Skip to main content
Loading Explore guides…
Leadership & Management Track · Acedra
Home
Explore
Business
Leadership & Management Track
Sign in to save
Chat
If YouTube asks you to sign in, open the video on YouTube.
Watch on YouTube
Reload player
Transcript
46 segments
Copy
Hide video
0:04
Hi everyone, I hope you're doing well. I'm Corine Boon, I'm the track coordinator of the Leadership & Management track. In this video I will give you more information about what the track is about and also I've asked two of our Leadership & Management alumni, Marieke Rooze and Jori Trouw, to also share their experiences. We have embedded their videos in which they share their experiences in this interactive video so you will be able to access that as well.
0:38
We really hope that like this it's helpful for you and it will give you a good view of what the Leadership & Management track is about.
0:49
What we do in the Leadership & Management track is that we focus on strategic business issues but then from a people perspective. So if you run into certain problems or you want to improve some business outcomes in many cases it is really interesting to look at how you can lead and manage people in the most effective way in order to solve these issues. People are essential for the success of organisations. When you work in an organization, when you work in whatever function
1:32
whether you're a manager or not you'll be dealing with these dynamics of teams, organisations and also you will deal with things like individual motivation, et cetera. In this track we prepare you for solving people-related business issues by teaching you how to approach these kind of issues. How to make certain decisions regarding people management and leadership such that you will know how to approach these in the most effective way. In doing so we use theory,
2:18
which helps you to really understand why things occur and how things occur in the organisation and then we apply these theories to a real-life situation. I will come back to that shortly. Our approach in the Leadership & Management track is... We have a very personal approach. We really emphasise a lot of interactions between students so that you can also learn from each other's experiences and each other's viewpoints but also interactions between the lecturers and the students.
2:56
We also organise a lot of things that will help you bond more with the lecturers and also with your fellow students in the track.
3:12
So the central question here in the track is: How can managers make more effective decisions? That is regardless of your functional expertise. The questions that we cover, and these are just a couple of examples of the things that we cover in the track are: How do you inspire and motivate people and build successful firms? How do you align employees' goals with those of the organisation? What makes a leader more charismatic, inspiring and ethical?
3:44
How do you show the right leadership behaviours in a certain situation because they do depend on the situation. How do you design, lead and manage effective teams and how do you manage conflict? So you see these are a lot of components which you need to deal with when working with people in an organisation. In doing so, we always keep in mind what the goal is so we take a very strategic perspective on tackling and exploring these questions.
4:19
In teaching you about Leadership & Management we constantly go back and forth between theory and practice. So the theoretical foundation is really essential in helping you to understand how and why things occur. This will help you to also be able to solve new problems or issues in the future. At the same time we practice a lot with applying these theories... to certain practical situations. We do this for instance, through company challenges, through cases through examples, through discussions.
5:05
And then we also look at for example the latest developments in the business world like working in an agile way. Also the digitisation. What kind of impact does that have on managing and leading people in your organisation? So this constantly going back and forth between theory and practice is really central in our track.
5:32
So this is what the structure of the year looks like. You see in the light green colour, that's the part which specifically focuses on the track. So you start with the theories of Leadership & Management course. Then you have two core courses in period two: Managing People Strategically and Leadership. In period three, which is January, you start working on your thesis, the Thesis Proposal and then you work on your thesis in the second semester.
6:05
The other thing I wanted to mention here is the Business Lab courses in period four and five and I will give a couple of examples shortly. So first the track courses. You start with Theories of Leadership & Management, where we really lay the foundation for the track. We focus on Mechanisms of Leadership, Individual Motivation, Human Capital Management, Team Management and Culture and Values. So here we cover things that are very relevant at the organisational level like Culture and Values,
6:37
the team level but also the individual level, because you need to be able to understand all of that in order to be able to lead people effectively. Managing People Strategically is focused more on the management side of Leadership & Management. It's about Managing Performance, Diversity, Inclusion, Sustainability, Happiness and Wellbeing, Counterproductive Work behaviours. And then in the course Leadership we focus on Leader Behaviour. So, certain types, styles of leadership.
