Advanced Graduate Certificate in Leadership Studies

Students explore global studies through an introduction to intercultural leadership theories using multiple lenses: society, organization, and individual. The course lays a foundation by identifying dimensions of culture with a focus on understanding how participants in other cultures see the world, think, make decisions, view leadership, communicate, and lead.

Students develop understandings of the concept of leadership historically, philosophically, theologically, psychologically, and morally, testing these understandings against their own values and experiences. The course emphasizes issues of contemporary leadership in times of organizational and societal turmoil.

This course investigates the four ways of coming to knowledge and understanding: sense perception (observant), logic (discursive), poetic (imaginative), and emotional (intuitive). The moral, intellectual, and theological virtues are explored as the means of properly acquiring knowledge and understanding through these four ways as well as the means of developing a person epistemologically and theologically in the role of leading others.

Students examine classical and contemporary organizational theories, viewing organizations as living, dynamic systems. They explore organizations through the frames of structure, human resources, politics, symbols, chaos and complexity, and appreciative inquiry. The course highlights the importance of culture in influencing organizational effectiveness and efficiency, variables impacting and included within organizational culture, organizational structure and its relationship to its culture, and the leadership role and responsibilities related to organizational culture.

Students explore socio-cultural and critical perspectives on identity, language, and how they intersect in diverse cultural communities. Topics include the philosophical and theological dimension of worldview and how one’s worldview translates into behavior, intercultural communication with a focus on what happens when people from different cultures interact, and interactions within organizational contexts. Students define cultural intelligence and explore existing literature on leadership competencies related to intercultural leadership.

Students develop a solid understanding of concepts linking leadership to global and social systems, giving special attention to the role of policy analysis as a critical connection between leadership and systems. They apply philosophical and theological perspectives to issues raised in the course.

Students consider leadership from the perspective of the personal character of leaders and their ability to make decisions and take actions considered good and right. This course includes an examination of the foundation, purpose, and methodology of various ethical systems, approaches to ethical decision-making, and applications to leadership issues.

Students consider a variety of moral dilemmas that prevail in societies and organizations. They gain a deep understanding of the complexity of such moral dilemmas by establishing and applying ethical principles derived from philosophical and theological perspectives on how humans can and should interact ethically and morally.