BBUS 4833: Effective Leadership
This competency-based, paced course provides you with the opportunity to develop a repertoire of leadership skills for diverse organizational and community contexts. Working through the course, you will increase your awareness of the interaction between self, systems, and organizational context. You will explore how leaders take action to make a positive difference and investigate various approaches to leadership within a variety of contexts. By the end of the course you are expected to articulate your vision of how to lead in diverse situations. You are required to apply theoretical concepts to workplace, community, or volunteer experiences.
Learning outcomes
After successfully completing this course, students will be able to:
- Increase your awareness of the interaction between self, systems, and organizational contexts.
- Demonstrate the ability to integrate critical thinking and research skills.
- Explain how leaders, including yourself, take action to make a positive difference.
- Articulate a vision of how you will lead in diverse situations.
Course topics
The Effective Leadership course contains four modules and a final project.
Module 1: Where Leadership Emerges
- Discover where effective leadership takes place.
- Apply three broad competency categories of effective leadership.
- Identify a leadership challenge in your community or organization.
Module 2: Inquiring Leadership: Appreciation, Curiosity, and Meaning Making
- Develop inquiry skills in your role as a leader.
- Seek out stories from people in diverse roles in your community or organization.
- Critically draw links between leadership practice, individual and group values, and the role of inquiry.
Module 3: Contextual Leadership: Observation, Emotional Intelligence, and Adaptation
- Develop skills for discerning the context in which you work.
- Determine or identify different leadership approaches.
- Assess which style is appropriate given particular locations, contexts, and relationships.
Module 4: Imaginative Leadership: Vision, Change, and Values-based Action
- Expand your understanding and use of vision as it relates to leadership.
- Engage others in conversations and action that move the organization, community, or group toward positive change.
- Explore strategies for creating and sustaining values-based action.
Final Project (Mandatory)
- Synthesize the learning from the different elements of this leadership course.
- Identify what you discovered about leadership as you participated in this course.
- Clearly articulate what effective leadership means to you.
Required text and materials
Students will be consulting a variety of resources, including books, articles, and Web resources, throughout the course. Students will be expected to find and consult different resources depending on the topics which they chose to emphasize.
There is no textbook required for this course.
Additional requirements
Computer with Internet is Required.
Assessments
In order to successfully complete this course, students must obtain at least 50% on the mandatory final project and 50% overall.
| Module 1 Assignment: | 10% |
| Module 2 Assignment: | 10% |
| Module 3 Assignment: | 10% |
| Module 4 Assignment: | 10% |
| Final Project | 60% |
| Total | 100% |
Open Learning Faculty Member Information
An Open Learning Faculty Member is available to assist students. Students will receive the necessary contact information at the start of the course.
