URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/E_BA_LAP

Course Objective

Academic and Research Skills: Understand processes of leadership and learning at the individual, interpersonal, and team/organizational levels of analysis, and ability to connect these concepts and levels of analysis to one another. Knowledge of Theory + Methods and Solving Complex Problems: Know and understand theories about leadership and being able to apply them in the organizational setting. Professional Social Skills: Ability to clarify one’s values and vision and to use them as anchors in one’s leadership behavior. Ability to share leadership. Horizon Beyond Professional Area: Ability to reflect on the effects of leadership on employees, organizations, society and the environment. Self-Reflective Professional: Demonstrate self-awareness of the psychological resources needed for effective and sustainable leadership, and practice methods to build one’s own psychological resources (including the ability to confront one’s ‘dark’ inclinations). Developing self-awareness about one's values, beliefs and 'vision for change' in society, and how one can lead change in the areas s/he deeply cares about.

Course Content

While the question whether leaders are ‘born or made’ remains the topicof scholarly debate, one thing is certain: hardly anyone starts theiradult life and career as a leader. Whether you have talent forleadership or not, emerging as a leader in an organization is a learningprocess: Clarifying what one is standing for within the organization, becoming aware of one’s values and figuring how one can realize them within organizational reality; understanding how leadership emerges from and evolves in the organizational matrix of human relations; learning when to take charge and when to share leadership; learning to lead and learning to be led. The purpose of this course is to guide you through what learning to be a leader means on different levels: on the level of the individual leader, on the interpersonal level, and on the team and organizational level. On the individual level, you will learn about the behaviors it takes to be an authentic, responsible, ethical and transformational leader, the resources leaders need to be effective, and the potential dark sides of leadership. On the interpersonal level, you will learn about the relational aspects of leadership. Leaders can contribute to the well-being and well
- functioning of co-workers by the means of effective mentoring and coaching practices; by showing care and consideration for others’ needs; by recognizing their strengths and appreciating their efforts; by providing them with inspiring and achievable goals. On the organizational level, you will learn to view the organization as a tightly interconnected system, where each actor’s experiences are shaped by the organization as a whole; and one’s actions may affect the entire organization. You will learn about shared leadership theories, the do’s and don’ts of sharing leadership in practice. You will learn about the leader’s responsibility towards the community of the organization. You will learn about the impact leaders can have in transforming organizations toward better and more sustainable versions of themselves, and how they can involve and activate followers in working toward sustainability goals. On the societal level, you will learn about leaders’ responsibility towards wider society and the environment, and how they can contribute to the much needed sustainable transition of the economy and our societies.

Teaching Methods

lectures, tutorials

Method of Assessment

Individual and team assessments
Academic year1/09/2431/08/25
Course level6.00 EC

Language of Tuition

  • English

Study type

  • Master