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Structure and content

OVERVIEW OF MODULES AND ELECTIVES

This programme is delivered in four on-campus blocks (six days each) spread over one year. This allows participants who work full-time to attend, and to start applying newly acquired skills in their workplace immediately.

Students need to complete the six compulsory modules and one elective. The modules establish the foundations of the four dimensions of leadership development, namely Me (personal leadership), We (interpersonal or team leadership), Work (organisational leadership) and World (societal leadership). The optional elective enables participants to develop a specific leadership attribute or a more specialised core competence.

Modules – all six compulsory

• Module 1: High-performance Personal Authentic Leadership (18 credits)
• Module 2: High-impact Leadership and Teaming (12 credits)
• Module 3: Creating and Leading High-performance Organisational Culture (18 credits)
• Module 4: Transformation and Competitiveness – Beyond the mechanics of BBBEE (12 credits)
• Module 5: Strategy as the Art of Execution (18 credits)
• Module 6: The Role of Business in Society (12 credits)

Electives – choose one

• Negotiation and Change Leadership (30 credits)
• Process-oriented Leadership and System Dynamics of Transformation (30 credits)
• Leaders Coaching Leaders (30 credits)

Module 1: High-performance Personal Authentic Leadership

This module covers various leadership frameworks to demonstrate leadership diversity. It explores the diversity of leadership roles and competencies, and the contributions to develop high-impact leadership and teaming. It also covers productive contributions and potential aberrant dynamics of diverse leadership styles, and the importance for leaders to undergo a personal leadership values shift. On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• Understand the context of leadership in the 21st century and use this to assess their own values and worldviews
• Understand the leadership styles, attributes and competencies that enable individuals to identify their own authentic leadership style
• Understand the necessity for leaders to adopt a positive stance and use positive deviance approaches to develop themselves and others
• Assess the leadership styles of self and others
• Facilitate the understanding of self and others to leverage strengths and developmental opportunities.

Module 2: High-impact Leadership and Teaming

This module covers the dynamics of leadership diversity in teams and optimising the diversity of teams to achieve sustainable high performance. It also covers the development of high-impact leadership and teaming as a cornerstone of sustainable organisational performance and team interaction skills. On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• Understand how different leadership styles and perspectives affect interpersonal dynamics
• Assess and understand the drivers of high-impact leadership and teaming
• Know how to use team assessment techniques to build teams
• Develop and apply the practices that enhance the impact of diverse leadership teams that contain a diversity of leadership styles and perspectives
• Identify and leverage team strengths as well as compensate for shortcomings
• Pre-emptively identify potential shortcomings in a team and coach them accordingly
• Use the collective diversity of teams to assess challenges and allocate appropriate people to appropriate tasks
• Identify and proactively address behaviours that potentially undermine the performance of teams
• Anticipate and work constructively with team dynamics and development.

Module 3: Creating and Leading High-performance Organisational Culture

This module unpacks the requirements of creating a high-performance organisational culture and offers case studies on organisational leadership interventions that have achieved sustainable transformation in organisations. Organisational status and the development of high-performance organisational transformations programmes are analysed. The evolution of organisational change and development is also covered. On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• Understand the drivers of a high-performance organisational culture
• Assess the status of an organisation's culture and determine the extent to which it is conducive to or hinders sustainable high performance
• Analyse the status of an organisation's values and how these reinforce or hinder sustainable high performance
• Identify strategic priorities to drive the creation of a high-performance culture that meets the context of specific situations
• Understand the evolution of organisational culture and how to fit initiatives into the organisational context
• Develop a change leadership process to drive the successful creation of a high-performance organisational culture.

Module 4: Transformation and Competitiveness – Beyond the mechanics of BBBEE

This module reviews the research on the successes and failures in transformation. It covers the impact of historic and prevailing socio-economic and political dynamics on leadership and organisations. It looks at how to integrate the imperatives of transformation related to multicultural and class challenges and how this affects the need for sustainable competitiveness. It includes case studies of successful BBBEE transformation. On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• Understand the context and imperatives of BBBEE and related transformation of attitudes and perceptions
• Develop and communicate an integrated strategy to motivate the need for transformation related to BBBEE
• Comprehend and work with the key dynamics of multicultural environments
• Develop integrated strategies to achieve sustainable BBBEE-related transformation and competitiveness
• Understand the pitfalls and inhibitors of transformation and address these as part of an integrated strategy.

