Lead with Purpose

Leadership, M.A.


Lead with purpose and cultivate diverse, effective teams. Be prepared for leadership in today’s complex and changing contexts.

In today's world, leaders are tasked with managing increasing complexity. As organizations become more geographically distributed and diverse, leaders must be able to effectively guide people and manage systems through innovation, change-acceleration and globalization.

Our flexible, online Master of Arts in Leadership program is designed for working adults who seek to strengthen their leadership skills and aspire to take on new leadership roles. In this 33-credit hour program, you will learn to lead teams and organizations both relationally and strategically. You will develop your leadership purpose and strengths to lead effectively in a wide variety of contexts.

The program can be started in any semester and be completed at a full-time, half-time or part-time pace. 

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Program Customization


You work with an advisor to craft an interdisciplinary course of study that best prepares you for current or planned leadership contexts. More than a third of the degree credits are electives where you can choose from more than 100 courses to match with your career interests and desired areas of leadership development.

For example, courses of study can be customized for the following focus areas:

  • Business
  • Diversity, equity, and inclusion
  • Nonprofit
  • Higher education
  • Sports teams and organizations

Program Delivery


Leadership is all about engaging with people. So, to enable our students to learn the personal aspects of leadership, the core leadership courses include 90-minute synchronous class sessions using Zoom once a week. Each class session enables you to discuss what you are learning from that module and engage with others as part of your learning experience. 

Many of the core leadership courses are conducted in a mini-term format, allowing you to focus your attention on fewer classes at once.

Note: While the program is offered in a format that makes it available to students in a fully remote manner (i.e., does not require attending courses on-site), some elective courses do not offer that option. In addition, electives vary in scheduled format, with some offered in mini-terms and others offered over the course of a full term.

Liz Cox

I am applying what I have learned in my leadership courses to my career every day. The courses challenged me to be a critical thinker in the workplace, embracing leadership and diversity.

Liz Cox MA'22

Program Requirements

The Master of Arts in Leadership develops innovative, relationally perceptive and reflective professionals skilled at leading with purpose in a changing world. Students who currently work in (or plan to work in) public, private and nonprofit organizations will benefit from this 33-credit hour degree designed to provide analytical and practical tools for leadership in multiple contexts.

Program Goals

The program is designed to develop four particular leadership capacities in graduate students.

  • Purposeful Leaders
    Students demonstrate confidence in making leadership choices based on clarity of personal and organizational purpose.
  • Leadership Range
    Students are fluent in applying interdisciplinary leadership theory and data to address the challenges and opportunities of an organization or community.
  • Relational Leadership Savvy
    Students are perceptive in applying cognitive and emotional skills to lead themselves and diverse others.
  • Reflective Practitioners
    Students habitually use a reflective and iterative approach to leading.

Flexible Structure

Designed for working adults, this degree provides flexibility in both the course of study and the sequence and pace of the program. 

  • Personal Course of Study
    Drawing on Lenoir-Rhyne's liberal arts heritage, at the start of the program, students work with their advisor to craft an interdisciplinary course of study that best prepares them for their current or planned leadership contexts. More than a third of the degree credits are electives where students can choose from over 100 courses. In particular, students often choose to pursue elective tracks in higher education, business, sports and diversity, equity and inclusion.
  • Degree Sequence and Pace
    Designed for adult students who are working full-time or managing other significant external commitments, this program can be started in any semester and be completed at a full-time, half-time or part-time pace. Additionally, students can pursue this degree remotely since the courses are offered in a streaming 2 format (which means a portion of the class is synchronously broadcast from an instructor's computer to students in remote sites in real time and a portion of the class is asynchronous online).

Program Admission Requirements

Visit graduate admission for the most current program admission requirements.

Program Core and Electives

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