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Excerpt from course description

Persuasion and Power in a Leadership Perspective

Introduction

This program will offer participants research-based competence that is of high potential value in professional as well as personal domains of life. After completing the program participants will have an in-depth understanding of important psychological principles that are fundamental for effective influence, rational decisions, and creative problem solving.

If we peel away all the buzzwords from the management literature, two basic components remain. The first is the ability to make decisions and solve problems in a way that significantly contributes to goal attainment at different organizational levels. The second component is the ability to implement decisions and solutions through other people. This side of management may be referred to as effective Influence.

The program will give participants knowledge about the prerequisites for motivating oneself and others, as well as in-depth insight into fundamental psychological principles of power, persuasion and influence, which may be utilized deliberately or non-deliberately in gaining sympathy, support and loyalty from superiors, subordinates, and peers.

Managers are exposed to a continuous stream of new challenges. In order to function effectively it is essential to be able to solve new problems creatively and to make rational decisions in situations characterized by high uncertainty and ambiguity. Recent research on decision making demonstrates that even when we believe we have made rational decisions there will often be considerable opportunities for improvement.

The very same skills that help managers solve professional problems may also be useful in more personal realms of life. By analyzing thought-processes and the way in which thoughts affect our emotions, the program will also shed light on how managers can handle their own emotional stress while simultaneously gaining a better understanding of their peers and subordinates' patterns of thought, emotions and behavior.

Nationally acknowledged researchers and managers will give lectures and present practical cases and exercises. The aim of the program is to contribute to the development of knowledge and skills that are of high potential value to managers, individually as well as in groups and teams, and which may aid in organizational and personal development.

Course content

1st course module: Advances in organizational and managerial psychology.
2nd course module: The psychology of influence (power, persuasion and influence).
3rd course module: The psychology of personality and motivation
4th course module: The psychology of decision making (rationality, decision making and creativity)
5th course module: Digital influence   

Disclaimer

This is an excerpt from the complete course description for the course. If you are an active student at BI, you can find the complete course descriptions with information on eg. learning goals, learning process, curriculum and exam at portal.bi.no. We reserve the right to make changes to this description.