
The lecture starts with real work: you plan four weeks that end with honest data about your own work, one behaviour chosen instead of ten, five real situations to practise it in, and evidence that something actually changed.
This course is built from five disciplines: personality profiling, competency modelling, 360 feedback, leadership development and career coaching.
The map of the course
A simple dictionary for reading lectures written for the people who build these systems
Three questions to ask after every lecture
A short self-diagnostic that shows which sections to watch first
Download the Four Week Development Loop and fill in one line after each lecture.
Where personality typology came from, and Jung's contribution
The four classic scales
How the testing works, and what each type describes
Using a result without over-reading it
Where the methodology came from and what it measures
How the testing works
Working with people whose profile differs from yours
Using it as a basis for adapting rather than labelling
What separates this from the others
How each type operates as a manager
The weaknesses built into every type, including yours
Recognising a type in conversation without any test
The core of Belbin's approach and the roles it names
What a balanced team looks like, and which role you default to
Where the Hogan assessment differs, and what it shows under stress
Where to take these, and how to read the report
What makes this model different, and better evidenced
Where to take it
Using it at work
How it compares with the others in this section
How it differs from what came before
Where to take the test
Working with the result
Applying it without turning it into astrology
What competencies are, and how they differ from skills
Soft skills against hard skills
Observable behaviour as the unit of measurement
The myths, and where the whole approach came from
How competencies connect to organisational strategy
The pyramid model
Where competencies get applied
The most common ones, and the managerial set specifically
The sources of competency information
The job description as one of them
The role of corporate competencies
How competencies get tied to culture
Interviews that surface what a role actually requires
The critical incident method
Function and position analysis
Developing a competency profile for a specific role
Whether an organisation is ready for this at all
Defining the objectives of the project
What value it has for the people being measured
The tools available for assessing a competency
Rating scales
Assessment centres
How valid each instrument actually is, and where 360 fits
Examples of the published libraries
How to use one well rather than copying it
Where the standard definitions come from
Competency-based hiring
Development and assessment
Remuneration and promotion decisions
Succession planning
How it differs from a company survey
Linking behaviour to performance
Why people are afraid of it
What people genuinely value about it
The key elements of design
Defining the competencies to be assessed
The areas of competence, and real examples
Describing competencies through the critical incident method
Choosing which behaviours to assess
Describing observable behaviour
Writing the letter to the assessor
Creating scales, questions and the open-ended sections
Sending it out in a way that produces honest answers
Increasing the response rate
Assessor bias, and what it does to your score
One-to-one delivery against group discussion
The types of feedback you will get
How results get demonstrated
Sample reports, and what to look at first
Leader development
Career planning
Performance management and succession
Turning a report into training decisions
An overview of what the tool can do
Creating the questionnaire
Settings that protect anonymity
Getting a report out of it
Systems that include 360 as a module
Specialist solutions
Real company cases
What the Gallup research established
What the Google research established
Ten key competencies of a modern manager
The four-competency model, and the formats used to develop them
What separates a good strategy from a bad one
Strategy sessions and offsites
The basics of performance management
How this gets taught, and what usually fails to transfer
Leadership styles theory
The six levels of delegation, and finding where you stop
What micromanagement does, and its opposite
How managers get taught to delegate
This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.
Ask a manager to assess their own leadership and you get an opinion. Not because they are dishonest — because nobody ever gave them the instrument.
Why self-assessment fails
You have been told you are "strong on delivery" and "could develop your strategic side", which is two adjectives and no scale. The last feedback you received was a rating between one and five with a sentence attached. If a 360 report ever arrived, it contained thirty numbers, no explanation of how the questions were written or who was asked, and you read the highest and lowest scores and closed it. Meanwhile the company assessing you is working from a competency model, a defined library, a rating scale with validity properties, and a curriculum of ten specific things it trains leaders on. All of that exists. It is simply never shown to the person being measured.
What this course covers
Forty lessons that hand you the instruments. Your own pattern first, across five frameworks — MBTI, DISC, PAEI, Belbin's roles, the Hogan assessment which specifically shows behaviour under stress, and the Big Five. Then the scale you are measured on: what a competency is as distinct from a skill, observable behaviour as the unit, the competency pyramid, where definitions come from, the critical incident method, building a profile for the role you want rather than the one you have, the assessment tools and how valid each one actually is, the published libraries, and how competency ratings reach your pay and promotion. Then honest data: how a 360 questionnaire is designed, which behaviours get chosen, how scales and open questions are written, how assessor bias enters, how to read a report and what to look at first, and how to build one yourself in a free tool. Then the curriculum companies use on people they are developing: the ten competencies from the Gallup and Google research, strategy and performance management, the six levels of delegation, team formation and its dysfunctions, coaching and situational leadership, engagement against wellbeing, and communication. Finally the plan: the career cube and impostor syndrome, a balance wheel across capability, an individual development plan, the softer capabilities that actually gate a leadership career, money, burnout recovery, and a checklist for the top level.
A note on the perspective
Four of the five blocks were recorded for the people who build these systems rather than the people measured by them. That is the point. You are getting the designer's view: how the competency model was assembled, how the questionnaire you will be sent was written, which biases are known to be in it, and what the curriculum for high-potential managers actually contains. The final block is taught from a career coach's side, so the pronouns belong to someone else while the tools do not.
Who is teaching this
I am Mike Pritula. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.
What is included
Lifetime access to all 40 lessons
Active instructor support in the Q&A section
A Udemy Certificate of Completion
Working material: five personality frameworks, the competency pyramid, the critical incident method, competency profiles, 360 questionnaire design and scales, the ten leadership competencies, six levels of delegation, the balance wheel, an individual development plan
The measurement instruments themselves rather than a description of them
Where to start
Write down the three things you would be assessed on if you were considered for the next level, in the exact words your company would use. Most people cannot. That gap is what section three closes. Enrol now and start today.