Master of Science in Executive Leadership and Change

Program Overview

The sixteen month and twenty-four month program will graduate people ready to exercise creative and innovative leadership in their organizations, professions and communities. The program is interdisciplinary and draws upon liberal arts skills and competencies, as well as professional courses designed to foster leadership knowledge, skills, and abilities. Generally, students who take this program enter and finish as a cohort. While the cohort model is preferable, exceptions can be made for people who must temporarily leave the program or must enter in an off semester. Each group works together, providing challenge, feedback and support. The program stresses the acquisition of skills, competencies, motivation and knowledge necessary to be innovative, change-oriented leaders. The unique curriculum is set in an executive education format and is designed to transform high-potential candidates into leaders who maximize the potential of the human assets in a corporate, government, non-profit, or community organization.

Focus on Practical Application and Change

The program is designed for professionals who value being able to use program content in practical and applied ways. Unlike traditional MBA and other Master's levels programs, the M. S. in Executive Leadership and Change program is designed for professionals who have the opportunity to use their organizations as learning laboratories. Students are challenged to solve real problems in organizations and to introduce transformational, change-oriented strategies throughout the course of their studies. While the program provides an understanding of markets, technology, finance, information and operational systems, the program also emphasizes understanding and developing leadership skills in various contexts, ranging from self-leadership to leadership that transforms individuals, organizations and communities. The course of study is especially focused on providing a stimulating learning experience for those who seek a personal development experience that emphasizes developing and facilitating the creative transformation of people, organizations, and communities more than the administrative responsibilities of maximizing work unit efficiency or technical competence.

Leadership Portfolio

Beginning with the Organizational Leadership and Self-Development course and continuing throughout the program, students build a portfolio reflecting the linkage of the courses with their work. The portfolio includes:

• A personal mission statement
• Personal assessment and various diagnostic tools
• Empirical research papers
• Organizational change intervention
• Videotapes of oral presentations
• A community service project
• A team leadership experience journal
• Examples of problem solving abilities
• A personal paper defining ethical leadership based on real situations or case studies

Personal & Organizational Assessments and Simulations

A variety of assessments and simulations are used throughout the program to provide students with a full dimension of data to help them understand their own personality traits, dispositions, beliefs, values, behavioral tendencies, and leadership styles as well as those characteristics unique to the organizations in which they work. Students use several diagnostic tools to gather and analyze data from the people they manage, as well as from those to whom they report, in order to assess key areas of management practices and their influence on organizational performance and productivity. Other assessments address individual leadership styles, team behavior, emotional intelligence patterns, organizational climate and additional profiles. Challenging and insightful simulations allow students to learn through practice and application of understandings in contexts replicating real world situations.

Case Studies

A variety of contemporary, historical, literary, and ethical-philosophical methodologies will be infused into case studies, illustrating the unique challenges leaders face, along with opportunities to apply program insights to their effective resolution. Guest lecturers, faculty with specialty areas of interest, film, and literary sources will be used. The case studies approach will demonstrate that leadership now demands both technical knowledge and skills and competencies characteristic of liberal learning. They will also illustrate the fact that organizational health is dependent upon high levels of civic responsibility.

Case studies involving specific leadership problems covering a wide variety of issues (race, gender, ethnicity, technological change, job security, etc.) and drawn from local businesses and organizations will be presented by leaders from those organizations, in conjunction with faculty moderator(s) and followed by extensive group analysis of (1) the procedures used in dealing with the problem; (2) legal, economic, ethical and personnel ramifications of the problem, the process for dealing with the problem, and the remedy proposed or implemented; and (3) the success or limitations of the remedy.

Literary analysis will be infused into a case study approach and is based upon the assumption that "literature serves to invent imaginary or formal solutions to unresolvable social contradictions" (Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, 1981). Recognizing this, the emphasis will not be on the study of literature qua literature; instead it will consider selected literary texts (fiction, non fiction, film, and drama) as the means of posing questions and testing the quality of answers about the nature of work and responsible leadership. Reading and discussion of the texts will lead to a more complex (and less "natural") understanding of work and social obligations in the broader context of the human.

Historical context, methodology, and analysis will flow throughout the case study approach. The program emphasizes knowledge of what has been and what is in order to better assess what is needed. The assumption is that in a dramatically more complex world, leadership must be predicated on the knowledge of different perspectives informed by historical legacies and developments. Personal histories and how they intersect with the larger community, locally, nationally, and globally, inform people's activities and attitudes toward society. For leaders to be successful, they must have a well tuned sense of how and why people react the way they do; historical methodology allows them to more fully understand the nexus between the individual, society, and the organizations in which they work and the communities in which they live.

The case study approach will also emphasize ethical and philosophical analysis - one of the most important aspects of leadership raised by recent behaviors of such entrepreneurs as Michael Milken and corporate giants like Ford and Firestone. Students will be introduced to ethical issues and will test responses to these issues through a variety of sources, ranging from spiritual reflections to legal statutes as reflections of ethical standards. The emphasis throughout will be on the ways such systems may be used in reaching decisions in order to create a more humane workplace and community.

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