ENGS 15.1 - Design for Leaders

This seminar invites students to approach leadership itself as a design challenge. We’ll explore three design competencies of effective leaders: storytelling (launching ideas and shaping culture), interdisciplinary thinking (solving complex, multi-stakeholder problems), and horizon design (imagining innovative futures). Alongside design sprints and project work, we will ground our learning in real-world case studies—from Airbnb to Tesla, Beyoncé to Taylor Swift, Budweiser to OpenAI. By the end of the course, you’ll be able to use design not just as a creative skill, but as a leadership method. You’ll leave ready to show up in the world as a design-driven leader, even if your future job does not have “Design” in the title.

This course was previously offered under the title: Narrative Design for Innovators