Motivation
Society often associates leaders with individuals that have grandiose titles, a large corner office, and make world-changing decisions. Thus, many people shy away from identifying themselves as a leader. However, real leadership can be seen most clearly in the small moments throughout the day.
Leadership is about behaving in a way that makes the life of another person better than before you arrived. Drew Dudley
General remarks
This module helps you to deepen your understanding of the requirements of leadership in the digital age.
To this end, you will read a series of scientific papers, consolidate and deepen your knowledge in exercises as well as while working on your assignment and, in the best case, increase your leadershik skills. As a graded exam assignment, you will research on a (digital) leader and make sense on her/his behavior using a scientific theory related to leadership and present your findings in a presentation to your fellow students.
It is very important that you prepare yourself for the classes (see Table 1 for details).
Contents
We touch base on following topics to increase understanding of challenges in different leadership roles and situations and to get to know tools to deal with these:
- Specifics of leading in the digital age (e.g., VUCA, role of technology, etc.)
- Basics of leadership (e.g., motivation, leadership characteristics, etc.)
- Theories and theoretical concepts (e.g., psychological safety, social capital theory, etc.)
- Digital leadership tools (e.g., storytelling and workshop tactics)
Learning objectives
During this course, you should improve your ability to consciously use, reflect on and further develop your leadership skills in your day-to-day work, in particular with regard to
- leadership requirements in the context of digital transformation,
- identification of and reflection on challenges and opportunities in your own leadership role,
- understanding of the facets of different personality types,
- basic understanding of characteristics of sustainable organizational systems, and
- lead hierarchically and laterally using digital leadership tools.
Effort
You will gain 5 ECTS for this course. This equals approx. 150 hours workload, of which you need most to pass the course.
- Classes (approx. 30 hours)
- Preparation and follow-up (approx. 10 hours)
- Preparation of the presentation (remaining time)
Please prepare your schedule accordingly.
Schedule
It is of importance that you prepare yourself for the sessions and work on the case study continually. Please prepare your schedule accordingly.
| Date | Topic | Preparation |
|---|---|---|
| 25.03.2026 | Administrivia & Foundations | — |
| 01.04.2026 | Leader | Homework |
| 07.04.2026 | Deadline Leader Shortlist | Shortlist |
| 08.04.2026 | Adaptive Behavior & Assignmetn of Leaders | Homework |
| 15.04.2026 | Environments | Homework |
| 22.04.2026 | Team | Homework |
| 29.04.2026 | Conflict & Power | Homework |
| 06.05.2026 | Stakeholder | Homework |
| 13.05.2026 | Context | Homework |
| 20.05.2026 | Communication (InnovationSpace, Creative 2) | — |
| 07.06.2026 | Deadline: Slides Upload | Slides |
| 10.06.2026 | Student Presentations — Session #1 | — |
| 17.06.2026 | Student Presentations — Session #2 | — |
| 24.06.2026 | Student Presentations — Session #3 | — |
| 01.07.2026 | Student Presentations — Session #4 | — |
| 08.07.2026 | Retrospective Workshop (InnovationSpace, Creative 2) | — |