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    • Influence

    Influence Courses Online

    Explore principles of influence for effective communication and leadership. Learn techniques for persuasion, negotiation, and building credibility.

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    Explore the Influence Course Catalog

    • Status: Free
      Free

      Technical University of Denmark (DTU)

      Global Environmental Management

      Skills you'll gain: Water Resources, Energy and Utilities, Environmental Engineering, Natural Resource Management, Civil Engineering, Environment, Environmental Management Systems, Land Management, Environmental Resource Management, Sanitation, Environmental Monitoring, Cultural Responsiveness, Waste Minimization

      4.7
      Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
      ·
      2.2K reviews

      Intermediate · Course · 1 - 3 Months

    • University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

      Managerial Economics and Business Analysis

      Skills you'll gain: Descriptive Statistics, Supply And Demand, Market Dynamics, Sampling (Statistics), Statistical Inference, Business Analytics, Financial Systems, Financial Policy, Banking, Probability Distribution, Analytics, Statistical Analysis, Statistical Hypothesis Testing, Statistics, Regression Analysis, Microsoft Excel, Economics, Financial Market, Business Economics, Risk Management

      Build toward a degree

      4.8
      Rating, 4.8 out of 5 stars
      ·
      4.1K reviews

      Beginner · Specialization · 3 - 6 Months

    • Tecnológico de Monterrey

      Leadership and Critical Thinking

      Skills you'll gain: Critical Thinking, Organizational Leadership, Independent Thinking, Positivity, Self-Awareness, Stress Management, Leadership, Resilience, Influencing, Motivational Skills, Decision Making, Personal Development, Leadership Development, Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Strategic Thinking, Leadership and Management, Emotional Intelligence, Optimism, Research, Complex Problem Solving

      4.6
      Rating, 4.6 out of 5 stars
      ·
      283 reviews

      Advanced · Specialization · 1 - 3 Months

    • University of Colorado Boulder

      Technical Managerial Written Skills

      Skills you'll gain: Proposal Writing, Business Writing, Grammar, Technical Writing, Writing, Business Correspondence, Editing, Concision, Persuasive Communication, Target Audience, Communication, Leadership

      Build toward a degree

      4.5
      Rating, 4.5 out of 5 stars
      ·
      21 reviews

      Beginner · Course · 1 - 4 Weeks

    • Google Cloud

      Managing Machine Learning Projects with Google Cloud

      Skills you'll gain: Data Ethics, Google Cloud Platform, Applied Machine Learning, Technical Management, IT Management, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning (AI/ML), Data Strategy, Business Ethics, Data Governance, Innovation, Feasibility Studies, Business Analysis, Project Management Life Cycle

      4.6
      Rating, 4.6 out of 5 stars
      ·
      3.7K reviews

      Beginner · Course · 1 - 3 Months

    • ESSEC Business School

      Évaluation & Mesure d'Impact Social

      Skills you'll gain: Environmental Social And Corporate Governance (ESG), Program Evaluation, Needs Assessment, Return On Investment, Data Collection, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Stakeholder Engagement, Qualitative Research, Organizational Change, Resource Allocation

      4.7
      Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
      ·
      95 reviews

      Beginner · Course · 1 - 4 Weeks

    • University of California, Irvine

      Initiating and Planning Projects

      Skills you'll gain: Stakeholder Management, Conflict Management, Project Management, Project Planning, Project Management Life Cycle, Project Documentation, Project Scoping, Project Coordination, Organizational Structure, Influencing

      4.7
      Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
      ·
      23K reviews

      Mixed · Course · 1 - 3 Months

    • University of Michigan

      Negociación exitosa: Estrategias y habilidades esenciales (en español)

      Skills you'll gain: Negotiation, Contract Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration, Communication, Conflict Management, Persuasive Communication, Planning, Influencing, Decision Making, Business Ethics

      4.8
      Rating, 4.8 out of 5 stars
      ·
      2.7K reviews

      Mixed · Course · 1 - 3 Months

    • Northwestern University

      Leadership Communication for Maximum Impact: Storytelling

      Skills you'll gain: Leadership, Corporate Communications, Strategic Communication, Storytelling, Business Leadership, Media Relations, Stakeholder Communications, Public Relations, Innovation, Crisis Management, Communication, Branding

      4.5
      Rating, 4.5 out of 5 stars
      ·
      1.3K reviews

      Mixed · Course · 1 - 4 Weeks

    • Rutgers the State University of New Jersey

      Influencer Marketing Strategy

      Skills you'll gain: Social Media Campaigns, Social Media Strategy, Content Marketing, Social Media, Marketing Effectiveness, Digital Media Strategy, Marketing Strategies, Campaign Management, Return On Investment, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Drive Engagement, Marketing Budgets, Brand Awareness, Influencing, Customer Engagement, Marketing Analytics, Content Creation, Presentations, Target Audience

      4.3
      Rating, 4.3 out of 5 stars
      ·
      188 reviews

      Intermediate · Course · 1 - 3 Months

    • University of California, Davis

      Computational Social Science

      Skills you'll gain: Network Analysis, Data Wrangling, Natural Language Processing, Web Scraping, Social Sciences, Data Ethics, Databases, Artificial Intelligence, Research, Simulations, Big Data, Systems Thinking, Data Science, Research Methodologies, Machine Learning, Data Collection, Computational Thinking, Economics, Policy, and Social Studies, Graph Theory, Agentic systems

