner that the leader intends them to.

Generally, leadership entails the inspiration of action in a group or organisation.

People often use the words leadership and management interchangeably, but this is kind of a bad habit. While these skills are related, there are also a few significant differences.

One way this is often explained is that employees work for a manager because they have to, but they work for a leader because they want to. In reality, this isn’t always an either-or situation.

A better distinction is to think of management as comprising things like scheduling and resourcing. This goes hand in hand with leadership, which is all about inspiration, coaching, and motivation.

With that in mind, let’s look at what makes a great leader.

Breaking Down Leadership

Leadership consists of different skills and qualities, which, when put together, make an effective leader. As we look through successful business leaders across history, we can pick out some qualities that most have in common.

While each quality is expressed differently depending on the leadership style and personality, focusing on these characteristics will help you become a better leader.

Online leadership courses can be specific enough to help you focus on a certain characteristic you lack. As a leader, you should be able to communicate eloquently and powerfully.

You need public speaking skills, and to become a good public speaker, you need confidence and self-awareness. These are only a couple of examples of the leadership skills and qualities you should focus on.

Here are a few leadership qualities and skills to keep in mind as you apply for online leadership courses. To ensure that you are choosing the right online leadership course, ask yourself if you will achieve or improve any of these traits through the workshop or course.

If yes, then it is definitely one to go for.

Leadership Qualities

Qualities are an individual’s innate characteristics. In other words, these are things like attitudes, world views, experiences, and priorities that make a person who they are. These can result from experience, and change significantly over time.

Let’s look at some qualities that make someone an effective leader.

Passionate Motivation

Good leaders know how to motivate themselves and the people around them. The same motivation applies to you on a day-to-day basis. You can encourage those around you through bonuses and rewards for your teammates when they’ve exceeded expectations.

Recognition for a job well done and offering encouragement will motivate you to work harder.

Honesty and Trustworthiness

It’s important to be a leader that people can trust. Your followers should trust you and the decisions you make regarding the business through your words, actions, and personality. When something goes wrong, you go to the boss for help.

Be the figure they can count on to ensure that things go smoothly even when they go wrong. For the sake of the business’s success, you need your employees to be able to come to you with struggles and concerns.

Delegating and Assigning

Delegating is more than just assigning tasks to your subordinates. It’s about knowing their strengths and weaknesses and placing them where they belong. This will ensure your team’s engagement with the project’s success.

Some believe that delegating is a sign of weakness. They think leaders should take charge of everything themselves when, in fact, delegating is a sign of strength and power.

Positive Spirit

Maintain a happy spirit and an affirmative vibe to your work and the atmosphere. A positive attitude can be maintained by asking about one’s vacation plans.

Taking the time to engage with them personally creates a positive working environment. This way, employees won’t mind putting them in when they need longer hours.

Leadership Skills

Great leaders must possess a range of skills in addition to the right qualities. Luckily, unlike qualities, skills can be learned with concerted time and effort. Let’s examine the essential skills for effective leadership.

Powerful Communication

Verbal and nonverbal communication is highly essential in any leadership position. You must clearly illustrate long-term goals, short-term goals and any tasks in between. Being in a senior position has its perks, but it also has a couple of downsides.

To appear as professional as possible, the work produced by you and the people you supervise needs to remain up to standards. For that to be possible, they need to know precisely what you want and how to do it.

Communication occurs through countless means, including one-on-one conversations, emails or team meetings. Being a good leader entitles you to be great at communication.

You can find an online leadership course on public speaking. Never underestimate the power of good public speaking skills and the impact this could have on your communication skills.

Creative Innovation

Being innovative is a skill essential to every leader. When your workmates come to you with an issue, you’re in charge of finding ways to solve it. Sometimes, the answer isn’t as straightforward.

Try to revert to non-traditional ways of approaching a problem to solve it. That way, you’ve solved the issue and also inspired your workmates who do not always choose the easy way.

Commitment and Responsibility

Being a leader comes with immense responsibility and commitment. Commit to your people and the tasks; your followers will take you as an example.
You must be willing to put in extra effort and work to complete tasks and commit to what you’ve agreed to. Commitment and responsibility also fall under your ability to take the blame for your teammates and accept the mistakes of your workmates.

