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UMD, USMx: Let’s Get Principled: Values, Culture & Intelligent Disobedience!

Learn about values and decision-making, visioning the future, how values create culture, and how to be intelligently disobedient when the time comes. Remember: know yourself, know others; lead yourself, lead others.

Let’s Get Principled:  Values, Culture & Intelligent Disobedience!
5 weeks
2–3 hours per week
Instructor-paced
Instructor-led on a course schedule
Free
Optional upgrade available

There is one session available:

After a course session ends, it will be archivedOpens in a new tab.
Starts May 22
Ends Jul 31, 2025

About this course

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Please note: the UMD Power Lab is an optional lab, highly recommended, and costs an additional fee. Please read the important statement at the bottom of the description.

Great leaders, create great culture, which yields great work: G3. Great leadership requires the ability to set inspiring visions, make critical decisions and establish a positive workplace culture.

Building on G3., you will learn about values and decision-making, visioning the future, how values create culture , and how to be intelligently disobedient when the time comes. Remember: know yourself, know others; lead yourself, lead others.

This course will prepare you to become the leader you hope to be by focusing deeply on defining your personal values, setting your personal vision statement for you as a leader, understanding the role values play in every work decision, and how to work with competing values on the big decisions. Purpose motivates.

This certificate offers an extraordinary opportunity to spend some quality time with yourself to assess your current level of soft skills, clearly define your core self, and build soft skills which are essential to professional, not to mention life, success

This course is the sixth and last in a series of leadership courses.

This course provides an opportunity to think about your values, what matters to you most, and about culture which is the mediator between great leaders and great work. Understanding and working through competing values at work is discussed in Intelligent Disobedience.

  • Get the Models - Understand what values, culture and intelligent disobedience are
  • Get Why It Matters - Understand how values and culture delivery great work and the consequences of unresolved competing values
  • Get the Data – Explore your personal values and vision for you as a highly effective leader
  • Set the Goals - Set personal development goals for becoming a highly effective leader with integrity
  • Learn the Tools - Learn tools and techniques for acting in alignment with your values for better decision-making
  • Take Action - Build effective action plans to be able to be intelligently disobedient when necessary
  • Make the Change - Practice new skills to increase your effectiveness as a principled leader
  • Get the Benefit - Be able to develop as a great leader able to create great culture: build positive workplaces where individuals flourish and organizations thrive

The UMD Power Lab includes a curated set of self-assessments offered at a discounted price paid separately from the edX content and certificate. These self-assessments are rigorously developed and cannot be supplemented with free versions that would mislead learners with poor-quality alternatives. The UMD Power Lab is optional but highly recommended for any verified learner in the course. It costs $89 per year and only needs to be purchased once per year for the entire suite of courses in the Re-Imagining Leadership Professional Certificate.

We've done everything we can to reduce these costs for you, and have built a free SMART Goals Mobile App to help you achieve your goals. Used together this forms a revolutionary design to coach learners at scale in leadership and power skills as a premium but low-cost experience above and beyond learning the course content and earning the edX certificate.

At a glance

  • Language: English
  • Video Transcript: English
  • Associated programs:
  • Associated skills:Decision Making, Leadership

What you'll learn

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  • What are values
  • Why do values matter
  • What is culture
  • Why does culture matter
  • How values inform culture
  • How effective leaders build culture
  • What is intelligent disobedience
  • Why does it matter
  • How to resolve competing values situations
  • How to be intelligently disobedience when necessary

Week 1 Introduction to Course

  • Values & Culture Introduced
  • Building Your Values Portfolio Introduced
  • Intelligent Disobedience Introduced
  • The Business Case for Values & Culture
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to What are Values?

Week 2 What are Values?

  • Introduction to What are Values?
  • Values Defined
  • Why Values Matter
  • Kohlberg Model of Values Development
  • Putting It All Together: Values, Happiness & Work and Character Strengths
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to What is Culture?

Week 3 What is Culture?

  • Introduction
  • What is Culture?
  • Why Culture Matters
  • Values & Culture & Happiness at Work
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to Values & Culture Applied

Week 4 Values & Culture Applied

  • Introduction
  • Who’s in Your Moral Circle?
  • Is This the Right Job for You?
  • How Culture is Created
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to Intelligent Disobedience

Week 5 Intelligent Disobedience

  • Introduction
  • What is Intelligent Disobedience?
  • Why Does It Matter?
  • What If I Lose My Job?
  • How & When Should I Do It?
  • The Big Ideas & Segue to Re-Imagining Leadership, Part II

This course is part of Re-Imagining Leadership Professional Certificate Program

Learn more 
Expert instruction
6 skill-building courses
8 months
2 - 3 hours per week

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