Some of the best online leadership courses can significantly change your career path and give you the boost you need to climb that corporate ladder. These free online courses offer various insights and practical tools that help develop the management skills and confidence you need to lead others.
3 Top Best Online Leadership Courses
[Best Overall]
1. Leadership: Practical Leadership Skills - Udemy
The Leadership: Practical Leadership Skills course by Chris Croft equips individuals with basic and advanced leadership skills and techniques they need for their careers.
4.9/5
[Best for the Money]
2. Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization - Coursera
This strategic leadership course is a part of the Master of Business Administration degree offered by the University of Illinois.
4.8/5
[Best for Intermediate Level]
3. Leadership & Management Masterclass - Skills To Empower & Inspire Your Teams - Skillshare
The class focuses on the primary characteristics of great leaders and applying inclusive leadership skills for effective team management.
4.7/5
The Best Online Leadership Classes
The following online leadership classes can help you reach the peak of your career by giving you the necessary audience insights, skills, and strategies to influence others.
Leadership: Practical Leadership Skills - Udemy
Strategic Leadership and Management Specialization - Coursera
Leadership & Management Masterclass - Skills To Empower & Inspire Your Teams - Skillshare
Becoming an Effective Leader - edX
AI for Business Leaders - Udacity
What Are the Best Courses in Leadership?
4.9/5
Udemy is an amazing online learning platform that gives trainees a chance to absorb or enhance their skillsets through affordable and engaging courses. The programs in this marketplace have no prerequisites, and new learners can access course reviews to identify a suitable topic.
The Leadership: Practical Leadership Skills course by Chris Croft equips individuals with basic and advanced leadership skills and techniques they need for their careers. The program helps learners develop essential skills for time management, team motivation, and self-satisfaction.
Chris is a globally-recognized speaker and author with over 20 years of teaching experience in leadership skills. His teaching methods are practical yet entertaining and have touched the hearts of many worldwide.
Whether you intend to increase your efficiency at work or Change Your Life for the better at home, Chris' teachings can motivate you towards such goals. Chico
The course takes you through every essential detail of leadership classes, such as the proper application of different leadership Styles and business future planning. This leadership development program equips you with the management skills that create great leaders who can build enough confidence and principles in their team. It also identifies the primary academic theories made practical and helps learners not his various mistakes but can crash the credibility. Finally, take shooting the communication skills needed to motivate your team and create a personal approach to the members.
Suitable candidates for these leadership training classes include company leaders or anyone whose goal is to manage a team in the future.
The course costs $84.99 and comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Study at your own pace and develop leadership skills that can propel you towards being legendary business leaders in your organization.
Features
- No prerequisites needed
- Self-paced learning
- Multilingual closed captions
- Recent updates
- Full lifetime access
Pros
Cons
4.8/5
Coursera is a unique online learning marketplace and offers popular university-based leadership programs guided by some of the top institutions worldwide. The courses on this platform and usually affordable and rated as some of the most efficient leadership lessons online.
This strategic leadership course is a part of the Master of Business Administration degree offered by the University of Illinois.
With over 80,000 privacy and enrollments, the program has proven to be popular among leadership students as it equips them with special leadership and management skills, including:
- Strategic management
- Individual decision-making
- Group decision making
- Conflict resolution
- Negotiation
- Managing motivation
- Leadership
- Change management
- Organizational structure
- Business strategy
- Communication list of groups
- Performance management
The program is a 6-course specialization and focuses on strategic leadership and management. It helps trainees learn the fundamentals of effective leadership for individuals, large teams, and entire organizations. Learners also learn to create suitable tools that analyze various business situations and develop effective solutions.
The specialization includes a series of helpful courses taught by several skilled and expert instructors and includes a hands-on project at the end before earning a university certification. Classes are online and self-paced, and it costs about $49 per month. The entire socialization series is priced at less than $400.
Students can opt to sign up for any of the seven courses or the entire specialization series, while those who only want access to the materials can do so for free. The seven courses involved in the specialization include:
The basis of everyday leadership
Applications of everyday leadership
Designing the organization
Managing by organization
Business strategy
Corporate strategic leadership and management Capstone
Students can use these skills, and the principles learned to improve their efficiency and performance at work or at home.
Features
Certification
Multilingual subtitles
Beginner level program
Multiple instructors
Online course
Pros
Cons
4.7/5
Skillshare i's more than just your ordinary online learning marketplace. Like its name, it's an amazing online resource from where people gain various skillsets through video masterclasses and also share their skills with others on the platform.
Skillshare was founded in 2010 to offer creative insights and lessons by professionals and knowledgeable individuals at affordable prices worldwide. It also provides more than 41,000 different skill courses on a broad range of topics in an engaged community that aims to make learning and teaching interactive and fun.
There are many free online courses on skillshare that aim at producing efficient business leaders with essential values.