7:12
Leader traits, Leadership & Gender, Ethical Leadership, Leadership & Culture and Leadership & Change. So here the focus is really on the leadership component of Leadership & Management.
7:26
In the Business Lab you can choose whatever you would like. You have to choose two Business Lab courses in block four and block five. You can use this to either deepen your expertise in Leadership & Management or broaden your curriculum, so that's really very open. If you decide to deepen your knowledge in Leadership & Management there are a couple of options here. We have a very skills-based course which caters to leadership in which you work on leadership skills
8:05
you have Performance Management, you have Change Management and People Analytics, and these are specifically focused on Leadership & Management, but again, the choice is completely free and you can look at what fits you best and what fits your interests best.
8:27
Then the thesis. There will be, as you could see in the programme structure, it's quite a big part of your programme. I've included the workload with the topics of last year's theses. I included a number of topics here as well. These are just several examples, and as you can see, it's quite broad. It all has a people component, but as you can see here, leadership, leader narcissism, also gig work, algorithmic management, organisational change, careers, diversity,
9:01
conflict, power, proactive behaviours, job crafting. So it's quite a lot and it really allows you to specialise further into one specific issue that you're really interested in.
9:18
So this was it from my side. If you have any more questions, just let us know, and I hope this video has given you a better view of what we do in the Leadership & Management track. Thank you.
9:39
Hi, my name is Marieke Rooze and I am an alumna of the Leadership and Management track. I had a really great experience doing the master. I had high hopes because of the good reputation of the Business School but also the master itself. I was very eager to get into the programme, since a lot of students apply every year. Especially the Leadership and Management track was interesting because of the courses but also the connection with the big companies,
10:08
and the great future prospects after finishing this track. I think there were three points that really stood out for me: First, the really personal connection within the track. The personal connection with the students but also between the teachers and the students. This personal connection came forth in, for example, the supervision of my thesis but also in the big network I had to set up with the other students, which comes in handy after you graduate.
10:37
The second point was the connection with theory and real-life cases, such as Bol.com or even recent events in the world and the media, which made the knowledge you receive very up-to-date but also practical. And the third point was that all the courses are connected with business cases. For example, in strategic management we got a case from Bol.com where we were able to define a strategy on how to create more diversity with the main goal to create a competitive advantage for Bol.com
11:10
since Amazon was coming for them. So these three points are just one of the few. When you choose the Leadership and Management track your future is set out for you. You're able to go into, for example, strategy or even data, IT, change management, consultancy, just whatever you like or want.
11:37
So my overall experience with the connection between theory and practice is really great. In the first course Strategic Management
11:49
we went to Bol.com. We got a business case from them. And the business case was focused on creating more diversity within the company, but also looking at which aspects they had to improve because one of their biggest competitors was coming: Amazon. So that was really cool to see, how the theory works in practice. Besides that we had to do a business case of an energy organisation and even a business case of the university itself.
12:23
So the Leadership and Management track really searches out the winning companies but also the companies with the best business cases where you learn the most. And I think that's really nice, especially when you are almost done with studying so you can get some more practical experience.
12:48
Hi, my name is Jori. Nice you want to know more about my experience in the track Leadership and Management, and especially in the core courses of this track. So in the first period we had the course Theories of Leadership and Management, which was about introduction to the track, theories about mechanisms of leadership, for example, about team management, about culture and values. And during the course we had to do a group assignment. With around groups of five people
13:19
we had to identify a management or leadership problem within an organisation. And by using the theories we had learned we had to provide a solution to the problem. So me and my group we identified multiple management and leadership problems within Booking.com. And we eventually wrote a report with different solutions to these problems. And in my opinion this assignment was very interesting because you actually apply your learned theories to a real-life case.
13:51
And in this time of the master it was also very nice to meet new students because it was the first period of the master.
14:01
In the second period we had the courses Managing People Strategically and Leadership. And especially the first course was very intensive because at the end of the course we didn't have any exams but we had to do six individual assignments. So at the end of every week we had to deliver an individual assignment. And we had to do one big team assignment, which was called The Company Challenge. And for that assignment we went to Bol.com. To the Bol.com office in Utrecht, which was very nice.
