Management & Organizational Leadership

Today's work organizations expect professionals to both manage and lead. These dual functions are essential to organizational success -- managements deals with maintaining and improving organizational effectiveness, whereas leadership deals with creating an inspired workforce and readying the organization for change.

The Management and Organizational Leadership (MOL) major prepares students for the challenging task of both managing and leading. Specifically, MOL students acquire skills in planning and budgeting, and in establishing a direction for the future; students learn how to recruit, hire and appropriately deploy human resources, and how to align human capital with strategic objectives; students gain competency in monitoring work processes and developing fair compensation strategies, and in motivating and inspiring others to go above and beyond expectations; finally, MOL students gain skills in instilling order and predictability in the workplace, and in leading change and ensuring long-term organizational sustainability.

Beyond these core managerial and leadership skills, MOL students gain specialized skills in an area of interest to them by pursuing one (or more) of the MOL major tracks. There are five tracks: Organizational Sustainability and Resiliency, Human Resource Management, Business Communication, Non-Profit and Public Management, and Entrepreneurial Management. Importantly, our tracks are highly interdisciplinary in nature, drawing from within and without the Zimpleman College of Business. Further, coursework in the tracks is both academic, and experiential; this is important, because management and leadership skills are learned both through classroom instruction and via practical experience.

The Management and Organizational Leadership major prepares students to succeed in private, public and non-profit organizations. In addition, MOL students are exposed to the issues and challenges of managing and leading organizations in a global economy. Issues of diversity and inclusion, ethics in work organizations, and organizational sustainability are core to the MOL curriculum.

MOL students are able to succeed in a slew of exciting careers, such as people management, operations and supply chain management, customer service, purchasing and sales, and communications management, as well as local or state government, and community or non-profit organizations. Students may attain positions as management consultants, department managers, franchise managers, city managers, and non-profit managers, and may work in diverse industries from financial services to manufacturing to retail to government and non-profits.