Graduate Certificate in Transformative Leadership

Course descriptions for student earning a graduate certificate in transformative leadership.

Course Descriptions for Graduate Certificate in Transformative Leadership

OLS 510: Leadership & Management for the Common Good (3 SH)

Students will study contemporary and forecasted societal stresses—from community level to global—and learn of the critical role of organizations in both contributing toward, and helping to mitigate, these stresses broadly classified as ecological, social, and economic. Students will then learn a broad range of organizational leadership and management theories, styles, and practices to identify approaches to leading people, systems, and organizations in ways that bring restoration, that offer hope, and that work toward promoting the common good.

OLS 530: Organizational Behavior OR PAX 615 Leading Organizational Change (3 SH)

OLS 530: All organizations are organic, interconnected systems that take on a life of their own regardless of the individuals that occupy various roles in the system. Leaders need to understand their organizational systems and the behavior of those systems if they hope to effectively lead or change them. This course will explore organizational behavior and organizational development from a systems perspective, including concepts of change and conflict. It will rely heavily on case studies and student participation.

PAX 615: Whether for-profit, not-for-profit, or governmental, every organization based anywhere in the world today exists in a rapidly changing set of environments. Organizations that fail to adapt to these changes face decline and eventual death. But organizations that lurch reactively from crisis to crisis are equally vulnerable to being selected out. What is most needed are leaders able to steer an organization through adaptive change processes in ways congruent with the organization’s deepest values. This seminar course will equip participants with the tools to understand organizational systems, to assess their changing environments, and to lead adaptive change processes. It will be based on the theory and research of the organizational development field and the emerging literature regarding complex adaptive systems, as well as on the lived experience of participants. Seminar participants will accompany local organizations through assessment and intervention processes.

OLS 515: Introduction to Leadership Studies OR MOL 620 Transformative Leadership in Dynamic Contexts(3 SH)

OLS 515: The course is an overview of various leadership theories, examining models of leadership, philosophies of leadership and different leadership styles. The advantages and disadvantages of various approaches will be studied.

MOL 620: This course explores the newest dimensions and challenges of leadership that strengthen and extend leadership skills through practice in rapidly changing and complex, diverse, multi- generational, multi-cultural and multi-dimensional systems, such as health care, government, education, non-governmental organizations and multi-national for-profit organizations.

2 electives (3 sh each) from a wide variety of graduate courses in the following programs:
MA in Organizational Leadership
MBA
MS in Nursing
MA in Counseling
MA in Conflict Transformation
MA in Education
Humanitarian Action Leadership
Biomedicine
Seminary