Overview
Critical tools for today’s competitive business environment
Are you as efficient and productive in your day-to-day work as you’d like to be? Gain in-demand skills through a series of highly concentrated courses that you can tailor to your precise needs and interests.
- Gain knowledge, skills and insights that you can apply to your career right away
- Online training courses in six streams: Business, Communication, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity or Team Essentials
- Earn an Essentials Certificate of Completion or an Essentials Multi-Competency Certificate of Completion to demonstrate your mastery of these critical skills to employers
Information Box Group

Program highlights Learn More
- Take courses individually or complete one of six Essential streams
- Taught by instructors with industry expertise
- Earn a certificate of completion
The Essentials program features:
- Individual half, one and two-day training courses
- Designed to be highly interactive with assessments, templates, resources and self-reflection practices that can be immediately applied to the workplace
- Flexible programs, allowing students to go at their own pace, satisfying their needs and their schedules
- Provides applied practical and professional skills that can be used immediately in your workplace
- Network and work in group collaborative discussions with like-minded professionals from across all sectors

Learning outcomes Learn More
- Concentrated professional development
- Increased efficiency and productivity
- Improved teamwork and leadership
Through our Essentials program, you’ll learn:
- Effective management strategies
- Strategies for remote work efficiency
- Improved decision-making, managing workload and improving your well-being
- How to express yourself clearly and with confidence
- How to deal with difficult people and resolve conflicts
- The art of active listening
- Innovation foundations, including innovation requirements and avoiding common pitfalls
- How to implement strategies that will generate new ideas and solutions
- How to explore and expand possibilities using an innovative mindset
- How to connect with your own inner self-awareness and tap into your natural leadership abilities
- How to lead millennials, including practices that support the recruitment and retention of millennials
- Techniques to effectively apply Emotional Intelligence to better understand, manage and leverage emotions in order to manage conflict, deal with stress and relate to others more effectively
- How to effectively organize your workday and your time
- How to set your priorities and optimize your interactions with co-workers, customers and management
- How to better identify and define your goals, avoid common barriers and design an action plan to ensure your success
- How to achieve optimum productivity and harmony in the workplace and foster outstanding teamwork
- How to build high-performance teams, foster a motivating team environment and diagnose team performance problems
- Practical techniques for giving and receiving constructive criticism
Learn more about The Essentials program
- Professionals who want to ensure they master the critical skills needed for success
- New and current managers
- Recent graduates
- Employees as part of corporate training
- Anyone interested in a career change
Mastering the professional and people skills included in the Essentials programs could lead to success in a wide variety of industries, including:
- Business
- Business Development and Sales
- Education
- Healthcare
- Technology
- Social Services
- Human Resources
- Non-Profits
- Construction
Check out our latest Program Preview webinar to learn more about the Essentials programs
What Participants Say
Sue Graci
McMaster University Financial Affairs Account Payable Associate
“I never expected to have so many tools given to me out of a single course.”
The Creative and Critical Thinking course was incredibly enlightening, opening my mind up to seeing situations in a completely different light. I am now able to analyze an issue with a set of steps designed to define the actual issue (often not at all what I THOUGHT it was!) and consider it from multiple angles, all leading towards effective and efficient solutions. This is one of the most valuable courses I have taken and the instructor was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and really invested in helping his students understand and then put into effect their new skills. We used a work issue that we pulled from our own jobs to work through the course and that has changed the way I do my job. I never expected to have so many tools given to me out of a single course.
And the instructor was entertaining while he taught, which is something rare. I learned while laughing at his examples. I would love to take another course with him, he was that good.
Sue Graci
McMaster University Financial Affairs Account Payable Associate
Richard Cupido
President, Burlington Paving Company Limited, Ancaster Court Services Incorporated
“My experience with McMaster Continuing Education was nothing short of excellent.”