      4.6
      Rating, 4.6 out of 5 stars
      ·
      1.1K reviews

      Beginner · Specialization · 3 - 6 Months

    • Northwestern University

      The Importance of Listening

      Skills you'll gain: Real Time Data, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Big Data, Marketing Analytics, Crisis Management, Analytics, Content Strategy, Text Mining, Data-Driven Decision-Making

      4.7
      Rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars
      ·
      1.6K reviews

      Mixed · Course · 1 - 4 Weeks

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    In summary, here are 10 of our most popular influence courses

    • Global Environmental Management: Technical University of Denmark (DTU)
    • Managerial Economics and Business Analysis: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
    • Leadership and Critical Thinking: Tecnológico de Monterrey
    • Technical Managerial Written Skills: University of Colorado Boulder
    • Managing Machine Learning Projects with Google Cloud: Google Cloud
    • Évaluation & Mesure d'Impact Social: ESSEC Business School
    • Initiating and Planning Projects: University of California, Irvine
    • Negociación exitosa: Estrategias y habilidades esenciales (en español): University of Michigan
    • Leadership Communication for Maximum Impact: Storytelling: Northwestern University
    • Influencer Marketing Strategy: Rutgers the State University of New Jersey

    Frequently Asked Questions about Influence

    To influence someone is to affect or change their behavior without the direct use of authority, coercion, or force. Instead, the influencer creates change by shifting the mindset of individuals, groups, or entire organizations, persuading them to adopt the desired course of action of their own free will. The ability to influence can be important for everyday communication and maintaining harmonious relationships in our personal and family lives, but it is also a very important skill for many jobs and career paths.

    For instance, being able to subtly influence your customers to “get to yes” when you’re closing a deal is an essential talent of sales professionals of all kinds, whether you’re selling shoes or business software. In fact, the world of social media and digital marketing has created a new type of selling called influencer marketing, in which influential personalities and cultural figures post pictures and testimonials with the product being sold.

    The ability to influence is also essential for leadership roles in any organization, as management positions require you to motivate employees to not only fulfill their roles but to work enthusiastically at the peak of their abilities. The best executives and CEOs are talented at bringing their teams into vision alignment, with strongly shared priorities, values, and focused goal setting that allow organizations to succeed - in business as well as in the recruitment of top-flight talent.‎

    Influencing skills are important for almost any career that requires working in a team, but they are most important for roles as managers and top executives. Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People” has been a mainstay in business school curricula despite being written nearly a century ago because this skill has always been fundamental for success in the business world. The ability to get your team aligned to work together effectively is rare and highly valued; according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, top executives earned a median annual salary of $104,690 per year in 2019, including a median pay of $184,460 for chief executive officers (CEOs).‎

    Absolutely. There is a common myth that the ability to influence others is simply an innate talent that some people have and others don’t, but the reality is that influencing is a skill that is taught at every business school - including schools offering courses online through Coursera. You can learn how to influence others from leading faculty at top-ranked schools like University of Pennsylvania, University of Michigan, Northwestern University, and Macquarie University. And even though Coursera lets you learn remotely on a flexible schedule, you can still work with faculty in live virtual office hours that let you practice your influencing skills to an expert audience.‎

    Some skills or experience you might need to have before learning influence are strong social skills that allow you to get along with all types of people, such as supervisors, peers, and customers. If you have any sales experience or experience presenting information and concepts to others in person or online, you may already have the skills necessary to learn advanced influencing methods.‎

    The kind of people who are best suited for roles in influence are those who are confident in their abilities to motivate and persuade others whether or not they’re in authority roles. Types of people well suited for roles in influence can build and maintain high-quality relationships with diverse groups of individuals. People best suited for learning influence can discern other people’s attitudes, diverse social factors influencing behavior, and why people may or may not act on their intentions.‎

    Learning influence may be right for you if you want to learn how to develop it so you can become more effective in achieving your organizational goals. Studying the subject may be right for you if you want to understand the framework of power and influence and the dynamics of effective networks, persuasion, and leverage. If you're in any type of role where you need negotiation, communication, and sales skills, then learning influence may be a good choice for you.‎

    Common career paths for someone who has studied influence are often found in corporate management in general where the ability to persuade people is paramount. Specific common career paths for people who have studied influence might be product and brand management, research and development, and any leadership position in an organization’s C-suite. Another common career path for someone in influence is blogging where paid or sponsored influencers create content on various social media platforms. The most common career path for someone in influence is in sales where it’s critical to understand how to best persuade customers and clients using various tools, including neuromarketing.‎

    There are many topics you can study that are related to influence, such as emotional intelligence, which may help you to work effectively in teams, build cooperative relationships, and exercise effective influence to foster meaningful change. Another topic related to influence that you can study is social psychology to help you understand why people behave in certain ways. Marketing is another strongly related topic to influence that you might consider studying.‎

    This FAQ content has been made available for informational purposes only. Learners are advised to conduct additional research to ensure that courses and other credentials pursued meet their personal, professional, and financial goals.

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