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This course on leadership development focuses on the dyadic relationship between individuals and their leaders. Contemporary business problems are increasingly complex and the notion of leadership has become more important given the pace and dynamics of discontinuous environments, hyper-competition, globalisation and the movement of people and goods across boundaries. Many of these boundaries have shifted as well as given synchronous learning and multiple interactive modes through virtual networks making the task of leadership more complex. This is an interesting dilemma for leaders of any sized organisation given that recent research has indicated that the task of leaders – to build and develop people at work and create the next group of leaders - hasn’t changed dramatically. What has changed is the context in which leadership development occurs, from the more stable contexts of the past to the more dynamic and innovative, the latter reflecting new structures and processes. Also, there has been a significant shift from the old behavioural leadership approaches to a more ‘relationship focused’ and servant approach to leadership applied within a specific context. This course accordingly seeks to answer some fundamental questions: 1) how do modern leaders prepare their people for dynamic change? 2) what leadership skills are required to equip future managers? and, 3) what leadership processes help grow the relationships between managers and workers?

While this course focuses on dyadic relationships, students will learn about their own leadership style and how these can be adapted to help meet the overall goals of the work institution. The course is a journey of narratives about what contemporary leaders have learned from past leadership approaches. For instance, the transformational leader style is grounded firmly in a behavioural and inspirational approach to developing people at work. The course introduces multiple contexts in which leadership skills can be practiced. For example, in highly discontinuous environments, we will learn that a fixed style may not be flexible enough to forge change that requires more adaptive leader skills. Similarly, within a context where the culture and organisation code reflects many competing interests and power plays, we will learn that the dyadic relationship is less about a transformational approach and more about an authentic and servant leader interaction. Students will focus on the value of coaching and building personal relationships such that mentoring is part of being an authentic leader. Taken together, the leadership skills learned will be invaluable for dealing with multiple and changing environments. It is envisaged that the approach on the individual will augment other leadership approaches offered across the program of study such as team and strategic leadership.

On successful completion of this course students should be able to:

1. reflect on the theoretical value of leadership theories past and present;
2. critically review and think constructively about which leader theories help build adaptive leader-member relationships;
3. apply a range of leadership skills to real world problems across national and international contexts;
4. communicate to a range of audiences the value of leadership skills about a given context;
5. work with a range of leadership ideas to plan and formulate an applied leadership project.