Business Management and Organizational Leadership

310 Hours / Access Length: 12 Months / Delivery: Online, Self-Paced

Course Overview:

Today’s managers need to be equipped with the right skills to deal with the growing number of challenges facing them. This course includes dealing with the competition, coping with ethical dilemmas, identifying and hiring talent, managing diversity, building sustainability, and adapting to the latest technology. This course presents an overview of management, with a focus on the characteristics of successful managers, manager development, and the importance of critical thinking in management.  This course will encourage students to define effective management and identify the strategies necessary to be successful business managers.   The course presents practical strategies for effective leadership in both organizational settings and one’s own life.  A comprehensive overview of the basics of leadership is presented in a student-centered format. 

Offering a straightforward introduction to the basic principles of leadership, this course provides students with practical strategies for becoming more effective leaders in organizational settings and in their own lives. Using leadership theory and practical activities, this course will provide a comprehensive overview of the basics of leadership in an understandable, student-centered format.  Each section of this course will focus on a fundamental aspect of leadership, discuss how it can be applied in real leadership situations, and provide relevant profiles of leaders.  The course will utilize applied activities such as case studies, self-assessment questionnaires, observational exercises, and reflection and action worksheets to help the student further explore leadership concepts and real-world applications.

Organizational and Behavioral Leadership Objectives:

• Define leadership and explain the evolution of the concept of leadership
• Identify the different traits of leaders
• Describe how to engage people’s strengths through the leadership process
• Define the three types of leadership: the authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire styles, and develop an individual leadership style and philosophy
• Describe the strategies used to attend to both tasks and relationships as part of the leadership process
• Describe the importance of developing leadership skills, and identify common leadership skills that improve effectiveness
• Describe the process of developing a workable vision within any context of leadership
• Identify the strategies used to establish a constructive climate, manage conflict, and overcome obstacles

Curriculum Developer Biography:

Willow Nolland is an expert in education and eLearning, with more than ten years of experience in curriculum development and instructional design. She has worked in higher education for over twelve years, and has developed numerous courses and has been involved in curriculum development across disciplines. She has experience with academic program development and coordination, curriculum development, student learning outcomes, educational partnerships, and student development. In addition, she has developed and administered professional development programs for various groups, including teachers, counselors, healthcare workers and members of private industry. She is a certified Quality Matters Reviewer and has taken graduate courses in online course development. She designs and teaches online courses at the college level and is proficient in a variety of course management systems. She has helped educators redesign their courses to transition them from a face-to-face format to an online format, and has provided course editing assistance to others. As a freelance instructional designer and curriculum developer, her projects have included course editing and redesign of online continuing education courses for nurses, CEU curriculum development for healthcare workers and teachers, and course review and editing for various colleges and universities.

Course Outline:

Business Manager Career Prep Curriculum:

Lesson 1: Introduction to Management

In this lesson, you will receive an overview of management.  You will define management and identify the characteristics of an effective management.  Different management styles will be discussed and explored.  In addition, you will learn about the history of management and the ways it has evolved over the years.

Lesson 2: Sustaining - A Balanced Approach to Management

In this lesson, you will begin to learn about implementing a balanced approach to management.  You will learn about the importance of critical thinking for managers, as well as strategies to manage during times of organizational change.  This lesson will also provide an overview of diversity, ethics, and social responsibility in management.

Lesson 3: Planning

In this lesson, you will learn how to implement planning into management.  Planning is a crucial component of effective management, yet many managers fail to do it.  This lesson will focus on making better decisions, setting goals, and designing strategies.

Lesson 4: Organizing

In this lesson, you will learn about the organizing component of management.  Effective managers must be able to organize people and processes to ensure that the system does not break down.  This lesson will cover all aspects of organizing, including structuring organizations, managing team performance, and being aware of the human side of management.

Lesson 5: Leading

In this lesson, you will learn about leadership.  You will learn about the importance of leadership skills in management, and you will identify the qualities and strategies that promote effective leadership. This lesson will cover a variety of topics relate to leadership, including the role of managers as leaders, how to understand individual behavior, and the importance of communicating and motivating others. 

Lesson 6: Controlling

In this lesson, you will learn about the importance of controls in management.  A  control is a tool that helps managers use information to influence behavior and affect operational performance through greater efficiencies and effective decision making. By exercising control, managers are better able to oversee activities and direct employees toward achieving organizational goals. 

Lesson 7: The Future of Management

In this lesson, you will learn about the future of management.  You will begin to consider the ways in which the role of the manager may change and will develop strategies for managing that changing role effectively.  As part of this lesson, you will learn about entrepreneurship and its potential for changing the face of management.

