Courses

This course is designed for students who wish to advance their understanding of leadership and enhance their personal leadership skills, attitudes, and behaviours in keeping with the mission of TWU. It introduces students to the literature of leadership, helps them design tools for assessing their own leadership abilities, and enables them to develop a Christian servant leadership model within the context of a Christian worldview. Team building and self-assessment exercises, leadership presentations, case studies, and field research are included.

An introduction to learning in the contexts of academic studies and personal growth for a lifetime of success as a leadership student and practicing leader. Emphasis is given to exploring three themes: (a) understanding the self as leader, (b) understanding the role of learning in leading, and (c) understanding leadership studies.

An exploration of what leaders can learn from the past to understand contemporary leadership and to imagine future ways of leading. Students are provided with the opportunity to use the historical method, including primary sources, to understand past leaders and leadership thought. Emphasis is given to the social circumstances and philosophical ideas that led to the Classical and Scientific Management theories, and subsequent leadership theories emerging through to the 1980s.

An overview of contemporary approaches in leadership from the 1990s to present day, including practices that focus on psychodynamics, individual and organizational values, ethical relations, teamwork, emotional and social intelligence, and other aspects that have helped define current interpretations of leadership.

An introduction to the leadership concepts and practices of developing leaders, teams, and organizations, exploring the leader's role in facilitating both individual and teambased learning and innovation processes with an emphasis given to action learning.

An exploration of the leader's decisionmaking practice, including the relation to problem analysis, decisionmaking techniques, and ethical considerations. Emphasis is given to a critical examination of individual, organizational, and macrolevel issues in ethics, and exploring the role of values and ethics in the leader's formulation of strategies for motivating, communicating, utilizing power, and developing followers.

This course examines important aspects of Christianity's involvement in global culture. Alternative models and historical examples of this involvement are considered as well as the engagement of Christianity with specific current social and cultural issues.

Students learn to identify conflict sources within and outside organizations related to personal differences, real and imagined levels of power, and stakeholder interests. Forms of dispute resolution are discussed including professional arbitration and alternative methods of mediation, with recognition that conflicts can be beneficial.

Communication within an organization impacts directly/indirectly and internally/externally in four directions: colleagues, subordinates, superiors, and current and potential customers. All successful leaders are competent communicators and seek ways to develop their skills. This course provides a broad overview of communications and offers learners practical tools to improve their rapport with various audiences.