Doctor of Strategic Leadership

The Doctor of Strategic Leadership program exists to provide a way for students to pursue knowledge about leading their organization with intentional strategy. Organizations are looking for strategic thinkers and leaders who can provide forecasting about future trends in organizations. Leaders who think strategically organize information in a methodical way while apply practical theories of leadership to supplement their forecast. Strategic leaders inform their strategy with field specific statistical and numerical models to appraise current practice within a field or setting. These projections coupled with modern and contemporary leadership theory are what set them apart from leaders who do not engage in strategic thinking. Strategic thinkers always consider the future and attempt to intercept a need before it is a need. This type of forecast is invaluable to the company's bottom line and helps leaders in organizations stay laser focused on their mission to avoid mission drift. Strategic leaders know data mining without action is fruitless and causes organizations to become stagnant and irrelevant. This program addresses strategic leadership from several different perspectives with a student's concentration, Strategic Foresight, as the center of its mission.

Doctor of Strategic Leadership Program Learning Outcomes

  1. Critique leadership theories in various workforces to improve an organization's position and strategy.
  2. Appraise and construct meaningful analytic systems and processes within the organization to improve strategic forecasting.
  3. Articulate the role of strategic plans in organizational budgets, marketing plans, innovation, and change initiatives.
  4. Analyze trends and determine direction for innovation and technology in organizations.
  5. Examine the role of human resources and its impact on resilience in organizations.

Degrees and Certificates

Classes

DSL 700 : Leadership Theory and Practice

Exposes and familiarizes students with foundational leadership theories and concepts as they relate to strategic leadership. Students will engage in appreciative inquiry and reflection to comprehend course topics. Topics include: Leader's personal philosophy of strategic leadership and foresight, organizational change readiness and resilience, innovation and the changing workforce, organizational structure, structure and risk communication, and overview of board leadership, governance, budgeting and marketing.

Credits

3

DSL 720 : Budgets, Finance and Resource Allocation in Organizations

Disseminates students to the relationship between foundational leadership theories, forecasting equations and concepts related to budgets, finance, and resource allocation in organizations. Topics include strategies, structures, and the environment; budgetary decision making and politics; financial management and analytical models, and effectively communicating data.

Credits

3

DSL 730 : Managing and Responding to Risk in Organizations

Exposes and familiarizes students with foundational leadership theories and concepts as they relate to strategic leadership. Students will engage in appreciative inquiry and reflection to comprehend course topics. Topics include: types of risk within organizations, framing risk and risk narrative, internal vs. external risks in a cross-cultural context, risk’s impact on industries and settings, potential positive and negative outcomes associated with managing risk, how to gauge risk in strategic planning.

Credits

3

DSL 740 : Technology in Organizations

Equips students with foundational leadership and forecast theories as they relate to the use of technology in organizations. Topics include using artificial intelligence in the workplace, leading a digital work environment, managing connectivity and information-sharing in a globalized industry and economies, gauging social media’s impact on organizational culture and employee autonomy, engaging and empowering a virtual workforce, and addressing ethical concerns related to employees and technologies in and outside of the workplace.

Credits

3

DSL 750 : Marketing that Informs the Strategic Plan

Devises and broadcasts marketing strategies related to the strategic planning of the organization. Students will understand and develop their own responses to the argument between Christian marketing principles and conventional marketing strategies. 
Topics will include advertising, affiliate marketing, analytics, authenticity, blogging, branding, competition, consumer behavior, content marketing, customer value, effective communication, email marketing, evolution of marketing theory and concepts, ethics, hooks, how to guide decisions balanced with an understanding of markets and competition, influence, keyword research, lead magnets, marketing campaigns, networking, partnerships, persuasion, podcast, readability, return on investment, role of marketing, SEO, social media marketing, statistical benchmarks, StoryBrand marketing, truth and the WOW factor.

Credits

3

DSL 760 : Strategic Foresight

Examines and explains the conceptual framework for strategic foresight in organizational leadership. Topics include: systems thinking, environmental scanning, scenario development, framing- purpose and scope, research- information and scanning intelligence, forecasting-baseline and scenarios, visioning- vision and goals, planning-mission and strategy, acting-initiatives and results.

Credits

3