15.280
Communication for Leaders
Students develop and polish communication strategies and methods through discussion, examples, and practice. Emphasizes writing and speaking skills necessary for effective leaders. Includes several oral and written assignments which are integrated with other subjects, and with career development activities, when possible. Schedule and curriculum coordinated with Organizational Processes. Mandatory one hour recitation in small groups. Restricted to first-year Sloan graduate students.
Fall 2016 · Communication for Managers
Topics
- Course Introduction Communication Strategy
- Persuasive Communication
- Clarify individual communication style and establish baseline for team work.
- Persuasive Communication / Writing
- Improve ability to develop a persuasive argument by previewing selected topic and argument outline of your Persuasive Presentation.
- Persuasive Communication / Presenting
- Practice persuasive communication.
- Visual Persuasion
- Building on data visualization best practices, share draft slides for your Persuasive Presentation.
- CDO Collaborative: Communicating to Get Noticed
- Enhancing Leadership Presence
- Practice how to respond effectively to a range of questions in preparation for your Persuasive Presentation Assignment.
- Understand the language of feedback to increase effectiveness, build trust, and avoid defensiveness Improve ability to speak descriptively and specifically, ask clarifying questions, and to listen
- CDO Collaborative Class: Communicating to Get Hired
- Communicating Across Cultures
- Help you and your teammates learn about your abilities to work in and lead teams by giving and receiving individual feedback on your contributions to the team this semester. Bolster team’s collaboration in advance of the OP project presentation.
- Building Your Social Media Brand
- Mastering Impromptu Speaking Cultural Insights
- Practice delivering your persuasive presentation based on OP client project with each team member speaking.
- Team Presentation
- Reflect on and assess the progression of your strategic communication skills over the semester and identify goals for your continued leadership communication development
- Course Finale
Readings
- [GUIDE] = Munter, Mary, and Lynn Hamilton. Guide to Managerial Communication: Effective Business Writing and Speaking . Pearson, 2013. ISBN: 9780132971331.
- [GUIDE] Chapter I, pp. 3–33.
- Pittore, Roberta. The Power of Storytelling for Business Leaders.
- [GUIDE] Chapters II and IV, pp. 35–69 and 71–83.
- [GUIDE] Chapter V, pp. 85–103.
- [GUIDE] Chapter VI, pp. 105–39.
- Few, Stephen. “Analytical Patterns.” Chapter 6 in Now You See It: Simple Visualization Techniques for Quantitative Analysis . Analytics Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780970601988.
- Reynold, Garr. “Create a Document, Not a Slideument” and “The Rule of Threes.” In Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery . New Riders, 2011. ISBN: 9780321811981.
- SES #: S6 · TOPICS: CDO Collaborative: Communicating to Get Noticed · READINGS: No readings.
- Speaker: Amy Cuddy (TED Talk)
- SES #: S9 · TOPICS: CDO Collaborative Class: Communicating to Get Hired · READINGS: No readings.
- Breslow, Lori, and Neal Hartman. Intercultural Communication.
- SES #: S12 · TOPICS: Mastering Impromptu Speaking Cultural Insights · READINGS: No readings.
- SES #: S13 · TOPICS: Team Presentation · READINGS: No readings.
Prerequisites & course information
Prereq: Permission of instructor G (Fall) 3-1-5 units Credit cannot also be received for 15.710
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2016
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.