My experience with McMaster Continuing Education was nothing short of excellent. I took a course titled, ESS 813 Personal Leadership: Building from Our Strengths led by Lesley Calvin. Lesley provides great knowledge and dialogue that makes the group of students constantly think about ourselves and about how we interact with others. The course is designed to help us grow as leaders in the professional world, but I feel that it also helped me grow as a leader in my personal world. Right from the time the class started on day one, up to the end of class on day two, Lesley held the class’s attention and not only did she teach, but she took time to stop and listen and answer every question as the class progressed along. That is a rare quality in people nowadays. I was able to take some many excellent points away from this course and incorporate them into my everyday business life and personal life.
As president of both Burlington Paving Company Limited and Ancaster Court Surfaces Incorporated, I am proud to know that I can continue to grow in a positive direction towards being a better leader. Thank you, McMaster Continuing Education, for offering this course and I hope to take more courses from you in the future.
Richard Cupido
President, Burlington Paving Company Limited, Ancaster Court Services Incorporated
Lesley Calvin
McMaster Continuing Education Essentials Programs Instructor
“The students show a willingness to dig deep, be vulnerable, reflect on their strengths, identify their blind spots, and develop their leadership strengths. I am so inspired by them all.”
One constant when it comes to the pandemic is that it created a world forced to change and adapt on a monthly, weekly, and at times, even hours basis. Sometimes those changes went against our grain and some went with it. As a Learning and Development practitioner, a great change that came my way through the pandemic was the opportunity to engage with a much broader, more geographically diverse audience, without the logistics of travel.
To this end, I have an immense amount of gratitude to those awesome and exceptional Higher Education Professionals in the McMaster Continuing Education Department who welcomed me into the McMaster family as an Instructor in the Leadership Essentials Certificate. As a lifelong learner myself, and a shameless promoter of positive change and development, I am happiest and most fulfilled when I can connect with others to lead and learn together. The culture of students and professionals in McMaster Continuing Education pulls these elements together like a bow on a ribbon. The courses I instruct in the Leadership Essentials Certificate, Personal Leadership, Your Energy Currency, Conflict Resolution, and Strategic Planning have been so wonderful to create, facilitate and watch as the participants learn, apply, and grow from their newfound knowledge and expanded mindset.
The personal messaging from students, the deeply reflective assignments (some have literally brought tears to my eyes), and the interactive, authentic, and vulnerable conversations that have taken place with the cohorts, have been truly impactful for me. At times we have laughed as a group, that we had literally forgotten that we were virtual and not in person! What a joy these courses are to deliver, and what a joy these students are to engage and teach! Plus, how much do I LOVE seeing the friendly faces of repeat students!
These students, adult learners… proven professionals, show a willingness to dig deep, be vulnerable, reflect on their strengths, identify their blind spots, and develop their leadership strengths, goals, and vision, to be the best versions of themselves that they can be. I am so inspired by them all.
Thank you to the encouraging, motivational, and uber professional McMaster Continuing Education team for allowing me to serve as an instructor in the leadership essentials programming. I am truly grateful and honoured to be a part of the McMaster family.
Lesley Calvin
McMaster Continuing Education Essentials Programs Instructor
“I never expected to have so many tools given to me out of a single course.”
The Creative and Critical Thinking course was incredibly enlightening, opening my mind up to seeing situations in a completely different light. I am now able to analyze an issue with a set of steps designed to define the actual issue (often not at all what I THOUGHT it was!) and consider it from multiple angles, all leading towards effective and efficient solutions. This is one of the most valuable courses I have taken and the instructor was enthusiastic, knowledgeable and really invested in helping his students understand and then put into effect their new skills. We used a work issue that we pulled from our own jobs to work through the course and that has changed the way I do my job. I never expected to have so many tools given to me out of a single course.
And the instructor was entertaining while he taught, which is something rare. I learned while laughing at his examples. I would love to take another course with him, he was that good.
Sue Graci
McMaster University Financial Affairs Account Payable Associate
“My experience with McMaster Continuing Education was nothing short of excellent.”
