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Master of Arts in Leadership | Graduate Degree Program

Master of Arts in Leadership

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Online Master of Arts in Leadership

Ottawa University's accelerated leadership masters degree online is designed for anyone interested in gaining the management, communication, and people skills needed to pursue a top-tier position in a variety of career fields. If you are interested in leading your organization and staff in times of change, then completing OU’s leadership graduate degree is a step in the right direction.

Dedicated to preparing graduates for lives of significance, the Master of Arts in Leadership Degree (MAL) degree was designed to help you make a difference in your organization immediately following graduation. Through examination of contemporary and classic leadership theories, investigation of successful leadership behaviors across a wide range of environments, and discovery of the strengths and development needs of their leadership style, students will develop the skills to lead their organizations to new levels of performance.

Leadership Curriculum

As a student in Ottawa University’s master's in leadership program, you will create comprehensive business strategies and envision potential futures that integrate organizational functions in achieving sustainable competitive advantage. You will acquire knowledge of laws, ethics, and values and apply this knowledge to make decisions appropriate to one’s professional practice. Additionally, you will gain hands-on skills through designing, planning, executing, and evaluating communication methodologies at the organizational, team, and individual levels.

For complete curriculum and course descriptions, download a program overview. 

Related Degrees

Career advancement awaits with our Master of Arts in Leadership degree. Why not take the first step now?

To learn more about Ottawa’s online MAL degree, contact us today!

Beginning in the 2017-18 academic year, the ASSB began offering the Master of Arts degree in Leadership. The following note is included with respect to this degree program:  *This program is not yet accredited by ACBSP, as a new business program, it cannot be considered for ACBSP accreditation until the program has been in place for at least two years and has graduates.

 

Leadership is offered at the following locations.

  • Surprise, AZ (Residential Campus)
  • Kansas City (Overland Park, Kansas)
  • Brookfield, Wisconsin
  • Online

Education and Qualifications for Masters Degree Leadership

Those who are interested in pursuing influential roles should have good leadership and communication skills and be able to establish effective working relationships with many different people, ranging from managers, supervisors and professionals, to clerks, and other workers. They must be able to coordinate several activities at once, quickly analyze and resolve specific problems, and cope with deadlines.

Leadership Skills

Our online masters degree in leadership can help you hone your skills as you work toward a management or leadership role. Here are just a few of the skills taught in our program:

  1. Planning and Budgeting
  2. Exploring Human Behavior
  3. Managing Cultural Diversity
  4. Leading Change
  5. Using Emotional Intelligence
  6. Practicing Servant Leadership

The curriculum for the accelerated, online Master of Arts in Leadership degree delves into the human elements of business, such as communication techniques, leadership theory, multicultural workplace dynamics, and team development. By emphasizing more personal and creative approaches to management, a leadership graduate degree enables students to work with the emotional intelligence of individual subordinates and inspire them to reach their full potential.

For complete curriculum and course descriptions of our online masters degree in leadership, download a program overview. 

Leadership Careers

A master’s degree in leadership from Ottawa University distinctively positions graduates to help businesses achieve their most aspiring growth goals and, as a result, corporations, government agencies, and non-profit organizations are willing to pay employees more for this skill set.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment of top executives is expected to grow 8% from 2020 to 2030, which is about as fast as the average for all occupations. The average salary for chief executives was $185,950 in May of 2020. There is a wide range of careers available to you after earning your leadership masters degree online.

Careers in Leadership 

  • administrative managers
  • administrative supervisors
  • buyers and agents
  • community association managers
  • cost estimators
  • education administrators
  • office support managers
  • office support supervisors
  • property managers
  • purchasing managers
  • real estate managers
  • top executives

Master of Arts in Leadership Courses

For complete curriculum and course descriptions, Download a program overview. 

Click Here for Full Course Catalog

Required Courses (33 credit hours)

BUS 7001 | Contemporary Issues in Business Leadership (3 Credits)
This course provides an opportunity to explore new and emerging issues in business leadership. Students will identify and read contemporary topics in journals published in the past two years.

BUS 7003 | Developing Leaders and Leadership Capability (3 Credits)
Course focuses on strategic and tactical approaches to developing comprehensive leadership, talent management, and succession planning processes for an organization. It involves defining leadership capabilities needed by a company at the individual, team, and organizational level.

BUS 7004 | Leading Business to Create Value (3 Credits)
Course focuses on how leaders create value for the organization and key stakeholders.  Students will compare various whole system approaches to assessing organizations. Topics include strategy, values, norms of behavior, reward systems, decision-making and accountability, processes and systems, and the role the leader plays in managing and aligning those components to add value to the business. Dynamics within organizations, including those at a personal, interpersonal, and organizational level, will be assessed. Various approaches a leader can use to align and focus an organization, such as strategic performance management or the Balanced Scorecard, will be considered for appropriate application and expected benefits to the business.

BUS 7006 | Servant Leadership (3 Credits)
Course explores the philosophy of life and leadership dedicated to the growth of others as well as values-driven institutions that contribute to just, caring, and sustainable societies. Topics include enhancement of student awareness of their values and how those values are reflected in their decisions and actions, the gap and tension between stated individual and organizational values that drive behavior, identification of points of leverage to affect change in operational systems, leadership philosophies, styles, and strategies, and contemporary concepts of values and system level thinking integration.

BUS 7015 | The Creative Organization (3 Credits)
Course covers methods for stimulating creativity and innovation, why context matters, and processes for making effective decisions with a focus on sustainable competitive advantage. Topics include practice in creative problem solving through in-class exercises and the creation of a plan to move the students’ own organizations to the next level of creativity. Cross-listed with BUS 5715.

HRC 7341 | Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace (3 Credits)
Research shows emotional intelligence (EI) is more important than IQ in determining outstanding job performance. Examines variety of instruments and writings used to build EI in workplace. Cross-listed with HRC 5734 and BUS 5734.

HRC 7411 | Human Resource Planning and Administration (3 Credits)
Integration of human resources with strategic business functions and planning. Examines issues of structure, staffing, effectiveness, performance and assessment and diversity within organizations. Cross-listed with BUS 7100 and BUS 5741.

HRC 7661 | Organization Consultation Skills (3 Credits)
Emphasis on the consulting process in organizations including the role and skills of a consultant, internal versus external consulting, contracting for services, resistance to change, diagnosis, data collection and interventions to improve organizational performance. Apply consulting skills to case simulation.

HRC 7711 | Organizational Change Theory/Strategy (3 Credits)
Examines strategic interventions to change organizations from planning through implementation and assessment and theoretical models for change including organization development and total quality management.

HRC 7841 | Effective Management Techniques (3 Credits)
Study of how gender, ethnicity and other cultural diversity dimensions influence organizational behavior and outcomes. Includes theory and techniques for working with and leading diverse workforce in order to increase organizational effectiveness and to enable all members to reach their full potential.

BUS 8000 | Advanced Leadersho[ Theory and Practice (3 Credits)
Covers theory and practice related to organizational leadership. Topics include organizational system thinking, living systems theory, leadership capacity development, and other advanced leadership theories. Includes application of theory to a variety of workplace settings. Prerequisite: BUS 7000 Organizational Behavior and Theory or permission of Program Director. 

Concentrations  

For full descriptions of concentration courses, click the links below. 

Population Health/Health Care Management 

School Business Operations 

Strategic Innovation 

Full Degree Catalog

University Accreditation

Ottawa University, as a whole, is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.

Specific degree programs within our institution have also been accredited by relevant bodies within the field:

We are proudly recognized for our commitment to student excellence by the following designations:

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