Conceptual Framework

The Conceptual Framework of the Doctoral Program in Leadership Studies is grounded in the Jesuit tradition of educating the whole person. The interdisciplinary curriculum is designed to develop scholarship and professional competencies while encouraging self-reflection and strengthening a commitment of service to others.

From the beginning of the program over twenty years ago, Gonzaga has been the place where critical thought and moral conviction meet the questions of humanity.The theory and practice of writers such as Bernard Bass and James Burns in transformational leadership, Robert Greenleaf in servant-leadership, Carol Gilligan, Parker Palmer, and Bernard Lonergan in personal development; Peggy McIntosh, Ronald Heifitz, Peter Senge, Margaret Wheatley, and David Cooperrider in change and organizational meaning; and Dorothy Day, Paulo Freire, Martin Luther King, and Desmond Tutu in the liberation of global systems are samples of the scholarship and social action that inspire the community of the Gonzaga doctoral program.

The approach to research in the social sciences provides doctoral students with a structured way of thinking and a critical way of conceiving what truth and knowledge mean and thus coming to a deeper understanding of leadership from personal, organizational, and global systems perspectives.

The liberal arts component of the doctoral curriculum centers on three dimensions of leadership: (a) the leader as person, (b) the leader in organizational systems, and (c) the leader in global systems. Each dimension emphasizes the nature of change and the development of human capacities for life that is healthy and sustainable. The global system specifically addresses leader competencies such as cultural competency, political competency, international competency, and technical competency. The research component centers on principles of research designed to honor humanity which are threaded throughout the program. The conceptual framework addresses the research paradigm, the topic paradigm, and the personal paradigm.