Leadership Styles

Leaders lead in their own way, but we can categorise every leader into a leadership style. Many online leadership courses offer specific leadership styles, but it all depends on the situation and circumstances.

Many leaders like to place themselves above the rest. Others prefer to blend in with the crowd.

These types of leaders and everything in between is split up into:

• Coercive – ‘do as I say’,
• Pace-setting – ‘do as I do, right now’,
• Authoritative – ‘come with me’,
• Affiliative – ‘people come first’,
• Democratic – ‘what do you think?’,
• Coaching – ‘try it and see’.

Moreover, there are countless other types of leadership. When looking for leadership training, look for the style that the course advocates and assess whether or not it fits you and your environment.

Different Leadership Techniques

In addition to the various skills, qualities, and leadership styles, experienced leaders have several techniques in their arsenal to get the most out of their employees.

Autocratic Leadership

While this type of leadership may not be the most favourable one, it often gets the job done. Autocratic leadership occurs when a single individual or organisation leads a team.

The team members have no say in decision-making and only do as they’re told.

In autocratic leadership systems, there is usually little flexibility. Guidelines and rules are strict, and policies are in place to support the leader’s decisions.

Democratic Leadership

Unlike autocratic leadership, in democracies, everyone is involved in the decision-making process. The leader usually holds the final responsibility; however, tasks determining the decision are delegated amongst team members.

Democracy is based on fairness, competence, courage, and honesty, which is why it is one of the most preferred styles of leadership.

Strategic Leadership

A strategic leadership style involves acting as a group leader. It is not limited to those at a high rank in their organisation but is intended for a wider audience at any position in their team.

This leadership style bridges gaps that can develop between what is possible and what is practical. A strategic leader is perhaps most often leaned upon in times of change. Over half of the skills required for this style are heavily related to strategic thinking.

Transformational Leadership

In contrast to most leadership styles, transformational leadership is mostly about establishing change. Transformational leaders often take on a motivational role, encouraging others to do their best, and on rare occasions and often even more than they imagine they can do.

Transformational leaders often set even more challenging goals but are usually rewarded with even greater results. They empower the people under them and tend to have more inspired followers.

Leadership in the Workplace

In business, it’s essential to know where you stand. Overstepping your boundaries can sometimes lead you to trouble, but if it’s done right, it will take you to great places. Online leadership courses will help you make exemplary leadership moves to stand out amongst your peers in the workplace.

The benefits this will bring you in the workplace are endless; they vary from social to financial benefits, depending on how you plan it out. Even if you are not explicitly assigned a supervisory role, showing that you have the power to lead a team will put you at an advantage.

Hundreds of online leadership courses are available to help you enhance your business leadership skills through online leadership training. However, there are three key steps to becoming a leader in the workplace.

Online Leadership Courses

Knowing what leadership is is not enough on the business playing field. For employees and business owners, online leadership courses are bound to benefit their performance and revenue. Here are some examples of online leadership courses you may enrol in.

HBX Becoming a Better Manager from Harvard Business School

This online leadership course is one of the HBX certificate programs. These types of programs usually focus on one specific aspect of business management. The approach to HBX programs combines the rigour and quality of Harvard education and its flexibility as an online leadership course.

The Becoming a Better Manager course takes six weeks, and the flexibility of the online leadership courses allows you to log in at any time to complete the required 30 – 35 hours and meet the set deadlines.

In this course, you’ll develop skills such as recognising the advantages of a ‘process perspective’ in managerial work, leading learning initiatives to develop your organisation, and managing teams of varying sizes.

Leadership: Practical Leadership Skills from Udemy

Take advantage of Udemy’s attractive prices through their online courses on leadership and other business tips and tricks. Their course on practical leadership skills guides and trains you through mastering leadership skills and techniques.

The online leadership course includes 2.5 hours of on-demand video and 15 supplemental resources. Croft’s course targets anyone who manages at least two people in any context.

