Degrees of Leadership

For people seeking a postgraduate degree that will give them a leg up in the corporate world, the Masters of Business Administration (MBA) has long been the obvious choice.

Over the past several years, however, a growing number of universities have launched postgraduate programs leading to a different kind of business degree. These are not specialty tracks, such as a master’s or PhD in industrial relations. Like the MBA, they are broad-based degrees intended to prepare managers for a wide range of organizational functions.

"We've built this company by hiring people with technical competence. But as we grew, we needed to build in leadership capacity, collaboration, and ways to manage conflict and build teams."

The newer degrees go by various names but have a focus on leadership in common. For instance, a seven-year-old program at Bethel University in St. Paul and a new one at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota in Minneapolis lead to a master of arts (MA) degree in organizational leadership. Concordia University in St. Paul offers an MA in organizational management. St. Paul’s Hamline University calls its degree a master’s in management. Capella University, the virtual, online college based in Minneapolis, offers a master of science (MS) degree in organization and management, with “leadership” as the broadest of several specializations within that degree—others being human resources management and information technology management.

Like many of the MBA programs, the leadership tracks attract mostly working people with at least three years of experience as managers or aspiring managers. Classes usually are held on evenings and weekends, and often include online components. Capella’s program is entirely on line, of course, and Concordia offers a purely online curriculum as an option to its classroom track.