Transformative Leadership Master's Degree
Transformative Leadership is a transdisciplinary, action-oriented program with a participative, collaborative pedagogy and a strong emphasis on self-reflection and personal growth. A culminating action project in the last semester serves as a part of a two-step capstone, which includes intensive skill-building and assessment processes.

For more detailed information about the Transformative Leadership curriculum, including course descriptions, please see CIIS’s online catalog (or call 415.575.6155).

Program Format
The 36-unit master’s program is offered online, making the program especially suitable for working professionals. Students work in the online environment of the CIIS virtual classroom.

Each August and January students and faculty gather for a weeklong intensive retreat at a location in the San Francisco Bay area. Participation in all 4 intensives is mandatory for participation in the program.

Program Format

Students take a mix of required courses and electives, and every semester participate in the Integrative Seminar, a space for emergent issues and topics, and also the place where they begin to develop and prepare for their Capstones. Students choosing the Partnership Concentration have to take specific courses in that concentration for their elective choices.

During their course of study, students develop a Capstone Action Project that reflects their learning and insights as they go through the Transformative Leadership program.

The Capstone is a two-step process, and takes place in the Transformative Leadership and Capstone Action Project courses. In the first course, students articulate their leadership philosophy, and undergo an extensive assessment process to assist in their professional development and personal growth. In the second course, students engage in a leadership project in the world.

While projects are individual, their conception, design, and assessment are collaboratively discussed with cohort members during the Integrative Seminar courses, who provide ongoing feedback and support. Throughout the 2-year program, students design, implement, and reflect upon their Capstone Action Project. The project culminates in the last semester.

M.A. Curriculum

Summary of Units
Total for graduation (36 units)
Required courses (27 units)
Electives (9 units)

Course of Study

Semester 1:
Introduction to Transformative Leadership:  Maps, Models, and Metaphors (3)
Ways of Relating: Collaboration Skills and Group Dynamics (3)
Diversity in Action: Leadership, Pluralism, and Creativity (3)
Integrative Seminar  (1)

Semester 2:
Ways of Knowing: Strategy, Complexity, and Creating the Future (3)
The Leadership Experience: Understanding the Will to Lead (3)
Elective (3)
Integrative Seminar  (1)

Semester 3:
Approaches to Change and Transformation (3)
Transformative Leadership: Leading Ourselves among Others (3)
Elective (3)
Integrative Seminar  (1)

Semester 4:
Capstone Action Project (3)
Elective (3)

Transformative Leadership (TLD) Course Descriptions

TLD 6100-60 Introduction to Transformative Leadership: Maps, Models, and Metaphors (3 units)
Introduction to Transformative Leadership provides an introduction to the larger body of knowledge and research in the areas of transformative leadership. A key aspect of this course involves uncovering, exploring, and challenging students’ implicit assumptions about leadership and change in the context of the literature, and beginning the ongoing process of articulating their own vision of how they may best act as leaders in today’s global context.

TLD 5100-60 Ways of Relating: Collaboration Skills and Group Dynamics (3 units)
This course addresses the fundamental nature of how human beings relate to each other, and how this affects the discourse and practice of leadership and transformation. Is the quest for power-over and domination inescapable? Are there other ways of conceptualizing human relations? If so, how do they manifest in practice? Students will explore the implications and applications of a plurality of ways of relating. The course will focus on the development of basic skills in group dynamics an team leadership, interpersonal communication, conflict resolution, influence, and self-understanding in a team context.

TLD 7100-60 Diversity in Action: Leadership, Pluralism & Creativity
The purpose of this course is to understand and experience the ways in which diversity can be a source of creativity and strength; to explore the challenges and opportunities that leaders working towards creating productive, vibrant organizational environments that embrace differences confront; to learn how to we move with increasing ease across and among diverse cultures in our work as leaders and in our daily lives in a multicultural, global society; to understand the theoretical and practical constructs that are helpful in this journey; and to deepen understanding of the impact of own race, culture, gender, differing abilities, social class, “sexual-affectional” preference on leadership practices.

TLD 6325-60: The Leadership Experience: Understanding the Will to Lead.
This course will explore the leadership experience through film, biography, and case study. It examines the leadership experiences of individuals who have demonstrated a will to lead. A focus of the course will be to consider common experiences shared by those who choose to lead. 

