A Conversation With Antioch University Faculty
Join us as we talk with Mary Ann Short, PhD, and Bob Lazzarini, MBA, two instructors for Antioch’s Master of Organizational Leadership and Change (MOLC) and members of our School of Professional and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Organizations are navigating constant change, from emerging technologies and evolving workplace expectations to shifting priorities and complex challenges. But helping an organization adapt requires more than a strong strategy. It requires understanding people, relationships, and the systems that shape how organizations work.
What does effective organizational leadership look like in this environment? What does it take to lead meaningful change? And how can professionals develop the skills to make a difference?
We asked faculty who teach in Antioch University’s new Master of Organizational Leadership and Change (MOLC) program to share their perspectives on these questions, the evolving role of leadership, and how the program prepares professionals to lead with purpose.
What is organizational leadership and change?
Faculty: Organizational leadership and change is the study and practice of helping organizations and the people within them move toward a desired goal, especially when change is needed.
Organizational leadership focuses on how leaders guide people, make decisions, build teams, communicate, and create healthy, effective workplaces. Organizational change focuses on how an organization adapts to new circumstances, such as emerging technologies, restructuring, growth, new leadership, or changing needs.
Understanding both is essential because organizations can no longer assume that what works today will continue to work tomorrow.
But understanding leadership isn’t simply about learning what effective leaders do. It’s about becoming an effective leader. That requires understanding how people experience change, reflecting on your own leadership, challenging assumptions, and adapting as circumstances evolve.
Effective leaders create the conditions for people to learn, adapt, and contribute rather than simply asking them to comply with change.
What do leaders often misunderstand about organizational change?
Faculty: One of the things leaders often underestimate is the sense of loss that accompanies change.
Whenever an organization changes, something people value may have to be given up: a familiar process, an established role, relationships, status, or a way of working. Change may represent an opportunity for the organization, but it can also represent a loss for the people experiencing it.
Leaders need to become skilled at acknowledging and managing those losses rather than pretending change is painless or simply expecting people to get on board.
They need to help people confront difficult realities, understand what needs to change, and participate in the work required to move forward.
Ultimately, leading change is less about getting people to adopt a leader’s solution and more about helping an organization learn, adapt, and take ownership of the change together. That’s a key part of making change sustainable.
What skills are most important for professionals who want to lead organizational change?
Faculty: Leading organizations, particularly through times of change,increasingly requires more than what have been traditional leadership skills such as listening deeply, communicating clearly, building trust, navigating conflict, and bringing people together around a shared purpose. They remain important.
Of special importance, however, is developing the abilities to be self-aware, tolerant of uncertainty, comfortable with ambiguity, remain curious, challenge assumptions, think systemically, be adaptive, and help others take on the hard work of change.
Leaders also need to understand how organizational structures, cultures, and relationships are interconnected, recognizing that change in one part of an organization can have consequences throughout the larger system.
Related to all that, and perhaps most importantly, leaders need to move away from the idea that their role is to have all the answers. Most organizational change involves helping people identify difficult realities, surface different perspectives, work through competing values and interests, and take ownership of solutions.
In that sense, the ability to facilitate learning and create the conditions for others to lead may be becoming just as important as the ability to lead.
Why is understanding people and relationships so important to effective leadership?
Faculty: Organizations aren’t simply structures, processes, or strategies. They’re human systems.
What happens in an organization is shaped by the people within it, the relationships among them, and the larger systems in which the organization operates.
Understanding people helps leaders recognize different perspectives, motivations, experiences, and sources of resistance or support. Understanding relationships helps them see how trust, communication, power, and conflict influence what’s possible.
And understanding systems helps leaders look beyond individual behaviors to recognize the policies, cultures, and patterns that may be producing the outcomes they see.
Instead of immediately asking, “Who is responsible for this problem?” a leader might ask, “What’s happening here? What patterns are contributing to it? And what might we need to change?”
That shift allows leaders to address underlying conditions rather than simply treating symptoms.
Do you need to have a formal leadership title to lead organizational change?
Faculty: No. One of the ideas at the heart of the MOLC program is that leadership isn’t synonymous with having a formal leadership title.
People lead from all kinds of positions within organizations and communities, often without having direct authority over others.
Leadership can mean influencing a decision, bringing people together around a shared purpose, challenging an assumption, helping a team navigate uncertainty, or creating the conditions for something new to emerge.
Those acts of leadership can happen at any level of an organization.
For that reason, studying organizational leadership and change can be valuable for professionals who lead through influence as well as those who lead through formal authority.
What matters is a willingness to examine how you show up as a leader, understand the systems and relationships you’re part of, and develop your capacity to contribute to meaningful change.
What makes Antioch’s Master of Organizational Leadership and Change different from other leadership or management programs?
Faculty: Students in Antioch’s program don’t simply gain knowledge about leadership and change. They develop as practicing leaders and change agents.
