Executive Master's Policy Leadership (MPPL)

This course examines the institutions that play major roles in the federal public policy process, including the presidency, the bureaucracy, the Congress, and the courts. Key stages of the policy-making process are analyzed, including agenda-setting, policy formulation, debate and deliberation, and implementation. Particular attention is paid to the external environment, including the political context that executives must operate in, outside factors (interest groups, the media), the motivations of key institutional players, and the aspects of the process where executives can effect change.

This course focuses on the knowledge and skills required to lead effectively in today’s interconnected, dynamic, and global environment. Recognizing that both the public and private sectors will continue to evolve at a faster and faster pace, executives and leaders must continue to learn and grow in order to lead their own organizations effectively. The course explores the competing demands on leaders, including politics, institutional constraints, and agendas of multiple parties. It examines strategies for leading change, motivating and driving mission and organizational success, and building coalitions and partnerships both within and across boundaries. Finally, the course presents each student with the opportunity to examine his/her own capacity for change and leadership.

This course focuses on economic concepts, theories, principles, and tools at the federal level of the US government from a managerial and policy perspective. It explores the problems and challenges of public sector leaders and managers through the lens of both micro and macroeconomic theory. It also focuses on the effect of public sector interventions and the role of the federal government in the US economy. Through various case studies and student-centered exercises, participants learn a set of economic tools and techniques for approaching critical managerial and policy decisions, to include those addressing market failures, distributional concerns, public sector financing and expenditures, and fiscal decentralization.

This course focuses on budgeting and financial management at the federal level of the US government from a managerial and policy perspective. It highlights the players, the process, and the politics of the fiscal and budgetary systems and their relationships to public policies. Students will explore practical applications of budgeting, strategic planning, financial reporting, management controls, and performance measurement to gain knowledge for planning, controlling, monitoring, and analyzing federal government operations and programs.

This course examines professional ethics and values for leaders working in and around the public sector. It first explores prescriptive aspects and frameworks for ethical decision making, then builds on those frameworks with an examination of the social, cultural, perceptual, and political influences on ethics and value systems. The course makes extensive use of case studies, interactive student-centered activities, and invited speakers. Contemporary ethical issues addressed include: the possible results of biotechnology; the appropriate use of drone warfare; artificial intelligence applications to everyday life; life and death “decisions” by driverless cars; the use of cyber technologies for persuasion and communication; and animal rights.

This course focuses on strategies and frameworks for decision making in today’s world of interconnection and dynamic change. It examines the relationships between strategic thinking, strategic planning, and decision making, recognizing that the complex problems of today often cross disciplinary boundaries and geographic borders. Traditional approaches to decision making such as the analytic model and cost benefit analysis are compared to new approaches such as intuition and systems thinking. The course also examines the information-rich world of executives, and addresses strategies for leveraging the abundance of information rather than being overwhelmed by it. Recent findings in cognitive and neuro-science are discussed and their implications for effective decision making explored.

This course is an intensive, skills-based seminar that provides an analytical approach to creating and claiming more value in negotiations while strengthening individual and organizational relationships. Readings, interactive simulations, and class discussions provide students with a theoretical framework to prepare, conduct, and review negotiations in a range of sectors and cultural contexts. The conflict management component of the course explores the sources of conflict, as well as tools for managing interpersonal dynamics in scenarios such as performance reviews, interdepartmental collaboration, and partnering with external organizations.

This course examines the communication needs, styles, and challenges of today’s leaders. It focuses on the value and effectiveness of executive communication within a strategic organizational context as well as across boundaries in the global environment. It explores techniques used by national leaders and C-suite executives to enhance your ability to influence and persuade. The course also offers the opportunity to speak in a learning environment and to receive personalized feedback and coaching. It will sharpen your ability to build credibility and trust with your audience members, and to “gain their ears” such that they will remember what you have said. Building on lessons from psychology, communication, organizational behavior, politics, and cognitive science, this course distills the most important skills and qualities of effective communication in a rapidly changing global landscape

Full Title: The Digital Transformation and the Social Contract. Course Description: Technological advances are evolving and reshaping our society, and our nation’s systems and institutions are struggling to keep pace. The advantages of technological change to the economy are mostly positive, but the effects of the digital transformation on the pursuit of equality in our society are not so positive or clear. This course will explore how the new economy is disrupting multiple sociopolitical aspects of our country, including labor and employment, law enforcement, education, constitutional rights like privacy and equal protection, and electoral contests. It examines the effects of the digital transformation on traditional structures and policies created during the agrarian and industrial eras, many of which remain in place today. It also considers the ramifications of technological advancements on the social contract and the ideals that undergird America. The intersection of information technology, equality, and justice is ripe for politicization. As such, this course will necessarily delve into hot-button issues and policy proposals offered in the present hyperpartisan environment.ECQ Alignment: Leading People, Leading Change, Business Acumen

In consultation with a faculty advisor, students integrate analytic, leadership, management, and advocacy considerations to develop solutions to a specific public policy or public administration problem. In general, the Applied Policy Leadership Project (or “Project”) is a 30-35 page strategy paper written for a senior decision maker. It introduces the policy or administration problem to be addressed; discusses the key individuals and institutions relevant to the problem; identifies alternative approaches to solving the problem and the criteria that will be used to assess each alternative approach; analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of each alternative approach, including associated resource constraints; recommends a preferred approach, and a rationale for selecting that approach; and describes an implementation strategy which takes into account any relevant resource and political issues.