Doctor of Education in Organizational Leadership

Our Doctor of Education (Ed.D.) in Organizational Leadership program is designed for working adult professionals who seek dynamic growth in their leadership practice, whether as part of a move into upper-level management and leadership, or simply, to make a bigger difference driving progress on the complex challenges they care most deeply about.

Offered through Marian’s Leadership Academy, classes for the second cohort will begin in the Summer 2021 semester. Students should plan to earn five to eight credit hours per semester, with a broader commitment of approximately 34 months to complete the required 57 credit hours. Additionally, classes will meet one weekend a month with a week-long intensive course each summer.

Why earn a doctorate in organizational leadership?

Our institutions face unprecedented challenges across all domains. Whether it is in education, medicine, government, church, or business, today’s organizations face issues for which our industrial age leadership theories and practices are ill-equipped. This comprehensive program, leading to a terminal degree, works to develop students as trustworthy authority figures, with capacity and tools to exercise leadership from any position—mobilizing others to make progress on an organization’s most difficult issues. The program is designed to help students build the emotional and psychological capacity for the burden of leadership, advance and enhance leadership skills, prepare them to employ research to diagnose organizational needs, and investigate the range and effectiveness of possible interventions.

As Marian University actively seeks to grow leadership capacity, the doctoral program will prepare students to impact not only the social systems of their own organization but the community at large. 

What will you study?

There is more to organizational leadership than simply meeting goals and objectives. The program emphasizes the Adaptive Leadership framework as its foundation, which provides a leadership focus that recognizes organizations as social systems, differentiates between technical problems and adaptive challenges, and expressly accounts for the nuance and power of authority and group dynamics.

Program learning outcomes

This program has six overarching goals for candidates, such that at the completion of this program the graduate will be able to: 

• Understand: Diagnose the complex social systems of an organization.
• Engage others: Align and mobilize others within an organization.
• Manage self: Build the emotional and psychological strength required to exercise leadership.
• Intervene skillfully: Act with purpose and agency within groups, teams, and organizations.
• Execute: Manage the technical aspects of an organization’s operations.
• Evaluate: Measure the effectiveness of interventions using research and data.