Back to Leadership Through Social Influence
Northwestern University

Leadership Through Social Influence

This course will provide learners with a systematic general framework for analyzing persuasive influence situations. Learners will be able to identify different challenges faced by persuaders and to fashion appropriate strategies for addressing those challenges. The broad goal is to provide learners with not only an extensive persuasion tool kit, but also with an understanding of how different tools are useful in different situations. Specifically, the course will address four broad topics: strategies for influencing people’s personal attitudes; strategies for affecting social factors influencing behavior; strategies for affecting people’s perceived ability to undertake the desired behavior; and strategies for inducing people to act on their existing intentions.

Status: Leadership
Status: Overcoming Obstacles
Course4 hours

Featured reviews

PR

4.0Reviewed Jun 30, 2020

Extremely well explained, though perhaps some peer-graded assignments and not just quizzes would have been more appropriate to put our newly-acquired knowledge into practice.

LB

5.0Reviewed Mar 30, 2026

Professor O'Keefe lays out what should be obvious but what we too often do not consider prior to attempting to drive change. This was very well-organized, clear, and practical! Thanks Dr. O'Keefe!

HD

5.0Reviewed Jul 14, 2020

Excellent points of learning. Social Influencing has huge role to play to get buy-in from stakeholders. This course helps in learning these critical nuances in a simple and lucid way.

HM

5.0Reviewed Dec 5, 2024

This course is very well design. The teaching methodology by the instructor during course is awesome. This course is worth taking and highly recommended for business leaders

MA

5.0Reviewed Sep 7, 2024

الدورة الوحيد الي أعدت اختبارها بسبب صعوبتها لكن استمتعت صراحتا بالتجربة فعلا أفادتني والتجربة عدة مرات معناتها إن الشخص يحرز تقدم ومع التكرار يستفيد!

MM

5.0Reviewed Oct 4, 2020

Excellent material. Most important for leaders and equally important for beginners in Corporate organizations. Grooms attitude, openness and behavioral success at work p

MS

4.0Reviewed Dec 7, 2020

It was very informative course. I admired the instructor. His way of teaching was remarkable and the vocabulary used was easy to understand. Thankyou for making it this much easy. 😊

DK

5.0Reviewed Jul 30, 2018

I found Professor O’Keefe's insights and his storytelling to be highly engaging. His videos helped me see new ways I can help my colleagues seize new opportunities to help our team. Thank you.

AC

5.0Reviewed Oct 5, 2022

I​nformation delivered very clearly, quizzes were hard enough to actually challenge my knowledge. The course was basic but a great overview of the fundamentals of influening

IF

5.0Reviewed Sep 26, 2020

Leadership through influencing social environment boosts up the expected outcomes as well as people know where to direct their efforts to achieve business objectives.

FS

4.0Reviewed Aug 10, 2020

I've loved this course from the beautiful presentation of course material form the professor to how this course changed my mindset towards becoming a leader or following g a leader

CM

5.0Reviewed Apr 27, 2022

Great facilitation and questions. i have learned a lot from this and i will apply in my work and community development services i provide to my constituency.

All reviews

Showing: 20 of 335

Michal Ziaja
5.0
Reviewed Feb 7, 2019
Kevin Jackson
2.0
Reviewed Jul 11, 2025
Laila khan khan
5.0
Reviewed Jul 7, 2019
Prabhat Sinha
5.0
Reviewed Jun 7, 2019
Patrick O'Connor-Read
3.0
Reviewed Jun 27, 2020
Saikat Ghosh
5.0
Reviewed Oct 3, 2019
Eduardo A. Mendoza
5.0
Reviewed Oct 24, 2022
Rebecca Klasson
5.0
Reviewed May 4, 2023
Sudipta Barua
5.0
Reviewed Aug 11, 2020
Leondro Francis
5.0
Reviewed Apr 25, 2023
Ya-han Liang
5.0
Reviewed Feb 10, 2024
JULIANA LIÉVANO
5.0
Reviewed Jan 16, 2025
Anjuli Gupta
5.0
Reviewed Jun 12, 2019
Kayra Vanessa López Guido
5.0
Reviewed Jul 28, 2021
Juan Camilo Gaviria Henao
5.0
Reviewed Aug 19, 2020
Dennis Nabrinsky
5.0
Reviewed Oct 29, 2020
AJ Bruce
5.0
Reviewed Apr 16, 2020
Maria Lourdes Aguirre
5.0
Reviewed Mar 12, 2016
Urikhan Lkhagvatseren
5.0
Reviewed Apr 30, 2021
Shahid Parvez
5.0
Reviewed Apr 10, 2018