LEADERSHIP

Leadership represents an important social process that influences the effectiveness of corporate decisions. In the recent years, the changes that organizations are facing are increasingly questioning the effective methods for applying leadership. In the firm environments increasingly characterized by flat structures that promote empowerment processes, in which the work is carried out by adopting agile, team and project-based organizational solutions, the ability of leading people has become paramount to attain business performance. The course aims to provide the student with the knowledge for analyzing and understanding the leadership process from an organizational perspective and with the ability of interpreting those behaviors associated with an effective leadership in the business context.

The participation to the course will allow students to obtain:
Knowledge and understanding: to learn the basic definition of the concept and components of leadership and how leadership differs from management; to understand the differences among the theoretical approaches to leadership and how they have evolved over time; to learn the motivational theories which leaders can adopt in helping followers to fulfill their needs and improve their performance; to become aware of the different leadership styles that can be adopted to build a resonant relationship with the followers; to learn the models which can enable leaders to introduce organizational changes; to understand the principles of ethical leadership; to ponder about the changes that digitalization is introducing in the leadership process. .
Application of knowledge and understanding: to evaluate the different leadership’s theoretical frameworks considering their implication on group and corporate decision making; to compare the different behaviors that pertain to different leadership styles and to identify the contextual factors that lead to adopt specific solutions; to practice leadership’s behaviors in simulated and real-life contexts.
Ability to formulate judgements: to analyze and critically evaluate the contextual factors that influence the adoption of the leadership behaviors; to become aware of the personal leaderships styles and understand how to choose the most appropriate behaviors according to the characteristics of the situations.

There are not specific prerequisites. The course is addressed to students enrolled in Master’s degree courses (second order cycle).

TThe course will address the following topics.
In the first part of the course, the issue of leadership will be discussed considering different perspectives and adopting an evolutionary approach. The course will provide the knowledge to understand how the changes occurred in the organizational and technological context have led to the transition to different models of leadership, up to considering the emerging models.
• Introduction to leadership: What is leadership and why study it
• The evolution of leadership theory
• Motivational theories and tools to engage followers

In the second part of the course, the issue of leadership will be addressed considering the main organizational processes and the related behaviors through which leadership can be effectively manifested:
• The leadership styles to build resonant relationships
• Inspirational leadership: creating commitment though a compelling organizational vision
• Leader as a coach: enhancing the growth and the development of followers
• Group decision-making: promoting engagement through followers’ participation and managing conflicts
• Building teams and favoring a positive organizational climate
• Setting challenging goals
• Individual decision-making process techniques to avoid distortions and bias
• Leading organizational change
• Leading in a digital world
• Ethical leadership

The materials and reference texts will be communicated at the beginning of the course.

Written exam and assessment of the individual and group assignments.

The course will engage students adopting the following learning methods:
- in-class lessons;
- presentation and discussion of video-clips that introduce or exemplify the topics of the course;
- presentation and discussion in the classroom of case studies illustrating the behaviors associated with leadership;
- role-playing games and simulations;
- role modeling and corporate testimonials who will report cases and examples of leadership exercise;
- assignments to be carried out in small groups or individually that allow students to bring the concepts learned back to practice. Students will be involved in techniques which will support them during their learning path, such as multi-rater assessment of their leadership styles, journaling to improve their capacity of self-reflection on their learning experience, peer-coaching with other members of the class

English

written

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "Human capital, health, education" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development