ILead develops and delivers the Faculty's graduate leadership courses. Our graduate courses are open to all M.Eng, M.A.Sc. and Ph.D. students. For information on enrolment and registration, please click here.
M.Eng. students and the Emphasis in ELITE
M.Eng. students can take our graduate courses to count towards the Emphasis in Entrepreneurship, Leadership, Innovation and Technology in Engineering (ELITE). ELITE is specifically designed for those engineers who wish to take on more of a leadership role in their work environments—whether by learning to better motivate teams, foster and manage innovation or by embracing global opportunities.
Students who complete the requirements of the Emphasis in ELITE will have their ELITE Emphasis noted on their transcript. This notation will only appear once you receive your degree and graduate
TEP1010HS: Cognitive and Psychological Foundations of Effective Leadership (Formerly APS1010H)
Instructor: Dr. Robin Sacks
Next offered: Winter 2024 | In Person | Tuesday, 6-9 p.m.
This course has been completely redesigned for life in our quarantined world. This semester's theme is Self-Leadership (because you can't lead anyone until you can lead yourself (!), and who better to practice your leadership skills on during quarantine than you?!) The class is completed in teams of 4, (but worry not - there are no graded team assignments!). Together your team will work through themes related to self-leadership like self-discipline (why can't I keep my new year's resolutions?), resilience (how can hard times and failures make me stronger?), and motivation (how can I stay engaged when I don't feel like it?). You'll also embark on 3 wild self-leadership quests that will challenge you to walk your talk in practical ways. I designed this course to be highly challenging, but stress free. It's full of fun activities and deep, meaningful conversations with your classmates to help get you through life off-campus.
TEP1011HF: Authentic Leadership And Teaming (Formerly APS1011H)
Instructors: Nick Evans, Mike Farley
Next offered: Fall 2023 | In person | Monday, 6:30-8:30 p.m.
This course challenges the notion that leadership is a prescribed set of behaviours and allows students to explore their own authentic leadership. The exploration works with students to uncover ‘Who Am I’, ‘What Am I Fundamentally About’ and ‘How Do I Show Up’ to create the experiences and relationships that I want in my life & work. Students will be provided with a number of tools and models to understand their own behaviour, patterns, and stories.
In the second half of the course students will learn an authentic teaming approach to co-creating meaningful change by applying their authentic leadership. Students will identify inspiring possibilities, work through core challenges, and create integrated solutions together as change agents for a vibrant future.
TEP1026HF: The Happy Engineer - Positive Psychology for Engineers (Formerly APS1026H)
Instructor: Dr. Robin Sacks
Next offered: Fall 2023 | In Person | Wednesday, 6-9 p.m.
Many disciplines have explored happiness - philosophy, anthropology, psychology, sociology, neurobiology and art to name a few. Engineers, it’s your turn. During the first part of the course we will play catch-up, examining the scholarly and creative ways that people have attempted to understand what makes for a happy life. Then we turn our attention to our own domain-expertise, applying engineering concepts like balance, flow, feedback, amplitude, dynamic equilibrium and others to explore the ways that your technical knowledge can contribute to a deep understanding of happiness. This course is designed to challenge you academically as we analyse texts from a variety of disciplines, but it is also designed to challenge you personally to explore happiness as it relates to yourself and your own personal development.
TEP1027HS: Engineering Presentations (Formerly APS1027H)
Instructor: Lydia Wilkinson
Next offered: Fall 2023 | In Person | Wednesday, 6-8 p.m.
Communication skill can be a critical success factor in engineering. Engineering know-how is given added power when communicated with clarity and simplicity in presentations that are thoughtfully planned and effectively executed. In this course, each student will make a large number of short presentations to sharpen their skills and increase their confidence. Students will grapple with capturing the essence of complex subjects and expressing it through key words, data and images. Students will be able to develop a wide range of skills: visual representation of data, systems and mechanisms; structuring and sequencing a talk; managing the tools, equipment and physical and psychological aspects of presentations; delivering speeches with vivid voice and body language; and finally, skills in connecting with an audience and achieving the desired impact.
TEP1029HF: The Science of Emotional Intelligence and its Application to Leadership (Formerly APS1029H)
Instructor: Danny Cushing
Next offered: Fall 2023 | In Person | Tuesday, 6-9 p.m.
This course is best suited for full time and part time engineering students with work experience.
A growing body of social science research offers clear evidence that emotional intelligence (EQ) plays a crucial role in leadership effectiveness. We know that the most successful managers are able to motivate and achieve best performances through the ability to understand others, and the key to this is to first understand yourself. In this course, you will complete the most scientifically validated EQ assessment available, The Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i) and receive a detailed report that identifies your leadership strengths and targets areas for development. You will acquire an enhanced level of self-knowledge and a deeper awareness of your impact on others. This will form the basis of a personal development plan that will help you improve your leadership effectiveness. In this course we will also examine evidence-based research that links leadership effectiveness to authenticity and mindfulness, both of which can be enhanced through mindfulness training programs. Simply defined, mindfulness is the awareness of one’s mental processes and the understanding of how one’s mind works. Using case studies, we will discover why companies such as Carlsberg, Google, Sony and General Electric have trained hundreds of employees in mindfulness.
TEP1030HS: Engineering Careers - Theories and Strategies to Manage your Career for the Future (Formerly APS1030H)
Instructor: Mark Franklin
Next offered: TBD
21st century career management is a learnable skill: acquiring it is a critical success factor for engineers, to develop their own careers for the future, and as leaders and project managers, to help develop others’ careers. Especially in engineering where engagement influences innovation and productivity, career management is arguably the most important learning to bridge the gap between an engineering education and an engineer’s ability to apply their learning in the real world. In this course, students will learn about contemporary theories and issues in career development and talent management so they can apply their knowledge and skills, to benefit their own career wellbeing, their teams, organizations, and society. Students will learn an evidence-based framework for career clarification and exploration. Using this framework, students hope and confidence, resilience and optimism, expand their network and use practical tools. In an increasingly uncertain and complex world of work, students will consider career paths, hear and tell career stories, and understand talent management in the broader scope of careers in organizations, and related issues of advancement, mobility, professionalization, and more.
TEP1501HF: Leadership and Leading in Groups and Organizations (Formerly APS1501H)
Instructor: Peter Devenyi
Next offered: Fall 2023 | Tuesday, 6-9 p.m.
TEP1501 examines leadership in relation to technology and the engineering profession. Topics will include: leadership theories, historic and current leaders, ethical leadership, teaming and networking, productivity and innovation, thinking frameworks, business leadership, and influencing people. Through this course students will explore their own leadership abilities and develop or strengthen their competencies in areas such as managing conflict, team dynamics, running effective meetings, developing others, and creation of vision and mission statements. The course will be delivered through lectures, workshops, readings, and guest speakers.
TEP1502HF: Leadership in Product Design (Formerly APS1502H)
Instructor: Dr. Alison Olechowski
Next offered: Fall 2023 | In person | Wednesday, 10 a.m. - 12 p.m.
The objective of this course is to prepare students for the type of teams, processes and decisions they will be a part of on complex socio-technical engineering design projects. The course will equip students with tools and strategies for leading and following other leaders in this context. Students will have the opportunity to apply their learning on three hybrid team-individual assignments. The course readings will be sourced from real industry cases and experiences.