Creative Leadership: Degree Information

This foundational survey course examines leadership through a creative lens. A key premise of this course is that we need the methodologies of artists and designers alongside those of scientists and entrepreneurs to undertake necessary transformational change and worldmaking. The in-demand creative skills introduced through this course, which can be applied at any scale and scope of endeavor, include: resourcefulness, adaptability, comfort with reinvention and failure, deep listening, empathy, critique, systems thinking, disciplined imagination, storytelling, facilitation, and community building. The course reviews major contemporary leadership theories and approaches; and students spend time considering their own leadership style, philosophy, strengths, and weaknesses. Finally, students develop a plan outlining key goals for their ongoing journey through the program and begin the process of documenting that journey.

Learning Outcomes  

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Compare and contrast key leadership theories and approaches, with a particular focus on the features and drivers of progressive leadership. 
2. Observe, describe, interpret, and apply the methods of artists and designers,i.e., their ways of knowing, being, and doing in a leadership context. 
3. Apply the Three Horizons Framework at a basic level to engage a given system, e.g., organization, community, industry. 
4. Identify one’s strengths and weaknesses as a leader; articulate one’s current leadership philosophy; and identify change goals at the level of self (career), organization (team), and/or community (system). 
5. Demonstrate basic interpersonal skills in deep listening, moral imagination, stepping up/stepping back, collaboration, facilitation, storytelling, and critical response. 
6. Commit to a practice of critical self-reflection and ongoing documentation in a journal; actively contribute to fostering an MACL community of practice, inquiry, and care, aimed at supporting one another on the learning journey.

In support of a more inclusive, equitable society, this course invites exploration of a range of relational practices for cultural understanding and change, in response to calls for civic imagination and systemic transformation. It examines how practices of artists and other creators develop critical (lost) ways of knowing that are central to human development and how they support an increasingly called-for shift in leadership–away from one grounded in individualism, competition, scarcity, exploitation of people, and extraction of natural resources, but toward one grounded in self-organizing (or collectivism), collaboration, abundance, and care for both people and planet. Students will experience and reflect on resilience under pressure, their habits of relationship, somatic self-awareness, attentional capacity, decision-making in uncertainty, power dynamics, community-driven design processes, and creative placekeeping. This residency also fosters community building within the Master of Arts in Creative Leadership program itself and centers the value of intentionally formed networks, communities of practice, and peer groups. Individuals with shared goals support one another, exchange knowledge, develop skills, and advance thinking and progress in a particular domain.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Locate oneself and others in the context of place and people (past, present, and future), and tell one’s story from that context.
2. Demonstrate somatic self-awareness in relationship to one’s work as a leader by connecting bodily experiences, along with associated feelings and knowledge, to decisions and actions.
3. Lead and engage in a process of community building, listening, and making adjustments internally and externally to foster camaraderie, form relationships, and act collectively.
4. Reflect meaningfully on one’s ways of knowing, being, and doing, while identifying both strengths and areas for development.
5. Recognize a shift away from rationalization and towards relational processes in a range of settings, while identifying ways to apply the concept of relationality in a variety of contexts.
6. Describe the nature of one’s creative capacities and begin identifying elements of a personal Creative Leadership Praxis.

How do you co-create workplaces where people can thrive and feel agency? Where policies, practices, language, programs and initiatives center values of anti-racism, inclusion, equity, and justice? What are the tools, frameworks, resources, questions, and approaches that can help “operationalize” a commitment into a reality? And what work do leaders need to do internally to undertake this change with others? These are among the questions addressed in this course. Key topics to be covered within the overarching themes of cultural competence and workplace inclusion are: recognizing and addressing biases; shifting a racist culture or climate within your organization; creating an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization; the work of decolonization; equitable search, recruitment and hiring processes; and healthy conflict. 

Learning Outcomes  

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Identify and address areas where learning and personal growth are needed to exercise cultural competence and humility. 
2. Assess the organizational culture and identify areas for necessary change. 
3. Work with others to effect necessary change in four areas: Language, Policy, Practice, and Program / Initiative / Offering. 
4. Create and maintain an evolving toolbox of resources to support the work of becoming a culturally competent leader and building an inclusive workplace 
5. Demonstrate conversational receptiveness and capacity to engage in healthy conflict with colleagues and others.

How is change funded if not with philanthropic dollars? How do you convert social capital to economic capital? What are the advantages and disadvantages of creating an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP), versus a cooperative versus incorporating as a 501c3 Nonprofit? When is a joint-venture appropriate and when is a partnership agreement a better option? This course examines both traditional and emerging business structures, financial models, and forms of partnership used to create and sustain social, cultural, or environmental change. A key premise of this course is that the business structure and financial model used by an organization should align and advance (not undermine or constrain) its social, cultural, and environmental values and ability to achieve its purposes beyond profit. After analyzing a range of examples and cases, students apply a methodology taught in the course to identify a business structure and financial model that will best reflect their values and the type of change they are seeking to advance.

