FSK-8003 Leadership skills - preparing PhD students for taking on leadership tasks - 2 stp

Most PhD candidates have little leadership experience and most lack leadership training or formal education to show for on their CV. Furthermore, few are aware of their personal skills and leadership potential, or how to develop these. Despite these facts, many jobs available to candidates with PhD degrees, both outside and within academia, include leadership tasks such as project management, team leadership and supervision. This course aims to prepare PhD candidates to take on leadership tasks once their degrees are completed; hence we recommend this course at the end of a PhD project.

The course introduces the concept of leadership and different leadership styles that one can find in academic and non-academic organizations. We will also discuss how a leader can create a good work environment and foster psychological safety among team members. We will introduce analytical tools that will help participants to understand their own core qualities, as this is essential to understand group dynamics and be a good tool to create a successful team.

The second main objective of the course is to make participants reflect upon their own leader experience and think about which skills & personal traits are relevant and important to succeed as leader. We will talk about the concept of emotional competency, learn techniques how to identify and resolve conflicts at the workspace and finally discuss the importance of cultural intelligence in international groups. The course includes many hands-on group exercises, which will make this course relevant for course participants from all research disciplines.

Prerequisites: None.

This course is aimed at PhD candidates from all scientific disciplines, but is open for postdoc fellows if seats are available. If PhD candidates aim to include the credits from the course in the 30 mandatory PhD ECTS, this should be discussed with the supervisor. PhD students from UiT and other universities in Norway may be admitted to the course. PhD students that are not registered at UiT must upload a document from their university, stating that there are registered PhD students. This group of applicants does not have to prove English proficiency and are exempt from semester fee.

The course has maximum 30 seats and will be cancelled if less than 15 students register for the course. If the number of applicants exceeds the number of places available, priority will be given as follows:

• Participants admitted to the PhD programme at UiT that are in the 3. - 4. year of their PhD project
• Participants admitted to the PhD programme at UiT that that are in the 1. - 2.year of their PhD project
• Participants in the Associate Professor programme (Førstelektorprogrammet)
• PhD candidates from other universities

People with a minimum of a Master´s degree (or equivalent), who have not been admitted to a PhD programme. Holders of a Master´s degree must upload a Master´s Diploma with Diploma Supplement / English translation of the diploma and must document proficiency in English. A detailed list of various criteria to qualify for English language proficiency can be found here: English proficiency

Please contact Ingjerd Gauslaa Nilsen at the BFE-faculty if you have troubles or questions regarding registration to the course.

Knowledge:

• Be able to explain the range of leadership skills needed in order to practice good leadership
• Be able to describe different problem-solving styles and their associated benefits and disadvantages

Skills:

• Use achieved knowledge as analytical tools to formulate, structure and discuss aspects of leadership
• Be able to reflect upon own leadership skills and take steps to further ones development
• Develop emotional competency to understand group dynamics and create psychological safety in a team

Generell competency:

• Be able to transfer knowledge of leadership and leadership skills to practical use
• Be aware of the societal responsibility as leader and how to advance your enterprise/ employees