MSc in Leadership and Development

Our Leadership and Development MSc focuses on the issues that highlight the significance of leadership processes and outcomes in the dynamics of development. Through this programme, you will gain an understanding of the increasingly key role leadership plays in development and transformation, with a focus on global south contexts.

Next-generation leaders must be able to thrive across different socio-cultural contexts while achieving success in organisations. In a dynamic global context with a wide array of diverse actors and stakeholders, leaders need a unique set of skills and must be uniquely prepared. The Leadership and Development programme seeks: (i) To deepen students' understanding of the different patterns of leadership that have underlined social, political and economic processes and outcomes in societies across the world; (ii) To advance critical knowledge on development in relation to leadership and problem-solving; (iii) To develop in students deep analytical skills on responses to global challenges in the 21st century.

Students learn to understand the complexity of leadership operating across different levels and the interconnections among all of this.

Key benefits

• An innovative approach to the interdisciplinary study of leadership as it relates to development and transformation: the only MSc programme in the UK where Leadership is studied in relation to development and societal transformation.
• Taught by key intellectuals and experts on leadership, peace and security from both the global north and south.
• Interrogate key leadership concepts and challenge mainstream assumptions, to understand how leadership has unique, intense and far-reaching complexities that defy standard narratives around: what leadership is; how assertions of influence occur and why certain (effective and ineffective) leaders emerge; and the relationship between institutions and leadership.
• Students can transform their perspectives on leadership and undergo personal development to translate their ideas into change-making opportunities within their own contexts.
• Opportunity to network with the ALC’s global network of renowned academics, practitioners, activists and institutional partners that include universities, international organisations, and research and policy institutions from across the world, with teaching by key intellectuals and experts on global leadership and peacebuilding from both the global north and south.
• Access to a broad selection of optional modules across King’s, with emphasis on the Faculty of Social Sciences & Public Policy.