My experience with McMaster Continuing Education was nothing short of excellent. I took a course titled, ESS 813 Personal Leadership: Building from Our Strengths led by Lesley Calvin. Lesley provides great knowledge and dialogue that makes the group of students constantly think about ourselves and about how we interact with others. The course is designed to help us grow as leaders in the professional world, but I feel that it also helped me grow as a leader in my personal world. Right from the time the class started on day one, up to the end of class on day two, Lesley held the class’s attention and not only did she teach, but she took time to stop and listen and answer every question as the class progressed along. That is a rare quality in people nowadays. I was able to take some many excellent points away from this course and incorporate them into my everyday business life and personal life.
As president of both Burlington Paving Company Limited and Ancaster Court Surfaces Incorporated, I am proud to know that I can continue to grow in a positive direction towards being a better leader. Thank you, McMaster Continuing Education, for offering this course and I hope to take more courses from you in the future.
Richard Cupido
President, Burlington Paving Company Limited, Ancaster Court Services Incorporated
“The students show a willingness to dig deep, be vulnerable, reflect on their strengths, identify their blind spots, and develop their leadership strengths. I am so inspired by them all.”
One constant when it comes to the pandemic is that it created a world forced to change and adapt on a monthly, weekly, and at times, even hours basis. Sometimes those changes went against our grain and some went with it. As a Learning and Development practitioner, a great change that came my way through the pandemic was the opportunity to engage with a much broader, more geographically diverse audience, without the logistics of travel.
To this end, I have an immense amount of gratitude to those awesome and exceptional Higher Education Professionals in the McMaster Continuing Education Department who welcomed me into the McMaster family as an Instructor in the Leadership Essentials Certificate. As a lifelong learner myself, and a shameless promoter of positive change and development, I am happiest and most fulfilled when I can connect with others to lead and learn together. The culture of students and professionals in McMaster Continuing Education pulls these elements together like a bow on a ribbon. The courses I instruct in the Leadership Essentials Certificate, Personal Leadership, Your Energy Currency, Conflict Resolution, and Strategic Planning have been so wonderful to create, facilitate and watch as the participants learn, apply, and grow from their newfound knowledge and expanded mindset.
The personal messaging from students, the deeply reflective assignments (some have literally brought tears to my eyes), and the interactive, authentic, and vulnerable conversations that have taken place with the cohorts, have been truly impactful for me. At times we have laughed as a group, that we had literally forgotten that we were virtual and not in person! What a joy these courses are to deliver, and what a joy these students are to engage and teach! Plus, how much do I LOVE seeing the friendly faces of repeat students!
These students, adult learners… proven professionals, show a willingness to dig deep, be vulnerable, reflect on their strengths, identify their blind spots, and develop their leadership strengths, goals, and vision, to be the best versions of themselves that they can be. I am so inspired by them all.
Thank you to the encouraging, motivational, and uber professional McMaster Continuing Education team for allowing me to serve as an instructor in the leadership essentials programming. I am truly grateful and honoured to be a part of the McMaster family.
Lesley Calvin
McMaster Continuing Education Essentials Programs Instructor
Other programs you may be interested in
Essentials Certificate of Completion
ESSENTIALS CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION
Pursue your Essentials Certificate of Completion with McMaster Continuing Education
Explore the options below and register today!
Certificate Options

Essentials Certificate of Completion
Earn the Essentials Certificate of Completion in any one individual stream by successfully completing five full days of coursework within the specified Essentials stream listed below.

Essentials Multi-Competency Certificate of Completion
Earn the Essentials Multi-Competency Certificate of Completion by successfully completing five full days of any Essentials coursework.
Essentials Streams
Essentials Courses
Essentials Courses
Advance your career with online Essentials courses in Business, Communication, Innovation, Leadership, Productivity or Team Essentials streams
Explore course options below and register today!