Overview

As an alliance between the University of San Diego School of Business Administration and The Ken Blanchard Companies, the MSEL degree blends the development of key leadership skills with core elements of the traditional MBA. This integration provides graduates with an interdisciplinary framework of fundamental business knowledge including customers and markets, financial management, financial controls, and organizational strategy. However, as a specialized masters degree program, the emphasis is on understanding and developing skills in various leadership contexts. This program satisfies those who seek a personal development experience that emphasizes the leadership functions of motivating and developing people and organizations over the administrative responsibilities of maximizing work-unit efficiencies or technical elegance.

Designed around an executive education learning model, MSEL encourages executive participants to learn from one another by sharing diverse perspectives and problem solving strategies in an environment that fosters creativity and innovation. Executive-level participants engage in an applied-learning curriculum co-facilitated by the expert authors, theorists, and business leaders drawn from both The Ken Blanchard Companies and the School of Business Administration.

This cohort-based program requires all students to progress together through a series of 19 specified courses over a 22-month period. Classes meet one weekend a month for twenty months with 2 one-week intensive sessions at the beginning and middle of the curriculum. In this manner, MSEL delivers not only an AACSB/WASC accredited graduate business degree, but lifelong friendships and a valuable business network.

A typical candidate for the MSEL program has at least five years experience as a professional and is currently serving in a position of leadership. He or she wants to learn how to more systematically leverage the leadership experience into accelerated personal and organizational growth. Because the program presents classroom lessons that are required to be put into practice, all students should expect to continue to work in leadership roles throughout the duration of the program.

For additional program information, contact:
MSEL Program Office
Phone: (619) 260-4828
E-mail: msel@sandiego.edu