Executive Leadership

Catalog description

This course provides an opportunity to explore leadership from the point of view of a senior business executive. The starting point will be a set of leadership challenges that are currently faced by business executives. Examples include responding to a business crisis, leading an integration following a merger or acquisition, making a highly consequential strategic decision, implementing a workforce reduction, finding value from diversity and inclusiveness, creating a change in operating culture, accessing a new foreign market, and negotiating the sale of a company. Students will work in teams to develop a response to their assigned challenge. Students will present their response to the class and receive feedback from the professor, their peers, and executive leaders who have actually faced that specific situation. In addition, throughout the course, perspectives on leadership from research and academic frameworks are analyzed. This approach puts students “in the trenches” and develops a practical understanding of the functions of executive leaders.