Degrees of Leadership

The major distinction between these degrees and most MBA programs is a heavier focus on the “soft” skills of managing and leading people, as opposed to the “hard” skills of finance, accounting, and statistical analysis. Deans and program directors at local universities explain their leadership degrees both as a matter of student preference and as a response to market demand from corporations, nonprofit entities, and government agencies. In the face of a changing world, they say, organizations often find that what they lack are not managers who can work expertly with financial data, but those skilled at leading, inspiring, and developing people, managing interpersonal conflicts, and helping the organization cope gracefully with change itself.

Carl Polding is dean of the College of Adult and Professional Studies and Graduate School at Bethel University. He oversees Bethel’s MBA program as well as its master’s in organization leadership (MAOL). To illustrate the appeal of the MAOL degree, he recalls a visit to a major local corporation that had “lost a lot of employees over time.” When Polding explained the nature of Bethel’s MAOL to the company’s human resources director, he recalls the HR person’s response: “‘That’s exactly the right answer for us. 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. Technically competent people aren’t always trained to do that.’”

Michael Williams, faculty chair of leadership and human resource management PhD and MS Programs for Capella University, offers a wide-view explanation. He says that Capella’s leadership-specialization degree was born in 2000 as a response to broad economic and social changes that have transformed the business world. He cites the kinds of phenomena described for the past few decades in business bestsellers, from MegaTrends in the 1970s to Thomas K. Friedman’s current bestseller, The World is Flat.

In an industrial economy, Williams says, organizations could get by with “autocratic leaders who said, ‘OK, do this or do that.’” But today we have a knowledge economy, global in scope, with new kinds of jobs, and a “changing social contract” between employers and employees. All of this adds up to a need for mangers who can not only demand compliance to orders, but win hearts and minds as well. People skills are more critical to 21st-century managers.

Which Degree?

The decision to pursue a leadership degree rather than an MBA hinges mainly on the student’s preferences, work experience, and career goals. The choice can be influenced by the industry in which a person works or wants to work, the value system of the person’s current organization, and the kinds of problems the person actually faces on the job. Employees should ask: “What would help me move up the ladder here?”