Discover how great leaders unlock 100% performance from their teams—without burnout, drama, or disengaged employees.

This course is self-paced within a structured 6-week timeline, to maximize skills mastery and accountability. Each weekly module takes about 90 minutes to complete, and the course starts April 21st.

Today's managers are facing increased pressure for results, endless meetings, struggling to retain their best talent, dealing with difficult personalities, fighting to create accountability in hybrid environments, and expected to develop their people and drive higher performance—all while their own strategic work gets pushed aside.

This course solves that.

What Great Managers Do Differently cuts through the fluff and replaces it with the most practical, advanced, science-backed techniques leaders have ever seen for managing performance, giving feedback, handling difficult people, developing talent, and boosting your reputation as a leader.

This is more than just a training—it’s the advanced playbook for leadership with word-for-word scripts, step-by-step conversation guides, tools, frameworks, and more!  

In this 6-week online program, led by New York Times Bestseller and Forbes Senior Contributor Mark Murphy, you’ll gain the tools, research-backed scripts, and step-by-step strategies that the best leaders use to get 100% performance from every employee. And you’ll only spend about 90-minutes per week.

Taught by Mark Murphy

Mark Murphy is a New York Times bestselling author, Senior Contributor to Forbes, and Founder of Leadership IQ. His groundbreaking research & techniques have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, among others. And he's trained the leaders at Harvard Business School, the United Nations,  Microsoft, IBM, MasterCard, Merck, and thousands more.

The course in brief

• WEEK 1: SETTING CRYSTAL-CLEAR EXPECTATIONS: THE POWER OF WORD PICTURES (week of April 21st)
  
  Most leaders don’t realize how much time, energy, and performance they’re losing to unclear expectations—until this module shows them just how powerful true alignment can be. When everyone knows exactly what great performance looks like and is pulling in the same direction, frustration disappears, accountability rises, and leadership shifts from constant supervision to unlocking your team’s full potential. 
• WEEK 2: GIVING FEEDBACK WITHOUT MAKING PEOPLE ANGRY (week of April 28th)
  
  This module transforms how leaders give feedback—by stripping out emotional baggage and focusing on facts using the FIRE model, it turns defensive arguments into calm, productive conversations. Most don’t realize how much performance is lost to vague or emotional feedback until they learn to remove the interpretations, reactions, and ultimatums that derail progress. The result is real behavioral change, stronger accountability, and feedback that actually works.
• WEEK 3: MANAGING NARCISSISTS, BLAMERS, DRAMATICS, AND MORE (week of May 5th)
  
  This module equips leaders to handle the most toxic and disruptive personalities—narcissists, blamers, dramatics, and chronic negativists—without losing their cool or their team. Most leaders don't realize how much energy and team morale these personalities quietly drain until they learn how to redirect emotional chaos back to facts, enforce accountability, and stop toxic behaviors from spreading. These tools don’t just manage the damage—they give leaders back control.

• WEEK 4: DO MORE COACHING AND LESS MANAGING (week of May 12th)
  
  This module exposes a massive missed opportunity: most teams are sitting on a goldmine of untapped talent. By shifting from managing to coaching, leaders learn how to crack open that potential—not with lectures, but with the right questions. It’s a mindset shift & coaching conversation that transforms middle performers into high performers, reignites career ambition, and inspires people to chase goals that actually matter.
• WEEK 5: SOLVING THE HIGH PERFORMER CRISIS (week of May 19th)
  
  The quiet burnout of high performers is one of the most dangerous and overlooked threats to any team. This module shows leaders how to stop rewarding great performance with silence and extra work—and start retaining top talent through Shoves and Tugs conversations, decoding the 5 motivational drivers, and delivering quick, meaningful coaching moments. It’s a practical, eye-opening shift that keeps your best people engaged, growing, and fired up to stay.
• WEEK 6: THE LEADERSHIP TIME HACK: PRIORITIZE, DELEGATE, AND EXCEL (week of May 26th)
  
  This module flips the script on time management—it’s not about squeezing more in, but about clearing the space for what actually matters. Leaders discover their “green light work”—the high-value activities only they can do—and learn how to protect that time through powerful tools like time tracking, delegation, time chunking, and the green-yellow-orange-red framework. It’s a game-changer that helps leaders stop drowning in busywork and start leading with clarity, energy, and purpose.

This course solves these leadership challenges

Detailed program curriculum

Week 1: Setting Crystal-Clear Expectations: The Power of Word Pictures

Are your employees unclear about what it takes to succeed? With Word Pictures, you’ll gain a powerful tool to set crystal-clear expectations and eliminate ambiguity in performance standards. This system equips managers to distinguish between good and great performance with vivid, relatable examples, fostering accountability and inspiring excellence. By mastering Word Pictures, you’ll be able to ensure every team member knows exactly what’s expected, creating a culture of transparency and high performance.

• The "Word Picture" technique: a 3-level system that eliminates ambiguity and sets crystal-clear expectations for any role or goal.
• Why avoiding management clichés (like “think outside the box”) will revolutionize how your team understands accountability.
• How defining “needs work,” “good work,” and “great work” aligns teams and boosts performance without micromanaging.
• How redefining success with concrete examples transforms abstract goals into actionable, measurable achievements for your team.
• A billionaire's productivity secret: how maximizing 1.2 million labor hours a day transformed his company's success.
• Transform your team meetings with coaching questions that spark self-awareness, internal ownership, and breakthrough performance.
• How Caesars Palace used five simple principles to improve customer service and generate millions more in revenue.