Leadership & Management Masterclass is a popular training course by Paul Banoub, a leadership, coaching & productivity ACE. The class focuses on the primary characteristics of great leaders and applying inclusive leadership skills for effective team management.
Paul has more than 20 years of experience in some of the most prominent organizations worldwide and has worked for inspirational leaders while developing his skills to empower others. He takes students through the qualities that make great leaders special in this program and how they inspire others to achieve the best versions of themselves.
Some of the subjects involved in this training course include:
- Emotional intelligence
- Inspiration and creativity
- Coaching
- Perspective and equanimity
- The leadership mission
- Empowerment and psychological safety
The course is short, easy to understand, and is an intermediate learning level. While it takes less than 40 minutes to complete the six lessons involved in the course, learners will gain all the knowledge and skills required to remove obstacles, motivate people, and create a safe and comfortable environment for individuals freely express themselves.
Features
- Intermediate level
- Short course
- Video classes
- Self-paced
- Online learning
Pros
Cons
4.6/5
edX is a nonprofit and popular massive open online course (MOOC) developed by MIT and Harvard University, two of the world's top institutions, to provide enriching online course materials worldwide. The platform is more than your typical online education marketplace because it provides engaging and interactive video content for its classes.
Enrollment is an admission-less process with certificates issued to course or subject graduates at affordable costs. The platform also instills international leadership skills into trainees to learn how to be effective and successful business leaders in their careers.
Becoming an Effective Leader is a popular leadership program that enables you to polish your leadership skills and learn the significance of self-efficacy, social capital, and different leadership styles.
The program is self-paced, free with an optional upgrade available, and types about ten weeks to complete, under 8 to 10 hours per week. Learn what leadership entails and how to develop the necessary skill for effective leadership through expert-taught classes by professionals with decades of experience.
Students are exposed to engaging videos, case studies, interviews, peer feedback, and written reflections, among other insight activities. Instructors can motivate you to identify personal values and ethics as a leader to build confidence and faith in your mission for success.
The program's primary subject focuses on communication skills at an intermediate level, with English writing or reading proficiency and management experience stated as prerequisites. The language on video transcripts is available in English, and certification is issued upon completion.
Trainees are expected to learn the following:
Leadership foundations
Leadership Styles and their theories
How to influence others
The relationship between power and leadership
Ethics and values in leadership
Becoming a credible leader
The significance of followership for leader results
There are two ways to take the course. You can enroll in a verified track which costs $99 and gives you access to unlimited course materials insurable certificates. On the other hand, you can opt for the free audit track that limits your access to course materials, has no shareable certificate, and doesn't include graded assignments and exams.
Features
Self-paced
Free and paid versions are available
Video lessons
Case studies
Peer feedback
Interviews
Assignments and exams
Pros
Cons
4.5/5
Udacity is an amazing online learning platform that specializes in tech-related courses that are interactive and visual to provide in-demand skills in the market today. The platform offers special self-paced and nanodegree programs that involve virtual studying, practical projects, and support classes.
There are also forums, mentorship, and other extra services to help students get the best out of their involvement and access course content immediately. The time frame for each course depends on the student's learning schedule. Every program should last about a month or two with a 5 - 10 hours a week training calendar.
AI for Business Leaders equips trainees with the fundamentals of artificial intelligence and their appropriate application in the organization.
The course also allows business leaders to understand how to use machine language to boost their companies. Using practical case studies, students will learn the necessary strategic questions to ask, formulating proposals when assessing opportunities to apply machine learning processes and AI technology corporate strategic plans.
There's also a business leadership Capstone assessment project where trainees can build an AI-based project strategy that can be incorporated into their business. The program takes about 4 to 8 weeks to complete and recommends prior experience in statistics and probability for higher chances of success.
The program is suitable for business leaders interested in artificial intelligence and how they can implement machine learning technology into the processes. It costs about $1599 to enroll unless the purchase is made during 2-month promotion access to the course.
Features
- Video classes
- Downloadable syllabus
- Practical projects
- Career services
- Technical mental support
Pros
Cons
How to Choose the Best Online Leadership Courses
The following criteria can guide you towards finding the best leadership development program that works for you.
Type of Leadership Skills
Leadership skills differ from one course to another. These variations create diversity in the leadership theories offered and ensure that every learner is unique.
You need to consider the type of course suitable for your current or future position. For example, creative leadership requires different team management and strategic leadership skills.
Nevertheless, certain qualities are common to all types of leaders. Communication skills, for example, allow leaders to build high-performing teams, motivate them, and get the members on board with their strategic leadership plan.
Program Length
A larger population of online learners prefer a short course that helps them develop leadership skills to a lengthy program that offers similar qualities. However, there's no guarantee that a short program will provide you with all the necessary skills. Still, an extended program might interfere with your other responsibilities.
Therefore, always consider an option related to your schedule that you can complete before the expected period.
