Leadership Confronted

Catalog description

The first course in the Executive MPA (EMPA) core curriculum, Leadership Confronted is an experiential seminar that supports EMPA students in practicing leadership under real conditions — pressure, ambiguity, competing truths, and imperfect choices. Building an action-learning community, students will examine how their inner landscape (beliefs, motivations, habits, nervous-system responses, and values) shapes how they lead, and then translate that self-knowledge into concrete relational and systems-facing leadership moves. The course focuses on self-leadership while preparing students to lead change through complexity and paradox within and across teams, organizations, and systems. Students will practice influencing without formal authority, working across boundaries, and coordinating action with diverse stakeholders. Concepts may include voicing values, emotional intelligence, inclusive leadership, resilience, and adaptive approaches to change. The course emphasizes practice and application that can later be synthesized into deeper reflection and a coherent leadership narrative across the EMPA core curriculum.