Leadership Courses

Leaders learn strategies to guide their teams through digital change, replacing technology anxiety and tool avoidance with confident adoption and effective human-in-the-loop practices.

Helps leaders:

• Understand how AI transformation impacts team Practical and Personal Needs.​
• Diagnose team friction using the Team Effectiveness Factors.​
• Apply leader actions to resolve AI-related team symptoms.​
• Maintain human accountability, role clarity, and trust across automated workflows.​
• Commit to a Pause, Connect, and Commit action plan for your team.

Competency developed:

• Guiding Team Success

AI Leadership Series sessions contain an AI-powered web app that enhances scenario-based practice by supporting learner reflection and facilitator-led discussion.

In this course, participants will learn four advanced coaching techniques that develop proficiency in using the Interaction Essentials in challenging situations. Leaders learn to ask powerful and insightful questions and how to drive higher levels of employee engagement through appreciation.

Helps leaders:

• Increase the agility and impact of their coaching.
• Make the most of each coaching opportunity.
• Provide input to help team members gain timely insights into their work.
• Enhance the confidence and competence of their staff on an ongoing basis.
• Build an engaged workforce that feels challenged and valued.

Creating, maintaining, and retaining a high-performing workforce helps organizations remain competitive. This course focuses on the ways career coaching can develop employees by exploring the options and opportunities available to them.

Helps individuals:

• Recognize the importance of following the Key Principles to meet personal needs during a career conversation.
• Recognize the role of understanding goals, aspirations, and motivations in creating a career plan.
• Follow a career coaching conversation model to ensure effective career coaching.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Developing Others
• Inspiring Others
• Emotional Intelligence Essentials

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

For critical talent to stay with an organization, they need ongoing career development opportunities. This course focuses on how leaders can connect with employees to help them explore their aspirations and plan concrete steps to achieve growth in their careers.

Helps leaders:

• Recognize the importance of helping individuals grow in their careers.
• Understand the role of conversations in connecting with people as they explore and develop in their career.
• Use questions to help people understand, explore, and act on their career aspirations and align them with business goals.

Competencies developed:

• Leading Change

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Not all coaching situations are easy to navigate, especially when you’re a new leader. Read a challenging scenario and think about how you might handle the situation. Then, hear advice from a DDI coach who has been there about how to handle the challenge and avoid common mistakes.

Helps leaders:

• Think through a challenging coaching scenario.
• Get tips from a coach and how they would handle that situation.
• Learn how to avoid common first-time mistakes.
• See examples of how coaches plan for the coaching conversation.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Coaching & Developing Others

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

When coaching team members, is your focus on helping them accomplish the immediate task, or do you have their future capabilities in mind? With the hectic pace of business, it might not seem there’s time, but you can do both. Your coaching can move people to their own solutions and grow their skills for the long term. In this session, you’ll add deep listening and provocative questioning techniques to your skills as a coach and build your team’s bench strength for today and for the future.

Helps leaders:

• Use deep listening to understand the person and the coaching need.
• Ask provocative questions to inspire a person's own solutions.
• Gain self-awareness about how their personal tendencies affect their ability to coach for growth.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching and Developing Others

This Impact Session is designed to develop leaders of leaders with focused skills, deep insights, and peer learning—in 2 hours or less. Personalized with Leadership Personality Insights, this course integrates data from a comprehensive personality inventory to boost self-awareness and provide actionable next steps. This course is only available with a MultiLevel Subscription.

Leaders of other managers develop multi-directional coaching skills and learn the proactive inquiry method for more effective interactions with their teams. This course is designed for mid- to senior-level leaders. 

Helps leaders:

• Clearly differentiate and seek higher-level coaching opportunities that provide significant payoff to the individual, team, and organization.
• Apply advanced skills to conduct more compelling, collaborative, and rewarding coaching discussions.
• Seek and offer feedback that people can accept and act on to ensure achievement of business goals.
• Monitor and measure the continuous improvement of coaching skills in themselves and those they coach.
• Build and sustain a coaching culture within their team.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching & Developing Others
• Coaching

Interested in delivering this course? Ask us about our facilitator certification options.

By helping learners understand the importance of three coaching techniques and how to effectively handle both proactive and reactive coaching discussions, this course helps leaders have more effective and efficient interactions.

