Master in Leadership Practice

Practice bold action to build thriving futures

Are you ready to strengthen your leadership capability? Engage in leadership practice for the common good? Are you called to lead socially responsible change efforts?

Antioch University’s Master in Leadership Practice will help you develop the specialized skills you need to lead organizational change and develop well-designed and bold strategies to address challenging problems and achieve goals.

Learn By Doing. This Master’s program is designed around your action project – assess, design, experiment, reflect. Engage with real problems and ventures and learn as you take action. Online classes, low-residency program. Start and end with a cohort of your peers to networking and a more hands-on experience.

The Master in Leadership Practice is offered by Antioch University’s Graduate School of Leadership and Change

Program Overview

The Master in Leadership Practice (MLP) is a 32-credit, 16-month (4 trimesters), hybrid-delivered degree program. As innovation and experimentation are central to leadership practice, the program is designed to both challenge and support socially engaged leaders and change agents to engage the complex challenges of their fields.

Develop the specialized skills you need to:

• Conduct analysis of an organization’s or community’s capabilities 
• Increase personal, organizational, and community resilience 
• Create and sustain healthy cross-sector and multicultural teams 
• Engage with and successfully shift dynamics that are resistant to change 
• Expand your understanding of organizational development
• Strengthen communication and conflict resolution skills

Join us in-person or virtually for an upcoming information session

There are no upcoming events at this time.

A Master’s Program to Fit Your Busy Life

• Live anywhere and work full-time
• Participate in the program’s courses, skills development studios, and the leadership action lab any time from your home or office
• Stay connected with your cohort through our robust online community, which networks faculty, students, staff, and alumni of the Graduate School of Leadership and Change

Your interests and curiosities are at the core.
Do you wonder why your teams aren’t working well together and what changes could improve their relationships and productivity? Do you wish you could understand why many individuals are resistant to change and learn ways to engage them successfully? Or, why so many in leadership roles continue to operate from a “command and control” style despite evidence that it diminishes employee engagement?

These are the types of questions that frame discussions, demonstrations of learning, and leadership action projects. This program is an opportunity to explore evidence-based practices and to lead positive change in teams, organizations, and communities while being mentored by internationally-renowned faculty.

Your career opportunities expand.
In this Master’s program, you develop your knowledge and skills related to each phase of change. Your learning is also captured in a Leadership e-Portfolio that can be shown to current or future employers, potential clients, or organizations with whom you work. Think of it as your passport to your professional journey.

Your Student Experience

As an MLP student, you will experience

• An emphasis on innovation, experimentation, and leadership for the common good
• Be supported by an amazing skilled team of experienced senior faculty
• Engage with learning that combines coursework on leadership perspectives rooted in ethical awareness, global understanding, and social responsibility with project-based learning
• Receive coaching specific to your leadership action project from an expert in your field of practice
• Attend two residencies and progress online through sequentially aligned courses and labs over 16 months
• Antioch’s Master in Leadership Practice puts student learning and success center stage. Learn more about our culture

Residencies

Students and faculty attend two residencies – an orientation residency in April the first year, and a Capstone Residency in April year 2.

Interdisciplinary Curriculum

The curriculum of the MLP focuses on leading responsible and ethical practices and leading innovative practices that are intended to improve the lives of those being served in organizations, workplaces, and communities around the world. The program makes critical leadership studies applicable and makes inclusive change strategies practical as you base your action project on sound inquiry, creative design, systems thinking, and a belief in responsible futures and the common good.

Your progress is supported by:

• A full library and writing services to help students make progress and make change
• A community of learners from across the world and country that challenge you academically and professionally
• A thriving alumni and community network for career development and life beyond Antioch University

Action Project

The nature of your Action Project is determined by your interest, goals, and capacities within the context of demonstrating fulfillment of the required knowledge and skills. Action Project types are wide-ranging, and may include project such as developing a sound venture business plan for a new startup, leading a change project within an organization or community, or providing consultation to a workgroup from needs assessment to intervention evaluation. You will have one trimester to articulate your Action Project, a trimester to design it, a trimester to implement the project and, finally, a trimester to reflect individually and collectively on learning.

Cross-Sector Learning

Whether one works in schools or healthcare, nonprofit or government, large companies or small businesses, it is difficult to imagine any practitioner leading change solely within the confines of their profession.  School administrators need to effectively reach out to local neighborhoods; business professionals consider communities strategic partners; healthcare leaders collaborate with local nonprofits, and so forth. Our world is omplex and leading change isn’t in a silo, neither discipline nor sector.

That is why we believe so strongly in the power and synergy of our cross-sector learning community. Students deliberate with peers who come from across the world and country, who work in sectors similar and different, and who bring experiences both diverse and similar. It is a powerful opportunity to expand one’s horizon.

Course Sequence

Admissions

GO TO ADMISSIONS

Application Deadline

We review complete applications on a rolling basis. Our next cohort starts Summer 2021.

Click here for our Online Application

Requirements
A Bachelor’s degree issued from an institution recognized by an accrediting body that has been approved by the United States Department of Education or the Council for Higher Education Accreditation and 2-3 years of relevant professional experience in the arena of intended project or venture are minimum eligibility requirements.

In addition, selection for admission will depend upon such characteristics as: capacity for self-directed learning, evidence of strong academic skills and conceptual abilities, an interest in interdisciplinary and cross-sector study, and a deep interest in bold action to lead change.

How to Apply

• Online Application
• Admissions essay. Please answer the following questions:
  • Describe a growth area that is important for you as a leader and/or change maker to explore while in the MLP. (limit: 300 words)
  • MLP students engage with leading a change project or a venture opportunity during their four trimesters of study. Faculty work with you to articulate your ideas during the first trimester and then to design your project in trimester two. The third trimester is devoted to experimenting and implementing while trimester four is a time for reflecting and reframing. Share an initial idea you might have for this change project or venture and what you imagine could be possibilities to put the idea into practice. (limit: 500 words)
  • Reflection, individually and collectively, is an important aspect of this program. Students will be asked to reflect on their growth as leaders and change agents as well as on their engagement with peers. Please reflect on your approach to being a leader/change maker. Your response may be an essay (limit 300 words) or can be presented using a different medium (photography, painting, journaling, etc.).
• Two letters of recommendation
• Transcripts
• Resume

Application material can be submitted via email to [email protected] or hard copies can be mailed to:

Graduate School of Leadership and Change
Antioch University
900 Dayton St.
Yellow Springs, OH 45387

Please note: All materials submitted for application become the property of the Antioch Graduate School of Leadership and Change.