Week 2: Giving Feedback Without Making People Angry

Giving tough feedback doesn’t have to result in defensiveness or conflict. This session will teach you the proven I.D.E.A.L.S. feedback script to deliver constructive criticism with confidence. You’ll learn how to remove emotional baggage from conversations, focus on facts, and turn difficult feedback into opportunities for growth. With these techniques, you’ll help your employees make real improvements while preserving trust, respect, and team morale.

• A simple six-step script that turns dreaded feedback conversations into collaborative problem-solving.
• The "FIRE Model" for feedback: how stripping away emotional baggage transforms reactions into results.
• Why the compliment sandwich fails—and the science-backed technique that works every time.
• How to approach even the most sensitive employees with confidence while fostering improvement.
• A proven method for handling stubborn team members who refuse feedback without escalating conflict.
• The neuroscience of feedback: harness the primacy and recency effects to ensure your message sticks.
• Master the art of framing feedback as an empowering opportunity rather than a confrontation.

Week 3: Managing Narcissists, Blamers, Dramatics, And More

Every workplace has its share of challenging personalities—whether it’s a narcissist, a blamer, or someone who thrives on drama. This session equips you with the tools to manage the Big Four Difficult Personalities effectively (Narcissists, Blamers, Dramatics, and Negatives). You’ll learn specific scripts and strategies to de-escalate conflict, maintain professionalism, and foster a more collaborative and productive team environment. Turn these challenges into opportunities to strengthen your leadership skills and enhance team cohesion.

• The four words that disarm dramatic personalities and stop emotional overreactions in their tracks.
• A surprising way to deflate narcissistic behavior without breaking their confidence—or your team’s morale.
• How to redirect blame-prone employees to accountability in under five minutes using a simple conversational tactic.
• A “last-ditch script” for managing talented terrors before they wreak havoc on your team’s productivity.
• The secret to managing negative personalities: turn defeatism into optimism with a three-step reframing technique.
• A psychological insight into why narcissists thrive—and how to use their own insecurities to manage them effectively.
• When all else fails: the no-nonsense approach to handling employees whose attitudes are beyond repair.

Week 4: Do More Coaching And Less Managing

The best leaders don’t just manage—they coach. In this session, you’ll discover how to transition from directing tasks to empowering your team through coaching conversations. Learn how to engage employees in meaningful ways, uncover their potential, and guide them toward long-term growth. By focusing on coaching, you’ll not only enhance individual performance but also build a more inspired, motivated, and high-performing team.

• The 4-step framework that transforms middle performers into high achievers by unlocking untapped potential.
• A psychological secret to boosting employee confidence and resilience that fuels top-tier performance.
• Why traditional SMART goals fail—and how to replace them with "HARD Goals" for maximum inspiration and results.
• A powerful question every manager must ask to turn "meh" employees into motivated contributors.
• The one coaching strategy proven to reduce burnout while reigniting passion in high-potential employees.
• How to leverage self-efficacy and resilience-building exercises to supercharge team performance.
• The counterintuitive reason asking fewer questions might be sabotaging your coaching success—and how to fix it.

Week 5: Solving The High Performer Crisis

High performers are the backbone of your organization, but in many companies, they’re less engaged than their peers. This session reveals the psychology of high performers and equips you with strategies to keep them motivated, fulfilled, and loyal. You’ll learn how to align their goals with organizational needs, provide meaningful recognition, and create opportunities for growth. Retaining and inspiring your top talent has never been more critical, and this program will show you how to do it effectively.

• A groundbreaking method to identify what motivates or frustrates your high performers—and how to act on it immediately.
• The “Shoves and Tugs” framework: uncover hidden reasons why employees stay or leave and use them to boost engagement.
• How to recognize and reinforce great work with laser precision—without inflating egos or causing resentment.
• The surprising truth about why high performers often feel undervalued—and how a five-minute conversation can reverse it.
• Why ignoring differentiation between high and low performers can tank team morale—and the data-backed fix to avoid it.
• How to decode your team’s motivational drivers using five simple categories to tailor leadership to every individual.
• A Nobel Prize-winning psychological insight that ensures your feedback builds trust and strengthens high-performer retention.

Week 6: The Leadership Time Hack: Prioritize, Delegate, And Excel

Time is every leader’s scarcest resource, yet most spend it on tasks that don’t move the needle. In this session, you’ll learn how to reclaim your time by identifying your Green Light Work—the tasks that deliver the greatest results. Master the art of delegation to develop your team while freeing yourself for high-value leadership activities. These strategies will help you maximize productivity, prioritize effectively, and focus on what truly matters.

• The "Green, Yellow, Red" framework: how to prioritize your most impactful tasks and eliminate time-wasters.
• Why most to-do lists fail—and how replacing them with a "Top 3 Green Light Priorities" list guarantees daily success.
• How to reclaim hours of deep focus by mastering time-blocking and conquering interruptions.
• A WWII sabotage manual's unexpected lesson on running productive meetings—what modern leaders must avoid!
• The secret to leveraging your team’s peak productivity hours and synchronizing them for maximum efficiency.
• How a simple six-question system transforms delegation into a powerful tool for employee growth and leader effectiveness.
• The surprising psychology behind interruptions—and how hospitals use "safe zones" to eliminate critical errors you can adapt for your team.

Frequently asked questions