Leadership

Organizations face many adaptive challenges to survive and thrive in a context of a complex and uncertain environment driven by forces such as globalization and technology. Managers maintain the status quo efficiently but leaders help individuals, teams, organizations, and societies to do adaptive work. Leadership has been defined as “the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done, and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to achieve shared objectives” (Yukl, 2006). Leadership is not a position but a process and it is often emergent and shared by individuals who choose to be leaders and have developed leadership capability. Leadership is particularly important in new organization structures that are flat, flexible, diverse, and global rather than hierarchical, stable, and homogenous. There is substantial evidence that leadership can be learned and this introductory subject is aimed at developing the capability to lead individuals and teams through intrapersonal (i.e., self-awareness and self-management) and interpersonal (i.e., social awareness and social skill) development. This subject includes theoretical and conceptual content alongside solo and group exercises designed to prepare students for leadership experiences in the MBA program and their future careers.