Leadership in Organizations

Catalog description

Organizations of all types face significant challenges. These include the difficulty of coping with highly dynamic business environments the complexity of managing global enterprises how to shape a healthy corporate culture managing politics and conflict between individuals and organizational units motivating a highly mobile and ever changing workforce managing and harnessing intellectual capital and so on. Such challenges and how organizational leaders can deal with them are the subject of this course. The course has two major components. The first is "macro" in nature. It focuses on organizational level issues such as how an organization should be designed to best achieve its goals and how culture and control affect organizational dynamics. The second part is more "micro" in nature. It focuses on employee-related challenges such as how to get things done in politically sensitive environments evaluate and reward people and manage teams. The macro component is concerned with overall organizational performance while the micro component is concerned with managing individual and group effectiveness. And leadership is the linking pin that connects these two.This course will introduce you to central theories and frameworks in management and organizational behavior and will help you to understand how to apply those theories and frameworks to understand and address organizational challenges and problems. An understanding of organizations and their management is important for anyone who plans to work within an organization as career success hinges on one's ability to accurately read and respond to the organizational context within which one operates. The course will also give you an opportunity to reflect on the skills that are required for being a better manager and leader.