Leadership Essentials
Who This Program Is For
The Leadership Essentials program is for new managers, team leads and professionals who are ready to refine their leadership style, better navigate challenges and build strong, trusting relationships with their teams. The program helps you become a relational, empathetic leader who inspires and enables others to succeed.
Program dates:
Oct. 5–Nov. 15, 2026
Format:
100% online (live virtual and asynchronous sessions)
Time commitment:
Three self-paced modules and three live virtual sessions over six weeks
Fee:
$2,400
Learn To Lead With Clarity and Confidence
Explore what leadership means in practice, beginning with self-awareness and extending to team leadership and addressing challenges. Through a mix of self-paced coursework and live virtual sessions, you’ll develop a grounded leadership approach that enhances your leadership style and expertise — and how you support your team.
Key Themes and Topics
This program explores the following focus areas to deepen your expertise:
Defining Leadership: From Managing To Leading
Gain a comprehensive knowledge of leadership, how it differs from management and what effective leadership means.
Leading Self: Understanding Who You Are as a Leader
Acquire a better understanding of your leadership style by examining how your personal characteristics, mindsets and emotional intelligence shape your leadership identity.
Shifting From Me to We: Leading With Authenticity and Vulnerability
Learn how openness and authenticity foster trust and engagement, and how you can apply these approaches in your leadership style.
Building Trust: Foundational Relational Skills
Discover the key relational skills that can help you cultivate trust as a leader and deepen the connections with your teams.
Leading Across Differences: How To Navigate Challenges
Enhance your leadership toolkit with practical strategies for successfully addressing challenges in your role as a leader.
Putting It All Together: Leadership in Action
Integrate your learning through a culminating live session where you’ll apply frameworks to real-world challenges and plan for your next steps as a leader.
Session Details
Delivery Format: Live virtual, 12:30–2:00 p.m. ET
Learning Outcomes:
- Provide an overview of the course. Ground students in the big picture of leadership, how it differs from management and what effective leadership means.
Delivery Format: Async
Learning Outcomes:
- Encourage students to practice self-awareness by thinking about how their personal characteristics, mindsets and emotional intelligence shape their leadership identity.
Delivery Format: Live virtual, 12:30–2:00 p.m. ET
Learning Outcomes:
- Help students think more deeply about what it means to lead with authenticity and vulnerability, and how they can apply these approaches in their leadership styles.
Delivery Format: Async
Learning Outcomes:
- Provide an introduction to key relational skills that will help leaders build trust and deepen connections with their followers.
Delivery Format: Live virtual, 12:30–2:00 p.m. ET
Learning Outcomes:
- Give students an opportunity to integrate their learning and frameworks and apply them to a real-world scenario. Reflect on their journey and help them plan for their upcoming steps as a leader.
Explore AI-Powered Case Studies
This program features interactive case studies from Abilitie, a platform that uses AI-enabled characters to simulate real-world leadership scenarios. These dynamic experiences align with course content and offer hands-on opportunities to practice essential conversations, apply leadership frameworks, navigate dilemmas and build confidence in decision-making. You’ll strengthen your judgment and sharpen your skills in a safe, interactive environment.
Earn Certificate Credit With This Program
Learn How the Certificate WorksMeet Your Instructor
Ayana Younge
Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Ayana Younge is an assistant professor of business administration in the leadership and organizational behavior area at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. Ayana received her Ph.D. in organizational behavior and a master’s in management from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She also holds a master’s in social psychology from California State University, Los Angeles, as well as B.A.s in psychology and communication. Dr. Younge’s research lies at the intersection of emotions, social hierarchy and interpersonal processes; her passion for cultivating positive relationships at work is what drives her questions. She explores how positive emotions (e.g., gratitude) influence relational perceptions and behaviors within organizations. She also studies how an organization’s social hierarchical context may play a role in shaping emotion perception within interpersonal relationships.
Meet AyanaWork Toward Completing Your Online Management Certificate With Additional Programs
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