Learning Outcomes 

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Describe both traditional and emerging business structures used to advance social and environmental change, as well as the major benefits and limitations of each.
2. Analyze and evaluate different organizational legal structures against a set of metrics to determine its appropriateness for various use cases.
3. Understand the basic relationship between social, political, cultural, and economic forms of capital and ways to convert, in particular, social and cultural capital into economic capital to resource an enterprise or change initiative.
4. Analyze different models for fundraising and financing to advance change and evaluate which models are most appropriate given a range of factors.
5. Distinguish between partnerships, collaborations, and joint-ventures, identify examples of each within and across sectors, and understand in which circumstances to use each.
6. Design an organizational structure that reflects their values and goals and is flexible and adaptive to the complexities of creating social and environmental change.

This course introduces students to a framework and processes to address complex social challenges, grounded in the principles and methods of design thinking with elements from other schools of thought, such as social entrepreneurship, systems change, lean methodology, and community-centered approaches. Addressing such challenges requires a set of behaviors and mindsets that can be mastered and applied by intrapreneurs or entrepreneurs. Following a conceptual foundation, the course will shift to the analysis of case studies which illustrate the impact and potential scalability of design-informed solutions to complex social problems. Students will then apply tools they have learned moving from insights to execution in an iterative manner. Key steps in the process include:building empathy and relationships; visioning, identifying, and clarifying a community need; analyzing the larger environment in which a need or problem is situated; building coalitions for co-creation; prototyping one or more solutions to address the need; testing and evaluating those solutions; and developing ways to seed and scale the intervention for long-term social impact.

Learning Outcomes  

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Demonstrate problem-solving acumen through application of lateral, convergent, and divergent thinking to complex problems. 
2. Apply design-informed approaches to analyze and address complex workplace and/or community challenges.
3. Create legitimate motivating paths for community/stakeholder input in design processes. 
4. Develop effective, values-based collaborations, including with those working in other sectors. 
5. Develop outcomes and measures of success tied to social impact. 
6. Lead, enable, and  catalyze the sensing, visioning, prototyping, seeding, and evaluation phases of a small-scale, community-engaged design for social innovation process.

The course introduces students to management processes, practices and tools employed within decentralized networks, organizations and teams to support collective visioning, planning, decision-making, budgeting and operations. As a key component of this work, students learn to cultivate an agile mindset: that is, the capacity to respond to unpredictable and complex environments, a rapidly changing marketplace, disruptions stemming from the increasing interdependence of systems or internal feedback loops and learning. This course focuses on applying these practices to the challenge of leading self-managed teams, including hybrid and remote work that has become prevalent in the wake of the pandemic. This course will also examine the evolution of distributed autonomous organizations ‘DAO’ community-led entities without central authority that are fully autonomous and transparent and operate using blockchain technology.   

Learning Outcomes

1. Explain why and how organizations are evolving to become more decentralized, including the implications for self-managing teams and remote or hybrid groups and key differences from more traditional hierarchical structures.
2. Develop a plan or framework for collective visioning, planning, decision making, budgeting or operations in relationship to one’s own Matter of Concern at the level of team, organization, community, network or system.
3. Make connections between the practices examined in this course with the macro-environmental conditions, evolving paradigm of leadership, and principles of collaboration examined in prior courses.
4. Apply one or more frameworks to an agile project within one’s own organization.
5. Explore and reflect upon one’s capacities and challenges related to applying the processes, practices and tools employed within decentralized organizations, and self-managing teams. 
6. Collaboratively design a workshop on making the shift from a traditional, hierarchical organization to a decentralized organization.

There is increasing recognition that transformational change is needed to realize a just society where all life thrives, but less clarity on what this involves. During this course, students explore the essential role of collaboration across differences to imagining and realizing transformational change. In doing so, it honors the wisdom embodied by many indigenous groups and spiritual traditions and attempts to decolonize the practice of 'systems change.' This course additionally challenges the dichotomous relationship between culture and nature that is embedded in a Western worldview and, alongside the models for change from the natural world, asserts the critical role of creators, culture-bearers, as well as the capacities for (and fruits of) human imagination more generally to the processes of transformational change. Because culturally constructed paradigms shape social systems, this course additionally asserts that having the capacity to reflect upon, problematize, and transcend one's worldview is a critical capacity for change-makers and world builders. While, ’systems change’ work often stops short of incorporating such invisible yet critical domains of beliefs, identities, and worldview, this course integrates them. Ultimately, students identify creative ways to apply the principles and frameworks of this course to their personal and professional development, including to a progressive community change project.

