Working in a team, and being able to lead efficiently, are critical skills in today’s work environment. In collaborative fields, like research and innovation, they significantly enhance the chances of success. Creating a high-performing team – mainly when team-mates come from diverse cultural backgrounds or are located in different locations – requires a variety of interpersonal skills and communication techniques. Everyone has different work styles and expectations, and all must be managed efficiently.

This course has been developed to give doctoral candidates the opportunity to learn about their teamwork and leadership style, to create new insights and techniques of communication, and to allow their newly acquired presentation skills to take centre stage!

We will not speak of teamwork and leadership. We will practice interpersonal communication in teamwork and leadership: Participants should develop some crucial principles and skills of command, such as group planning and decision making, motivating (persuasion), self-presentation, public speaking, advertising ideas situations, by exercises of teamwork in group tasks. The workshop should also increase sensitivity to ethical dimensions of interpersonal communication.

What you’ll learn

By undertaking this course, you will discover that performance and presentation skills play a large part in successful leadership. During the course, you will learn and practice the various techniques needed for effective teamwork, persuasion, self-presentation, negotiation, bargaining, and public speaking in typical management situations. You will learn about:

1. Teamwork: so you can communicate effectively, lead discussions positively, and delegate responsibilities appropriately.
2. Negotiating and bargaining: to help you to identify the negotiation and bargaining tactics; identify your partners’ expectations; recognise the specific challenges of given situations – and then select the best solution available. You’ll also be able to integrate both long-term and short-term goals into strategic decision-making and learn some of the principles of correct reasoning as well as some of the verbal and non-verbal indicators of a lie.
3. Persuasion: an essential element in a leader’s arsenal is the power to persuade or motivate others to follow a particular path. This course explores both verbal and non-verbal persuasion techniques.
4. Public speaking and self-presentation: if you can present yourself well, you can show your work well. This course will give you the essential tools for self-presentation, negotiating, bargaining, and public speaking – and choose the style that best suits your talents and circumstances.
5. The ethics of communication: the course increases your awareness of the ethical dimensions of interpersonal communications – essential in a diverse, international work environment.

All the above outcomes are leadership skills.

 How you’ll learn

You can read about leadership theory – and there is an optional reading list for this course. But to really learn it, you need to practice! So, each session begins with an introduction to the topic and the various options available to you. And then it’s time to put it into practice through interactive exercises and workshops – which may be filmed. We create a supportive environment, in which everyone has a chance to perform, and everyone has an opportunity to discuss, analyse and give feedback on their work – and that of others. Each workshop also has time devoted to individual exercises and advice from the course leader.