TLD 6130-60 Ways of Knowing (3 units)
Ways of Knowing addresses the ways in which leaders can know and make sense of the world. The course explores systems and complexity theories, strategic and creative thinking, and their application to leadership.

TLD 6400-60 Approaches to Change and Transformation (3 units)
Action-oriented research methods offer us a means to collaboratively engage organizational members in change initiatives that merge planning, action & reflection into a highly intentional process. These methods can enable us to closely track the impact of our intentional actions upon the system as a whole. In this course students will gain an overview of the field from its roots to its branches, exploring its theories, practices and applications. Using a range of approaches to systems change and action-related research methods as the broader frames, students will have an opportunity to gain deeper, applied knowledge of Cooperative Inquiry or Appreciative Inquiry.

TLD 6635-60 Transformative Leadership: Leading Ourselves among Others (3 units)
This course serves as the first Capstone in the program. It provides students the opportunity to articulate their leadership philosophy, gives them feedback on their actual practice of leadership through a 360 feedback process, teaches them the skills to give (and receive) a 360 feedback, and to develop their own vision of their role as leaders.

TLD 6999-60 Integrative Seminar (1 unit) Three Semesters
The Integrative Seminar is a 1-unit per semester course that students take for three semesters, leading up to the capstone project in the fourth and final semester. It is designed to develop an ongoing learning community in which students can integrate their work from other courses, learn how to learn and work together, and provide each other with support working on the capstone project.

TLD 6840-60 Capstone Action Project
This course involves putting into action what the students have learned during their two years in the program, integrating theory, reflection, and experience. Students complete work begun in Integrative Seminar courses through the design, implementation, and assessment of a capstone project. Capstone Action Project is the capstone course in the M.A. in Transformative Leadership. The following sentence is from the description of the program. “This program has been created for individuals who want to take the initiative and find ways to express their passion for making a contribution to the world.” This course allows the student to take that initiative and to find ways to express their passions.

Electives may include:
Resonant Leadership
Women’s Leadership in Action
Spirit, Compassion, and Community Activism
On Individuation
Leadership, Ethics, and Compassion
Building Collective Wisdom In Your Team and Organization
Zen at Work: Creativity, Spirituality and Daily Life
Creativity and Personal Transformation

Partnership Concentration

The Transformative Leadership MA at California Institute of Integral Studies offers a concentration in Partnership Studies. Based on Cultural Transformation Theory, developed by cultural historian and systems scientist Riane Eisler, this concentration is designed for leaders who want to be groundbreakers in the application of this far-reaching theory to issues they are passionate about.

For more information, download these articles describing the Partnership approach to Leadership:
Partnership Organization (PDF)
Technology Domination Partnership (PDF)

Related sites:
www.partnershipway.org
www.rianeeisler.com

Students choosing to take this concentration will take a minimum of 2 of their elective courses with an explicit focus on implications and applications of Partnership Studies, and do their Capstone Action project using Cultural Transformation Theory and applying the Partnership/Domination template.

Courses:

I. The Power of Partnership

This course will be co-taught Riane Eisler and Alfonso Montuori. The course will start with a two/three day residential workshop on the partnership model facilitatedby Riane Eisler and Alfonso Montuori. The workshop will include the simulation developed by Shoshana Simons and Urusa Fahim. This will be followed by one week of online participation every month.

II. Case Studies in Partnership Practice

This course will be taught by Shoshana Simons and Urusa Fahim. It will include case studies of diverse organizations that apply the partnership model. Students will study organizations to evaluate and assess their use of the partnership model and its impact on the organization. Students will also engage in ongoing self-assessment of their own abilities to implement Partnership in practice.

III. Capstone Action Research Project

This course will be taught by Dan Crowe in conjunction with the Partnership Concentration Advisor. This will be the capstone project that students will implement using the partnership model. With consultation with faculty, students will do a self-assessment and plan a project to include either an internship in an organization or a consultancy based on the partnership model.

A Sample of Relevant Partnership Electives:

Women's Leadership-in-Action
What models of leadership are women creating, nationally and internationally, to transform our collective social worlds? Through developing case studies of women's leadership within our communities we will generate a range of images and definitions based upon women's-leadership-in action.

Spirit, Compassion, and Community Activism
Through selective readings, class discussion, and personal reflection, this course encourages students to put their spiritual values and beliefs into action in the larger community. The course is offered for 1-3 units with each academic unit requiring 30 hours of community service. Students can choose to serve in established organizations or create their own project with instructor approval.