Helps leaders:

• Encourage people to take ownership of, and be accountable for, their work performance.
• Create a work environment where people are comfortable taking on the risks associated with new responsibilities.
• Boost morale, improve productivity, and increase profitability by coaching for peak performance in each person.
• Manage work performance issues in a fair, consistent manner.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Coaching & Developing Others

Coaching is not only focused on career or performance. There are aspects in team members that leaders may not see. Using whole person coaching helps leaders meet the needs beyond the surface. Leaders will learn how to use the ACE coaching model and how it aligns with the Interaction Essentials^SM to meet the needs of a whole person.

Helps leaders:

• Understand whole person coaching and the importance of incorporating it at work.
• Analyze how to meet the needs of the whole person.  
• Practice applying coaching behaviors to meet the needs of team members.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Coaching & Developing Others

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

In this course, leaders recognize the benefits of a growth mindset, and the insight tool measures their general orientation to how they view other’s potential to grow. They learn and practice a practical approach to coaching in the moment, in any situation.

Helps leaders:

• Recognize and nurture the potential within others to grow and change.
• Build a coaching relationship based on trust.
• Guide, inspire, support, and empower in the moment.
• Ask questions, connect at a human level, and energize into action.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Coaching & Developing Others

Interested in delivering this course? Ask us about our facilitator certification options.

Imagine a workplace culture where team members play to their strengths, help one another to be their best selves, and push forward awesome solutions. A coaching culture creates a safe space for these moments to blossom. In such a culture, learning can come from a variety of sources: peers, managers, direct reports, and external coaches. When everyone in a company can be a coach, everyone benefits.

Helps leaders:

• Evaluate the current coaching mindset of themselves in comparison with their work group.
• Discover actions they can take to foster a safe working environment.
• Receive actionable tips for modeling and promoting effective coaching behaviors.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Coaching & Developing Others

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Understand how your coach qualities (motivations, style, and personal attributes) affect your ability to coach effectively. Everyone is different and it’s important to understand how to leverage your unique qualities.

Helps leaders:

• Discover how their coach qualities influence their coaching impact.
• Learn tips to make the most of their unique strengths and avoid risks.
• Prepare for their next coaching opportunity using new self-insights learned.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Unlock the secret to high performance! When your team members’ personal goals and career aspirations complement and support the organization's goals, they are more driven to stay focused and put their best foot forward. Continuous performance management keeps that drive in high gear, while your leaders (and the organization) enjoy the benefits of an engaged, high-performing team.

Helps leaders:

• Understand the value in performance discussions.
• Discover the roles and responsibilities of leaders and direct reports in effective performance discussions.
• Create development goals that are aligned to both individual goals and the goals of the organization.
• Uncover tips for fostering a psychologically safe environment.
• Learn how to provide meaningful feedback.

Competencies developed:

• Aligning Performance for Success
• Building Talent
• Coaching

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Oftentimes, leaders don't realize the role they play in spotting high potentials—and the impact it can have on those who may be overlooked. How can organizations ensure that their leaders have the ability to spot potential and retain this talent? This course helps leaders determine potential, what is needed to achieve in the organization, and know the difference between performance, potential, and readiness.

Helps leaders: 

• Define and evaluate leadership potential within their organization.
• Recognize major leadership potential factors and the differences between performance, potential, and readiness.
• Overcome unconscious bias and its effect on talent identification.
• Build a case for retention, promotion, and succession management of high-potential talent.

Competencies developed:

• Building Talent
• Coaching and Developing Others
• Valuing Differences

Leaders learn the fundamentals of effective coaching and build the foundation needed to apply the inclusive coaching practices explored in this session.

Helps leaders:

• Discover how a coach's mindset can impact coaching outcomes.
• Learn about the two types of coaching opportunities a coach will encounter.
• Review the needs people bring to all interactions.
• Be introduced to a set of skills to help meet people's personal needs.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Providing a direct report with feedback for improvement can be one of your most challenging, least favorite interactions. This structured approach can make such discussions much more comfortable and collegial. Neuroscience explains how using this approach can help you avoid common pitfalls and achieve your intended results.