Module 5: Strategy as the Art of Execution

This module covers multiple frameworks for strategy development and execution, and the use of strategy to drive execution and alignment across the organisation. It also looks at how to make strategy accessible and concrete to all levels and functions, how to use disciplined processes to optimise successful strategy implementation, and how to build continuous improvement and innovation into strategy execution. On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• Position strategy execution as a primary driver of continuous improvement, innovation and sustainable competitiveness
• Integrate the long-term and short-term demands of strategy as well as the effectiveness (doing the right thing) and efficiency (doing the things right) demands
• Assess the culture of strategy execution and responsiveness (as opposed to and in addition to strategy as formulation processes)
• Identify and address typical pitfalls to strategy execution
• Entrench leadership, managerial and organisational practices and processes to drive strategy execution
• Use the cycle of Stature-Alignment-Focus-Execution to optimise strategic leadership and execution.

Module 6: The Role of Business in Society and in the Environment

This module explores the role of business in society and the challenges that contribute to active citizenship and social development. It looks at the environmental challenges facing society and at the role of organisations in addressing environmental issues. It also identifies ways in which organisations can entrench eco-friendly practices. On completion of this module, students will be able to:

• Assess the extent to which the organisation is playing an active role with regard to organisational citizenship
• Identify opportunities for the organisation to contribute actively and constructively to public life and social development
• Do a preliminary assessment of the implications of environmental challenges to organisations
• Determine the status of the organisation's awareness and focus on environmental affairs as a strategic priority
• Develop a draft proposal for the development of an organisational strategy on how to deal with environmental challenges.

Elective 1: Negotiation and Change Leadership

This elective covers aspects of change: how to understand change, options for change leadership, imperatives for successful change, why change fails, the role of leadership in change, how to select the most appropriate change leadership options, sustaining change, managing change in the long term, and complex processes. It also covers aspects of conflict: sources of conflict, the conflict path, conflict behaviour, conflict management styles, dispute resolution options and dispute systems design. Negotiations and negotiation processes are also included. On completion of this elective, students will be able to:

• Select and apply the most appropriate change leadership approaches to address the needs of the situation
• Apply integrated change leadership techniques and processes to drive optimal change initiatives
• Build change leadership into the day-to-day ways of addressing leadership and organisational challenges
• Prepare a change leadership roll-out plan for a specific intervention
• Understand conflict, its origins, manifestations and behaviours
• Be familiar with a range of dispute settlement options
• Understand negotiation techniques and processes
• Have sound knowledge of conflict resolution principles and practices
• Apply negotiation and conflict resolution practices.

Elective 2: Process-oriented Leadership and System Dynamics

This elective covers the dynamics of teams and group processes and the role of polarisation, splitting and sublimated issues in group interaction. It will show participants how to apply process-oriented leadership and facilitation techniques to enhance group and team interaction, and how to use conscious and subconscious dynamics to enhance productive interdependence and engagement. On completing of this elective, students will be able to:

• Understand human systems dynamics and polarisation in groups
• Recognise and address polarisation in groups or teams
• Assist conflicted parties to recognise their own contributions to the conflict and how to overcome this
• Identify underlying and unspoken dynamics and enable them to surface so that they can be addressed
• Define why meetings and interactions stall or cover the same ground continuously, and find out how to achieve productive movement and progress in groups
• Identify biases and prejudice which operate at subliminal levels, and enable groups and individuals to work with them in productive ways to resolve conflict
• Work with power and rank issues that overtly or covertly inhibit productive group processes
• Turn power and rank issues into a positive source of interaction and group interaction.

Elective 3: Leaders Coaching Leaders

This elective covers the role of coaching in nurturing and developing the talent of others. It looks at the development of competencies required by people in leadership and managerial roles to facilitate constructive coaching interactions with other people. In addition, it shows participants how to apply core coaching competencies to drive constructive performance reviews and the coaching of others. On completion of this elective, students will be able to:

• Understand the leader's role as coach
• Understand and motivate the need for coaching to develop talent
• Apply the core skills required to coach others, specifically reflective listening, non-directive dialogue, identifying and focusing on strengths, providing the coachee with the capacity to create a personal development programme
• Differentiate between coaching and mentoring
• Apply a range of dialogue methods which cover the continuum between mentoring and coaching
• Assess whether the coachee requires greater focus on mentoring or coaching, and respond accordingly
• Assess personal coaching and mentoring styles, and adapt where required.

Programme head

The programme is presented under the auspices of the Centre of Leadership Studies at the USB. The programme is headed by senior lecturer extraordinaire Christo Nel. He has more than 20 years of experience in the fields of leadership and organisational development, and has extensive experience at managerial and executive levels. He has served as executive director of large organisations, and he is a published author in the field of leadership and creating high-performance organisations.

Faculty

The lecturers include some of the best minds in leadership development in South Africa and elsewhere. All the academic staff members have higher qualifications and are experienced in facilitating leadership development within a range of small to corporate environments.