Learning Outcomes

1. Distinguish different types of problems (simple, complicated, and complex).
2. Compare and contrast major systems change frameworks, their leverage points and their relationship to transformational change.   
3. Exhibit the  ways the arts, culture, and human imagination facilitate emergence.  
4. Distinguish between one’s personal identity and social identity and understand how this affects one’s worldview and approach to change work.
5. Analyze the worldview from which one operates and develop practices for exercising cultural safety as a leader of transformational change.
6. Using values-centered practices, collaborate across differences with greater ease and support others in doing the same.

This course focuses on the issues and trends in the area of ecological and regenerative sustainability, with attention paid to their interconnection to economic and social sustainability (e.g. environmental and social justice, inequity, and the North-South divide), as well as the role of art and design in sustainability. While a range of sustainability frameworks (e.g. triple bottom line, limits to growth, nature’s principles, and the natural step) are covered, students move beyond the goal of reducing harms and explore regenerative approaches. Students ultimately apply course concepts to design a regenerative approach to sustainability within a real-world context, and initiate a personal journey of transformation for regenerative leadership.

Learning Outcomes

1. Define environmental sustainability within its historic context and explain the evolving relationship between environmental and social impacts.
2. Analyze the potential uses and limitations of historic sustainability frameworks, including triple bottom line, limits to growth, nature’s principles, the natural step, and the 3R’s (reuse, recycle, reduce).
3. Apply the concept of regeneration and distinguish a regenerative approach to sustainability from earlier approaches.
4. Investigate approaches to sustainability within one’s field or community, identifying patterns, prototypes, and possible partners.
5. Create the rationale and identify tools for undertaking a personal journey with regenerative sustainability.
6. Collaborate with peers to design a regenerative approach to sustainability within an organizational or community context.

To graduate all students must complete a capstone designed to apply and demonstrate knowledge and skills gained through the program. The Creative Leadership Capstone is composed of a handful of components related to a Matter of Concern (a values-based change that one is seeking to address, galvanize, or realize): the planning and execution of a Community Change Project; the development of a Creative Leadership Praxis (drawing upon the learning portfolio developed over the course of the program); the design and delivery of a workshop or comparable knowledge-sharing experience; the completion of a written essay (or comparable work of thought leadership); and the presentation of one’s Creative Leadership Journey in the form of a Story of Self, Us, and Now. While all four capstone components are undertaken during Creative Leadership Capstone (7410), some elements are completed or fully executed when students are in Minneapolis for their final residency, Leader as Community Builder (7414). In CL 7410 students execute, evaluate and give a final presentation on their Community Change Project; design a workshop that they will test-drive in Minneapolis; produce an extended essay or other piece of thought leadership; and draft a Story of Self, Us & Now to be rehearsed, finalized, and delivered in Minneapolis. Both CL 7410 and CL 7414 are offered on a pass/fail basis.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course students should be able to:

1. Undertake a process of unlearning one or more top-down leadership approaches in order to build participatory leadership approaches and skills.
2. Lead a collective action to realize a values-based change aimed at improving conditions, or otherwise strengthening a community of which you are a part.
3. Design an experiential learning opportunity intended to demonstrate and share knowledge or skills gained through the MA Creative Leadership program
4. Create authentic, distinctive, engaging research-driven content that applies student expertise, insights, and experiences to drive change and create educational value.
5. Reflect critically, compassionately, and creatively on one’s journey through the program and develop a public narrative to communicate about that journey.
6. Undertake a critical review of one’s portfolio and begin to sense-make, shape, and curate content for an intended goal and audience (of one or many).

This three-week course is composed of two online weeks and one long week in residence in Minneapolis. It is designed to work in tandem with Creative Leadership Capstone (7410). In the process of completing key elements of their capstone, or sharing this work with others, students demonstrate a range of skills that are necessary to Creative Leadership community building, including: empathy, perception, authentic interpersonal communication, active and deep listening, facilitation or community coaching, and effective storytelling or other methods for engaging / educating others. During the week in Minneapolis students share their Creative Leadership stories, knowledge, and skills with others; support the development of an MA Creative Leadership Community of Inquiry, Practice, and Care; and examine the work of local community builders who are effectively fostering conversation and collaboration across sectors to support the creative transformation of the Twin Cities. Successful completion of CL 7410 is a prerequisite for participation in CL 7414. Both courses are offered on a Pass/Fail basis. 

Learning Outcomes

By the end of this course student should be able to:

1. Explain and facilitate a Re-sourcing Circle Process, or other methods to foster individual and community wellbeing, healing, and sovereignty through the navigation of challenges and opportunities.
2. Lead a workshop or other live, experiential-learning opportunity designed to share knowledge or skills gained through the MA Creative Leadership program
3. Apply the Marshall Ganz Public Narrative process to connect with and engage others with one’s Creative Leadership Story / Matter of Concern.
4. Establish a Creative Leadership Praxis to support one’s ongoing development post-graduation.
5. Actively participate in convenings, conversations, and collaborations aimed at understanding, practicing and advocating for Creative Leadership.