Helps leaders:

• Understand the neuroscience behind the reaction to feedback for improvement.
• Identify common mistakes to avoid.
• Apply a feedback model that sparks better performance and maintains a positive relationship.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching and Developing Others
• Communication
• Leveraging Feedback

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Research makes a compelling case for praise as a driver of employee performance. Yet giving praise can be harder than you might think, thanks to some common hidden biases. In an example a leader who intends to deliver praise finds that his approach is falling flat. You'll learn why. Also, you'll discover how to make your positive feedback sincere and meaningful.

Helps leaders:

• Understand the research and neuroscience that explains why praise is important.
• Recognize hidden biases that trip up leaders.
• Use the best, most authentic way to provide positive feedback. 

Competencies developed:

• Coaching and Developing Others
• Communication
• Leveraging Feedback

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

What do working on challenging assignments, learning new skills, improving performance, repeating successful performance, or finding new solutions to old problems have in common? All these situations could benefit from the advice and counsel of a good coach. In the short term, your coaching can help someone accomplish a task or solve a problem; in the long term, it can help people develop to their fullest potential.

Helps leaders:

• Involve people and motivate them to do their best.
• Respond when people resist feedback.
• Help someone with a personal problem without getting in over their head.

As a leader, you want your coaching to help others become their very best, authentic selves. When your coaching is inclusive, it's more likely that your team members will achieve their full potentials and that your team will thrive as a result.

Helps leaders:

• Ask questions to learn and understand the unique identities and experiences of the people they coach, as well as involve people in their own thinking and problem solving.
• Connect with others by listening and empathizing to what the other person has to say and also opening up and authentically sharing their own thoughts and experiences.
• Energize people into action by building the person's ownership of their work and igniting their confidence.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Coaching & Developing Others
• Creating an Inclusive Environment

Peer coaching is anchored on meaningful and productive conversations. Give your mid-level leaders powerful skills to create a solid foundation for successful peer coaching.

Helps leaders:

• Develop powerful skills to have meaningful and productive conversations.
• Build authentic and active listening skills.
• Learn the Interaction Essentials^SM and STAR method for feedback.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching
• Developing Others

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.

Peer coaching is incredibly valuable to become a “learning organization” and helps your company become more agile and effective. Peer coaching facilitates networking, builds a community of coaches, and drives a culture of feedback. This course is designed for mid-level leaders.

Helps leaders:

• Prepare for a peer coaching initiative with the right skills and approaches.
• Understand key concepts of Interaction Essentials^SM and STAR method for feedback.
• Build authentic and active listening skills for peer coaching discussions.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching and Developing Others

This Impact Session is designed to develop leaders of leaders with focused skills, deep insights, and peer learning—in 2 hours or less.

Interested in delivering this course? Ask us about our facilitator certification options.

This course will show the positive effect of shifting the traditional role of planner and evaluator from the leader, to a shared responsibility between leader and employee. This shift builds employee ownership, and allows the leader to focus on coaching and developing throughout the performance cycle. Leaders will experience how to use effective SMART goals to help them and their employees track progress and fairly evaluate outcomes. A well-written performance plan is also a powerful tool for leaders to use when determining where to focus their development and coaching discussions with their employees.

Helps leaders:

• Ensure direct reports take a more active role in managing their performance.
• Manage performance on an ongoing basis while working within the organization’s time parameters for goal setting and performance reviews.
• Provide the ongoing coaching and feedback your direct reports need to achieve their goals.
• Increase your direct reports’ confidence and commitment to their own success.

Competencies developed:

• Aligning Performance for Success
• Influencing

Interested in delivering this course? Ask us about our facilitator certification options.

Employees want a supportive leader, but what does that really mean? Participants learn about four types of support they can provide to boost performance while keeping accountability with direct reports. They'll also learn more about how to gauge when to provide proactive support and when to hold off on coming to the rescue.

Helps leaders:

• Recognize the types of “support” to avoid.
• Identify signs that they can improve how to provide support.
• Select and apply methods for providing support.

Coaching is an important tool for developing team members across a range of needs. When you coach your team, do you start by asking a few questions and end up giving directions or advice? Or do you seek more than you tell?

Helps leaders:

• Recognize the three types of advanced coaching skills.
• Describe the four types of provocative questions—context, causal, challenge, and calibration.
• Use each type of provocative question to add value to a coaching discussion.

Competencies developed:

• Coaching and Developing Others
• Coaching
• Communication

Microcourses are exclusively available with a leadership development subscription.