Your Schedule
Leaders tend to have tight schedules that prevent them from participating in many other desired activities. Therefore, it's best to build a plan that works best for you and your duties as a leader. Once you identify a suitable learning calendar, you should seek out a program that offers a flexible schedule and lets you study at your own pace.
Current Leadership Position
Your current leadership position can determine your required leadership essentials. Similarly, the type of department or project you're situated in can help you recognize the practical strategies you need to learn.
For example, an individual hired for project management requires different leadership capabilities from the one in charge of team management. Studying leadership theories from these online courses can help you be an effective leader in your current position and develop essential interpersonal skills.
Program Cost
The cost of an online course depends on factors such as the program length and its popularity. An expensive course doesn't always guarantee high-quality education, while a cheap lesson isn't always valuable enough.
To ensure value for your money, you should carefully research your options and consider other learners' reviews of the courses.
Future Career Expectation
Are you happy with your current leadership position, or are you seeking a promotion with more responsibilities? You should evaluate your future leadership position to determine the essential skills required for success and the best course that provides them.
FAQs
Why Is Leadership Important?
Leaders are responsible to the team members and have various traits that determine how effective their approach towards mentorship is. The leadership skills provide team focus and ensure that all members are motivated towards the same goal. They also encourage team members to put in their best for the team and take responsibility for decision-making.
Without an efficient and effective team leader, the entire team is likely to fall because it's Takes a competent individual to teach and share information with others while understanding their own strengths and weaknesses. Therefore, leadership is important for the organization of a team and the empowerment of its members towards the final project.
How Can I Improve My Leadership Skills Online?
Leadership skills need constant polishing to develop essential skills significant to your career as a team leader. Many online leadership courses offer leadership training to help individuals acquire various qualities that every successful leader needs.
Enrolling in these courses exposes you to new interpersonal skills that you can use to be a practical everyday leader in and out of the office.
Furthermore, while these courses offer different certifications, many of them provide international leadership skills recognized by organizations worldwide. Such opportunities expand your network and boost your competitive advantage in the business world.
Are Leadership Certifications Worth It?
Yes, leadership certifications are worth the effort. A certificate is proof of leadership training that reassures and ascertains your current or potential employer of the essential skills you've attained.
You can also significantly build your CV using leadership certifications and hone your capabilities for the next project in your current industry.
Other career benefits of leadership certifications include:
Improve your skills
Study at your own pace
Develop unique leadership styles
Expand your network
Boost your competitive edge
Earn more
Share with your team
What Are the Benefits of Online Leadership Courses?
Flexible Schedules
Most people taking leadership training programs are either leaders or are preparing for such a position. Either way, they tend to be very busy undertaking other significant activities.
Online leadership and management courses allow learners to effectively utilize their spare time without compromising their period. Such scheduling lets you perform your duties efficiently while also pursuing a program that can benefit you and your team.
Cost Optimization
There are many costs related to in-person training, including instructor fees, utilities, and material expenses. While these elements add value to the program, doing it online prices a fraction of the money.
You should invest in an excellent online course with the same leadership principles while cutting down on business expenditure.
Multiple Domains
Online training programs offer different domains for people to learn. While some people may want the necessary skills for team management, others might desire conflict management capabilities to implement in their teams.
You can specialize in a domain relevant to your role as a leader or even take on more than one skill at a time.
Free Courses and Certifications
There are tons of open leadership courses aspiring leaders can take for free. These courses provide you with the international context you can use to build leadership techniques for your job role.
You can also acquire certifications to help boost your CV and give you a competitive advantage in the market.
Practical Simulations and Scenario-Based Education for Practice
Online management courses offer new students the opportunity of testing practical strategies on a virtual ground before implementing them in real life.
Students can use trial and error on the simulations and scenarios offered virtually before using these solutions at their workplace.
Suitable for New-Age Learners
These online schools are designed with features to keep learners engaged throughout the lessons. The videos can end with a module summary and a favorable business leadership capstone assessment for both new and advanced students.
The lessons also incorporate interactive elements to maintain the students' interest in the subject and motivate them to continue.
What Is the Career Path for Online Leadership and Management Courses?
There are various career options to choose from, including:
Business Manager
Team Leader/ Supervisor
Project Manager
Branch Manager
Retail Manager
Business Owner
Advertising Manager
Health and Service Manager
Public Relations manager
Training and Development Manager
Computer and Information Systems Manager
Final Verdict
Before seeking out the necessary fundamentals and skills to guarantee effective leadership capabilities, you should know what you need for your current and future leadership position.
Taking an online leadership course can be a great way to improve your leadership skills. The courses are affordable, and they offer a lot of flexibility. They also allow you to learn from some of the best leaders in the business world. So, if you are looking to improve your leadership skills, I highly recommend taking an online leadership course.
All it takes is creating an account and being faithful to yourself and the course that can significantly impact your life for a better future.
