Minor in Leadership Studies

The leadership minor helps you develop your leadership skills so that you can have significant impacts on your community and your workplace. To achieve this goal, Otterbein will:

  • Help you develop skills, knowledge, tools and techniques, perspectives, and attitudes and values that can be applied to leadership in various settings, including community service and social change.
  • Provide students who have an interest in community service with the opportunity to develop specific tools and skills that can be applied to social change and community development.
  • Provide students who have an interest in leadership in various settings with opportunities to gain an understanding of leadership perspectives.
  • Provide student with interests in leadership with the opportunity to interact with community leaders in various settings and with opportunities to practice leadership.

You will gain unforgettable leadership consciousness aligned with contemporary leadership theory, perspective, skills, and practices. It is our sense that students who learn leadership concepts and applications, who receive training in leadership skills, and who practice leadership through service-learning develop as leaders and also find an important complement to their learning in their majors and in Otterbein’s liberal arts core.

Courses

The Leadership minor consists of four required core courses and your choice of one elective. See the Undergraduate Catalog for more information.

Each course is focused on your personal development, your understanding of and your sense of responsibility to adopt the leadership perspective that personal development depends on human development. As you move through the series of courses, you will:

  • Explore your individual leadership potentials;
  • Understand and apply leadership theories, perspectives, and skills in organizational communication, negotiation, collaboration, empowering others, team building, and interpersonal communication; and
  • Following direct contact with community and workplace leaders, learn, shape, and apply leadership strategies, team learning and change models in organizations.

Commitment to Community Engagement

The Leadership minor integrates Otterbein’s commitment to service-learning, the effectiveness of the service-learning pedagogy, and the University’s success as an engaged campus. Each course employs service-learning pedagogy designed to assure that you develop and exercise a commitment to community service and develop skills related to that classes you are taking that can be applied to you future role as a citizen and professional in your field. Visit the Center for Community Engagement site for more information about Otterbein’s commitment to community service.