14:38
We had to form groups of four to five people, and we had to come up with a solution for the problem that Bol.com had issues with the inclusion of their employees. Also employees from other countries. So we had to write a report with solutions based on theories we had learned in the course. And we had to make a video, which we eventually had to show to Bol.com at their office. So my experience with this assignment is that it was very nice to put theory into practice.
15:16
And it was nice to see that Bol.com actually learned something about inclusion and how to make everyone feel included in their organisation. For the course Leadership we also didn't have any exams at the end of the course, but we had to do a team assignment and an individual assignment. The individual one was we had to write an essay about a political or a business leader. In my case I wrote it about Mahatma Gandhi. And we had to apply the learned theories about different styles of leadership
15:53
to that specific person. And for the team assignment we had to... Actually it was practice for the Master's thesis so we had to collect data and try to link different variables together and to answer our research question, which was of course leadership related.
16:21
My overall experiences with the Business Labs are really great. It was nice we were able to choose two Business Labs, where you have the choice to go more in-depth within your track or to broaden yourself more. With the Leadership & Management track you could choose from a leadership course, go more into people analytics or for example change management. I chose Change Management, because I was really interested in change within companies, for example data change but also changes during mergers.
16:58
Like a merger between two companies or two departments. Change Management connected all the theories with a real-life company case. My group had a case of a company that was having a big organisational change within the goal to be more sustainable for the future. It was really cool to have sort of an inside look within the company but also connected theory of change management with their real-life problems. The second Business Lab I chose was Operational Excellence.
17:32
There was a course where I was able to broaden my master's more. This course was focused on Lean Six Sigma, the frontrunner of agile working and scrum masters. We did a case with ING and we were even able to receive the Black Belt Certificate. That is the highest level of Lean Six Sigma, which was really cool. With the Business Lab you get and have the opportunity to have more control over your own master's programme
18:00
and even receive practical skills and certificates, which are really nice for your future.
18:11
So I'm going to tell you more about my experience of the master's thesis.
18:18
First how it was organised from the university. It was very structured. As the university first had organised an evening with drinks where you could meet other possible supervisors, which is of course very important because this person will guide you for six months towards the end of your master, actually. And besides this, the university also provided two thesis workshops, which helped me with how to design my survey because I chose to do quantitative research.
18:52
And the university also provided a thesis workshop about how to analyse the data, with many tips and tricks about how to use SP Assess.
19:06
Well I think you are curious about the subject of my thesis. I did my research on a quite new leadership style: Exploitative leadership, of the dark side of leadership. And in exploitative leadership leaders show behaviours which benefit their self-interest. Like genuine egoistic behaviours, taking credit of other's work, exerting pressure, undermining development and manipulating behaviours. And I expected that employees who are narcissists
19:43
will feel that their leaders are exploitative through them through another variable: Distributive injustice perceptions. So because of the personality of narcissists I expected they will feel that they are treated unfairly by their leaders and therefore will see their leaders as exploitative.
20:08
And actually this relation wasn't researched before. And in addition I thought it would be very interesting to see if attributed personality traits to the leader, attributed by the employee, would work as a moderator in the effect on how the employee would perceive the leader as exploitative. So I expected that when high levels of conscientiousness and emotional stability was attributed to the leader, the employee would perceive the leader as more exploitative.
20:44
Because they would think that their leader is being exploitative on purpose. And when there were high levels of attributed agreeableness, I expected employees would perceive the leader as less exploitative.
20:59
My experience with the thesis was that it was a very difficult process because there are a lot of moments you feel you have a writer's block. And in this case it was very nice to have a thesis group, so a couple of other students who are writing about the same subject. For me it was the dark side of leadership. And you could ask them questions about their thesis or you could ask the supervisor, who was very open to help you out or give you feedback on your thesis, or when you had problems.
21:39
So that was very helpful to me.
Here to help you learn
Sign in to keep a private conversation with your course tutor.
Ask me anything about the material…
Sign in to chat