LEAD - Organizational Leadership

This seminar explores the different leadership theories and practices over the years. Topics include not only the historical, sociological, and cultural perspectives on leadership, but also ways of improving leadership effectiveness in organizations. Class members will be required to critically evaluate their own leadership style, analyze the situational and contextual factors of their organizations, and devise strategies to improve their leadership effectiveness.

This course examines aspects of ethics and leadership in one or more of the following key areas of society: education, religion, the military, corporations, and politics. The focus will be on core principles of conduct and on relevant virtues, such as courage, humility, hope, patience, faith, prudence, and justice. Theory and practice will be analyzed together, as examples will be drawn from important historical episodes, such as the American Founding, the Second World War, and the Civil Rights Movement. Students will gain an understanding of the relation of ends and means, of the meaning of integrity in the workplace, and of the moral demands of leadership.

This course examines strategies to effectively lead today's diverse workforce in organizations. Using the latest literature in human resource management, strategies for effectively selecting, retaining, and developing human resources will be explored. Emphasis is placed on the management of human capital within today's legal, ethical,and social environments. This course will utilize case studies from educational, business. and community-based organizations to illustrate the opportunities and challenges of managing human capital.

This course examines the role of communication in effective leadership and provides strategies for increasing communication effectiveness. Topics include different communication styles, negotiation strategies, media management, crisis management, electronic communication, and managing interpersonal conflict in organizations.

This course examines the leader's role in effectively managing change and transformation. It covers change both from a micro and macro perspective. On the micro level, it examines organizational change and the role leaders play in effectively transforming organizations. On the macro level, it focuses on the role of leadership in promoting social innovation and change.

This course presents financial responsibility and accountability as a moral imperative far leaders. It provides an overview of the effective strategies that leaders should take ta be good stewards of their organization's financial resources. Topics include effective budgeting techniques, risk management strategies, debt management strategies, f inancial transparency, and smart-spending strategies.

This course focuses on policy development at the local, national, and international levels. Given the importance of navigating the political and community landscapes to the creation of a fair and just society, leaders are introduced to the major theories and approaches to policy formulation, implementation, and evaluation. Principles of effective advocacy will be examined through policy advocacies in the fields of in human rights, social justice, and economic justice. The role of technology in advocacy and policy is also examined.

Prerequisite: LEAD 607 and LEAD 630. This course centers around the topic of organizational sustainabi/ity and embeds this topic within the framework of the triple-bottom line approach. It emphasizes the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of organizational success and challenges leaders to consider organizations within their larger eco-systems. Topics discussed include social responsibility, stakeholder management, issues management, government relations, and community relations.

This course introduces students to the theories and techniques of qualitative enquiry including research design approaches, data collection strategies, data analysis techniques, evaluation tools, and presentation of results. Emphasis is given to the use of qualitative research as a decision-making and problem-solving tool. The legal and ethical ramifications of research are also emphasized.

Prerequisites: LEAD 601 and LEAD 620.  This course presents an overview of social science research and presents the most popular quantitative data analytical techniques. Covers topics include analysis of variance, analysis of covariance, discriminant analysis, multiple regression, factorial analysis, and correlational analysis. Remedies for validity threats such as multicollinearity and heteroscedasticity, are addressed.

This course presents the fundamentals of evidence-based management theory, research, and application for improving organizational effectiveness and efficiency. Using the principles of organizational/earning, knowledge management, organizational memory, balanced scorecard, and competitive benchmarking analysis, managers learn to rethink their approaches to data, information, and decision-making in organizations.

The purpose of this course is to enable students to develop the theoretical model that underlies their capstone project. This is a research and reading intensive course where highly independent work is expected and required. Emphasis placed on the formulation of the research problem, review of the literature, analysis and evaluation ofbenchmarking studies, and development of the theoretical model.

The purpose of this course is to enable students to opcrationalize the theoretical model of their capstone project into an empirical model. This is a research and reading intensive course where highly independent work is expected and required. Emphasis is placed on choosing the appropriate research design, instrumentation, setting and participants, pi lot study, and data analysis.

This is the third course in the capstone sequence of classes in the doctoral program. It requires students to collect data regarding their capstone project, analyze it, and present results to the partner organization and to the doctoral capstone committee. Students will complete the capstone paper and present it in the appropriate format to the committee. Students will also orally defend their capstone project.

Pre-requisites: Permission of Instructor and Doctoral Program Director 

Reading and/or research in a selected field. An approved title for the independent study must be submitted with the registration forms. A maximum of 8 credits may be applied to the degree program.

The study of selected topics and issues that are of interest to doctoral students in Organizational Leadership. Issues and topics will be examined from the perspective of specialists within the discipline. Students will participate in readings, discussions and complete projects with a research component.