How to be a Great Manager and Great Leader from Master Class Management

Master Class Management offers online leadership courses based on the management theme. Through several classes on the website, you will learn the fundamentals of leadership and its effect on management.

How to Be a Great Manager and Great Leader is one of the courses available on the website. It tackles the means of becoming a great leader from a great manager by addressing the characteristics and skills needed to achieve that.

Each topic is divided into parts that include a quiz at the end to ensure your learning.

Inspirational Leadership: Leading with Sense Specialisation from Coursera

Through Coursera, you can register for an online leadership course offered by the HEC Paris. This specialisation entails four courses and projects. Learners receive a certificate after the course.

The final project of this course allows you to apply the skills you learned to overcome a personal leadership challenge.

The course offers flexibility to match everyone’s commitments. However, it requires around 2-4 hours per week for three weeks. Leaders from different sectors of the HEC Paris teach the course.

The experts will help guide you through the course, even with no prior experience. The content revolves around raising self-awareness and confidence. These skills enable you to act as a leader and develop your own relational skills and leadership style.

Think Like a Leader with Brian Tracy from Udemy

As the title suggests, the online leadership course with Brian Tracy teaches you to think like a leader. This course tackles the root of cognition, helping you become a leader.

The course includes 3 hours of on-demand video and 9 supplemental resources. However, having some background ideas on leadership from books or articles will be helpful.

To become a leader, you need to learn to think like one. Brian Tracy will help you create and manage personal and organisational goals. The course helps establish effective relational skills and develop more developed approaches to your leadership role.

Online Leadership Courses: Are They Right for You?

Ultimately, it is hard to imagine a working situation where you couldn’t benefit from unlocking the skills to become a better leader. Some of these skills are public speaking, interpersonal communication, and strategic thinking.

Additionally, you don’t have to already be in a leadership role to reap the benefits of exceptional leadership. In fact, the sooner you can utilise these skills and qualities in your career, the better.

Not only will this leave you better prepared for the next step in your career progression, it will also help you to get noticed and score that next opportunity faster than you’d imagine.

Comparison of some of the credential values offered by different online leadership courses:

Continuing Education Units (CEUs)

• Standardized credits for completed training hours
• Apply toward recertification requirements in many industries
• Must meet strict criteria around instructional rigor

Academic Credits

• College credits provided can apply toward university degrees
• Typically, through accredited university partnerships
• Rigorous assessments and faculty oversight

Certificates of Completion

• Formal certificates upon successfully finishing course milestones
• Validate mastery of covered leadership competencies
• Career development credentials for resumes, promotions

The weight of credentials earned depends on individual learner goals. CEUs maintain professional standing, university credits further postsecondary studies, and certificates communicate skills. All signal valuable time invested in leadership betterment, which is reflected well in students.

When evaluating courses, check if credentials will meet any license, degree or HR requirements sought in your situation. But even without formal designations, completed training inevitably compounds capabilities, rewarding every option.

Leadership courses FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions on Online Leadership Courses:

Q: How much time do online leadership courses require?

A: Typically 5-15 hours per month for 3-18 month programs. Short courses as little as 1 hour.

Q: Are cohorts and mentoring included?

A: Some courses group peers for discussions. Executive formats assign actual mentors.

Q: What results can I expect from taking a leadership course?

A: Expanded influence, smarter decisions, confident public speaking, less conflict.

Q: Which format works best – self-paced or scheduled?

A: It depends on learning style, but cohorts/classes add accountability.

Leadership courses Conclusion

In closing, not all learners have months for an expensive MBA or desire to put their careers on hold. This is where targeted, affordable online leadership courses bridge gaps with a specialized curriculum capable of upskilling any schedule.

The most comprehensive courses combine sage insights from faculty and coaches with peer cohorts for accountability, soft skills practice, and concept application. Expect crystalized communication and heightened emotional intelligence to accelerate the impact of leadership, whether an individual contributor or an executive.

While no digital content correlates to every unique scenario, structured virtual leadership development lays educational foundations for significant growth in influence and vision. The future favors strategic thinkers who can nurture relationships and enable team success amidst complexity.