What makes the MOLC distinctive is that leadership development isn’t treated as a separate activity or something that happens within individual courses. Instead, it’s intentionally integrated throughout the program.
Through ongoing journaling, coaching, and reflective practice alongside academic coursework, students have opportunities to examine their assumptions, reflect on their experiences, and experiment with new approaches to leadership.
The goal is for students to graduate not only with new knowledge and capabilities, but also with a deeper understanding of who they’ve become as leaders.
Students also have opportunities to demonstrate their progress along the way. They can earn digital micro-credentials for successful completion of early coursework. At the program’s midpoint, students who successfully complete the required core courses and accompanying Leadership Reflective Practice experience receive a Graduate Certificate in Applied Leadership Practice.
The program is fully online, but it’s also deeply relational, interactive, and grounded in real-world practice. We believe meaningful leadership development happens through relationships with faculty, peers, and the organizations and communities in which students live and work.
How can students apply what they learn to challenges in their own organizations?
Faculty: The MOLC is particularly valuable because it’s application-oriented. Learning doesn’t stay in the classroom.
Students have opportunities to take what they’re learning, reflect on how it connects to their leadership experiences, and apply it within the organizations and systems where they work.
We think of the MOLC as a laboratory for leadership.
A student might encounter a new framework in class, consider how it challenges their understanding of a situation they’re facing, and then design a small leadership experiment to try in their own organization.
They can observe what happens, reflect on what they’ve learned, and bring those insights into their continued development through journaling, coaching, and weekly discussions.
It’s a cycle of learning, reflection, and experimentation.
Rather than providing a prescribed set of answers, the program helps students develop ways of thinking and tools they can adapt to the unique challenges they encounter.
How do Antioch’s values, including social justice and ethical leadership, shape the program?
Faculty: These values are woven into the fabric of the program rather than treated as separate topics.
They’re reflected in the perspectives, experiences, and leadership practices of the faculty who designed and teach the curriculum.
They also shape how we encourage students to approach organizational leadership and change.
That includes considering whose voices are heard, who is affected by decisions, how power and opportunity are distributed, and how leaders can create more equitable and inclusive organizations.
Ethical leadership isn’t simply about finding a compromise between organizational goals and the needs of employees or communities. It’s about defining organizational success broadly enough that the well-being of those stakeholders is part of that success.
We want students to understand that leading through change is, first and foremost, a deeply human undertaking.
Who might benefit from a master’s degree in organizational leadership and change?
Faculty: The MOLC can benefit professionals across a wide range of fields, roles, and career stages.
It may be especially valuable for people already leading teams, organizations, or significant initiatives. But it can also benefit anyone trying to influence, navigate, or create meaningful change within a system.
That might include managers and executives, nonprofit and community leaders, educators, consultants, entrepreneurs, healthcare professionals, human resources and organizational development professionals, or emerging leaders beginning to take on greater responsibility.
What these professionals share isn’t necessarily a particular job title. It’s a desire to better understand how people, relationships, and systems interact and how they can contribute to change.
For us, the most important question is less “What is your position?” and more “What kind of change are you trying to create, and how are you showing up as a leader in that work?”
How do you see the role of organizational leaders evolving in the years ahead?
Faculty: We see the role of organizational leaders evolving from being primarily decision-makers and problem-solvers to becoming facilitators of connection, learning, and change.
As workplaces become more complex, leaders will need to be comfortable navigating uncertainty, embracing different perspectives, and creating environments where people feel valued, heard, and empowered to contribute.
They’ll also need to be more intentional about balancing organizational goals with the needs of their people and the broader communities they serve.
That requires adaptability, emotional intelligence, curiosity, and a willingness to continually learn and rethink established approaches.
Leadership will be less about having all the answers and more about asking the right questions, bringing people together, and helping organizations respond thoughtfully to change.
What advice would you offer someone who wants to become a more effective leader of change?
Faculty: Start by being curious—about yourself, the people you lead, and the organization you’re trying to influence.
Effective leadership of change begins with listening and understanding before moving too quickly to solutions. It requires self-awareness, humility, and a willingness to recognize that we may not always have the full picture.
Build relationships and trust. Meaningful change rarely happens because of one person’s ideas. It happens when people feel respected, included, and connected to a shared purpose.
And remember that becoming an effective leader is a continual process. Be willing to learn from setbacks, seek feedback, adapt your approach, and remain grounded in your values.
You don’t have to have all the answers to lead effectively. But you do need the willingness to listen, learn, bring people together, and take thoughtful action.
Learn More About Antioch’s Master of Organizational Leadership and Change
Antioch University’s online Master of Organizational Leadership and Change combines academic learning with reflective practice, coaching, and opportunities to apply leadership concepts in real-world settings.
Designed for professionals who want to strengthen their leadership capabilities and contribute to meaningful change, the program emphasizes ethical leadership, systems thinking, and the human dimensions of organizational change.
