Organizational Leadership (Hybrid Program)

The online hybrid program begins with an on-campus experience in January or July. While on campus, students are introduced to the degree program, oriented to the program procedures, meet faculty and fellow students, and begin their graduate education. This experience begins on a Tuesday evening and concludes on Saturday morning. During the first two terms, students complete three online courses as well as a project that allows them to apply learning from the three courses to their particular work environment.

The following semester students return for a second on-campus residential experience. This opportunity includes presentations of projects and the beginning of the first course in the next semester. The 2nd year will continue this pattern.

The program is aligned with the Baldrige Model for assessing effective organizations. As such, we have courses addressing each of the components of the model. We are practice oriented and require students to complete and present projects related to their organizations with high potential for making improvements within them.

Subsystems addressed within the organization include the following:

Leadership
Strategic Planning
Customer Focus
Workforce Development
Process Management
Results

The glue that ties each of these together is the Information and Knowledge Management component of the organization.

Is a Master of Organizational Leadership degree right for you?

Many busy professionals in business, education, non-profit, government or Christian ministry organizations are eager to earn a master’s degree that will enhance their potential to help lead their organizations or operating units to sustained levels of performance excellence. The Evangel University Master’s of Organizational Leadership program is designed to meet this need. This unique program focuses on the concepts and skills needed to develop a positive, results-oriented organizational culture that maximizes the potential of its people and the performance of the organization.

The program emphasizes leadership, customer/constituent focus, strategic planning, process management, human resource development, information and analysis, and performance results. The program includes work-related assignments that will help you develop leadership skills that can be immediately utilized in any kind of organization.

The foundations for leadership are established in the first two courses and applied throughout the remainder of the program. This leadership course will cover values and ethics, visioning, organizational transformation, and building support for mission and purpose. The Introduction to Organizational Assessment course will enable you to understand a systems approach to organizational leadership that drives performance excellence. As a result, the MOL program enables students from diversified areas of undergraduate study to enhance their ability to successfully lead organizations with a variety of missions.

MOL vs. MBA

Research shows that high-performance organizations are the ones focusing more on the human rather than financial side of management. Many leaders and managers already have the skills or support they need for financial management. A typical Master’s of Business Administration (MBA) program is based on a profit-oriented business model with leadership decisions based on financial results. The MOL program does not ignore the importance of understanding financial results and management, but focuses on how you utilize effective leadership skills to optimize the human potential of your organization and to achieve and sustain levels of performance excellence. Our program is also designed to develop leaders who possess Christian character, integrity and professional excellence.

The MOL program attracts people in for-profit businesses as well as those from nonprofit health care, education, governmental, humanitarian, and ministry organizations. This gives all of our students a rich opportunity to discover what is unique about other organizations, but also what is common about them from a leadership perspective. This variety of perspectives broadens the conceptual thinking of each student.

The cost of completing the MOL is very competitive to most MBA programs. However, most MBA programs will require you to take several prerequisite courses if you did not graduate from an undergraduate degree with a comprehensive business major. This adds both cost and time for courses such as accounting, economics, information systems, management, and statistics. Our Master’s of Organizational Leadership program is designed for students with a variety of undergraduate degrees who are engaged in management and leadership of both business and non-profit organizations. We do not require any prerequisites.

Program Plan (pdf)

Want to see exactly what classes you will take? The Program Plan (sometimes called a degree sheet) includes all specific requirements - including University proficiencies, Frameworks courses and degree requirements.

Each of Evangel's academic programs is made up of a set of core curriculum, program requirements and electives. The courses listed below are just a small sample of courses that might be taken as a part of this specific program.

The program requires 36 credits of coursework with 11 three-credit courses and 3 one-credit projects. Below is a sample of the classes you will take. For a full list of courses, see the Program Plan (pdf).

Foundations of Leadership	An examination of theories in leadership and management and analysis of assessing organizational leadership effectiveness. Includes an examination of the relationship of personal values, spirituality, ethical choices, and social responsibility and their impact on the leader's ability to influence workplace and public policy.
The Effective Organization	Examination of the Baldrige National Quality Program's Criteria for Performance Excellence and how it is used to assess and improve organizational performance. Cases will be used to explore effective approaches to assessment, report writing, and evaluation. Designed to introduce student to the capstone project. Students will identify an organization for applied research and a mentor within the corporation who will assist them in obtaining access to the information needed to complete the assessment. All information in the organizational assessments will be confidential.
Marketing	Discusses the role of public relations in customer relations, stakeholder communications, and business development. Emphasizes an integrated approach with other marketing tools and the importance of ethics and integrity in public communication about the organization and its products and services. Explores concepts that are essential and adaptable to organizations of any size or type, including nonprofits, government, small businesses, and corporations.
Strategic Management	Explores the formulation, implementation, and management of key strategies that will maximize the organization's core competencies, fulfill customers' and other stakeholders' expectations, and create a sustained level of performance excellence. The course examines mission, vision, values, long-and short-range goals and objectives, and various kinds of strategies and controls used to develop the organization's direction and sustain its performance.
Organizational Design & Development	Explores the primary roles of managers and leaders within the context of organizational environments, including economic, technological, political, and social. Organizational design will also be studied in the context of globalization and organizational life cycles and their impact on organizational culture and how it will lead the facilitate change.

Evangel University's world-class faculty is made up of caring, Christian professionals who are distinguished in their fields and dedicated to the development of tomorrow's Christian leaders.

Bernie Dana: Business Department chair

Prior to joining the Evangel University faculty in 2001, Bernie Dana served as the executive vice president of Vetter Health Services, Inc. (VHS) based in Omaha, Nebraska. He was also the corporate secretary and member of the board of directors of Vetter Holding, Inc., its 33 subsidiary corporations, and The Vetter Foundation, a charitable organization [...]