Creative Leadership for a Complex World

Catalog description

The course brings together the concepts of creativity and leadership and considers these in organizational, public, and educational contexts. The course begins with a consideration of how, through technology, social change, and innovation, our world has become more complex. Complexity requires leaders to be more knowledgeable, intentional, and creative in their approaches to issues. The course adopts the premise that creativity as a tool for leaders is both an art and a science, and the course content introduces a consideration of the nature of creativity as a way of thinking and acting. In the face of this complexity, it is the responsibility of leaders to confront these issues with new tools of meaning-making. The course introduces frameworks to understand complexity and the VUCA world and discusses creative approaches to wicked problems (e.g., poverty, climate change, human trafficking) and collective leadership solutions. Some other topics are organizational change, strategic learning and adaptation, and theories of action.