Organizational and Behavioral Leadership Curriculum:

Lesson 1: Understanding Leadership

In this lesson, students will explore the different ways of looking at leadership and their impacts on what it means to be a leader.  First, students will define leadership and explore the evolution of the concept of leadership.  From there, students will be introduced to the different theories of leadership and identify how those theories shape leadership.

Lesson 2: Recognizing Your Traits

This lesson will focus on the different traits of effective leaders.  It will strive to answer questions such as “Why are some people leaders while others are not? What makes people become leaders? Do leaders have certain traits?”   This lesson will also begin to explore the traits that are not found in effective leaders.

Lesson 3: Engaging People's Strengths

This lesson will help students understand the importance of engaging people’s strengths through the leadership process. The goal in this lesson is to explore how understanding strengths can make one a better leader. First, students will explore the concept by defining strengths and describing the historical background of strengths-based leadership. Students will learn how to identify strengths, followed by a description of different measures that can be used to assess individual strengths. The final section of the lesson will look at the concept of strengths-based leadership in practice, including specific strategies that leaders can employ to use strengths to become more effective leaders.

Lesson 4: Understanding Philosophy And Styles

In this lesson, students will learn how a person’s view of people, work, and human nature forms a personal philosophy of leadership. In addition, this lesson will examine how that philosophy is demonstrated in three of the most commonly observed styles of personal leadership: the authoritarian, democratic, and laissez-faire styles. Students will identify the nature of these styles and the implications each has for effective leadership performance.

Lesson 5: Attending To Tasks And Relationships

In this lesson, students will learn about the importance of attending to both tasks and relationships.  Leaders do two major things: (1) They attend to tasks, and (2) they attend to their relationships with people. The degree to which leaders are successful is determined by how these two behaviors are exhibited. Situations may differ, but every leadership situation needs a degree of both task and relationship behaviors.  This lesson will help students develop the skills necessary to be effective in both areas.

Lesson 6: Developing Leadership Skills

This lesson will provide an understanding of the importance of developing leadership skills.  Leadership skills give people the capacity to influence others. They are a critical component in successful leadership.  Although there are many different leadership skills, they are often considered as groups of skills. In this lesson, leadership skills are grouped into three categories: administrative skills, interpersonal skills, and conceptual skills.

Lesson 7: Creating A Vision

An effective leader creates compelling visions that guide people’s behavior.  To better understand the role of vision in effective leadership, this lesson will address the following questions: “What are the characteristics of a vision?” “How is a vision articulated?” and “How is a vision implemented?” In the discussion of these questions, students will focus on how to develop a workable vision within any context of leadership.

Lesson 8: Establishing A Constructive Climate

In this lesson, students will learn how to establish a constructive climate that helps improve workplace efficiency and effective teamwork.  Students will also learn how to listen to out-group members and find ways to include them in the group process to improve cohesiveness.  Establishing a constructive climate demands that a leader provide structure, clarify norms, build cohesiveness, and promote standards of excellence. By establishing a constructive climate for the group, a leader ensures that members work more effectively together.

Lesson 9: Handling Conflict

This lesson will emphasize ways to handle conflict. First, students will define conflict and learn about the role communication plays in conflict. The different kinds of conflict will be discussed.  From there, students will explore ideas about effective negotiation as well as other communication strategies that help resolve conflict. In the final section of this lesson, students will examine styles of approaching conflict and the pros and cons of these styles.

Lesson 10: Addressing Ethics In Leadership

This lesson will focus on the importance of ethics in leadership.  Leadership has a moral dimension because leaders influence the lives of others. Because of this influential dimension, leadership carries with it an enormous ethical responsibility. Hand in hand with the authority to make decisions is the obligation a leader has to use his or her authority for the common good.

Lesson 11: Overcoming Obstacles

This lesson will provide an overview of the role of obstacles in leadership and the importance of overcoming them.  First, students will learn about the different types of obstacles that leaders might face.  From there, students will learn a variety of strategies that can be used to overcome these obstacles and lead effectively.

All necessary materials are included.

• Cable and DSL internet connections are recommended for the best experience.

• CPU: 1 GHz or higher
• RAM: 2 GB or higher
• Resolution: 1280 x 720 or higher
• Speakers / Headphones
• Microphone (Webinar / Live Online sessions)

• Microsoft Windows 7 or 10 (Home, Pro)
• Mac OSX 10 or higher.
• Latest Chrome OS
• Latest Linux Distributions

NOTE: While we understand that our courses can be viewed on Android and iPhone devices, we do not recommend the use of these devices for our courses. The size of these devices do not provide a good learning environment for students taking online or live online based courses.

• Latest Google Chrome is recommended for the best experience.
• Latest Mozilla FireFox
• Latest Microsoft Edge
• Latest Apple Safari

• Office suite software (Microsoft Office, OpenOffice, or LibreOffice)
• PDF reader program (Adobe Reader, FoxIt)
• Courses may require other software that is denoted in the above course outline.