Master of Business Administration, Leadership and Teams

This course examines characteristics of high-performing teams, common challenges that prevent teams from realizing their full potential, and selected strategies for overcoming constraints on optimal team performance. Students explore the influence of diversity and inclusion on team performance outcomes, along with the evidence-based practices employed by exemplary team leaders in mobilizing others toward the achievement of shared aims.

The focus of this course is on the development of the individual leader, mindful of how one's leader identity is socially constructed, deconstructed, and reconstructed by self and others. Specific attention is given to the identity and development of leaders as mediators. Students examine selected theories, practices, and mental models that inform the leader's capacity for constructively engaging conflict toward transformative ends within a context of complex and interdependent human systems.

Skillful leaders foster workplace culture, practices, and relationships that support learning, satisfaction, and strong performance among employees. Employees, in turn, commit their knowledge, skills, and energy to the organization’s success. Through the interdisciplinary lens of human resource development, students explore the value and benefits of developing people and performance in diverse and inclusive work environments. Theories related to training, organizational development, performance improvement, and systems create the landscape for students to explore the practical aspects of organizational culture and systems that support the development and well-being of employees and organizational stability. 

This course is recommended for those with leadership experience who aspire to lead at a higher level. Students are introduced to advanced leadership theories, strategies, and practices for more effectively leading change within particularly volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous conditions. Within a systemic framework, students engage with innovative perspectives, tools, and tactics that build upon and go beyond foundational approaches to changing the status quo by tackling stubbornly persistent problems where obvious solutions face unexpected resistance.

The Keystone Project course is the culminating experience of the program study. The Keystone Project will consist of an independent research study and/or a professional action project.  A suitable project involves both secondary (library) and primary (field) research on a topic pertinent to the field of management, leadership, and human services. Students engage in the process of planning, collecting, analyzing, and presenting data. As a result, students move from consumer to creator of new knowledge. The culminating product is a written report of the investigation and a presentation to the course professor and peers.