Gaining overarching knowledge and skills of management and leadership
Professor Peter Daly is EDHEC’s MSc in Management & Leadership programme director. His MSc is designed for students who have a keen interest in taking up management roles and leading projects and people. Prof. Daly details what his future students should expect from the Master’s programme.
You are the Director of the MSc in Management & Leadership’s programme. For how long have you been training students from diverse backgrounds to succeed in managerial roles?
I have been training students from diverse backgrounds since I started teaching at business school in 1995, so for more than 28 years. At the beginning of my career, I worked in Germany, at the University of Bayreuth to be exact. There I taught business and management communication to Economics, Business and Sports Management students from diverse backgrounds. Here at EDHEC, I have taught a range of skill- and knowledge-based modules (career development, teambuilding, management, leadership, creativity, etc.) to undergraduate, postgraduate and executive students from all over the world.
You have worked in managerial communication and management studies since 1995. You have taught managerial communication programmes at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels in Germany and in France. You are currently teaching business and corporate communication and give seminars in leadership, management styles, career writing, recruitment communication and teambuilding. Why these fields?
I have a background in linguistics, communication science and modern languages (I speak French, German, Spanish, English, Italian, some Japanese and Irish of course and I am a qualified translator/interpreter). I hold a Masters in Linguistics and Communication and my doctorate was in Higher Education looking specifically at business apprenticeships. All my academic life, I have exploited my expertise in linguistics and communication science in management and leadership development as I believe that a productive workplace relies on collaboration that is facilitated by powerful communication. Having lived and worked in many countries and due to my language skills, I have developed cultural competence that is key to the contemporary workplace as most of our students will work within a multicultural working environment. The responsibility of controlling and sculpting the myriad of linguistic interpretations within a global team falls on the leader and knowledge of linguistics helps the leader become more aware of potential linguistic dissonance, address it and create a new shared understanding that incorporates their individual team members. Communication is one of the most important parts of being a leader and developing leadership in managers requires, to my mind, expertise in linguistics and communication.
What is your field of expertise? How does your research nourish your teaching? Which modules do you teach?
My field of expertise is communication science and higher education pedagogy, and I have used these disciplines to work on varied research projects. At the moment, I am working on four major research projects: CEO discourse to legitimate fraud, which uses discourse analysis of a CEO to highlight how he legitimates accounting fraud; the use of visual design to transcend language barriers when internationalizing, which exploits a social semiotic methodology to ascertain how to use visual communication when expanding abroad; how to invite reflexivity into the classroom to train executive leaders, and the pedagogical impact of an experimental economics simulation within the context of tax behaviour on business students. These projects are inter-disciplinary in nature as I work with accountants, behavioural economics experts, tax specialists, semioticians and organisational behaviour experts. This research feeds into my teaching in the form of real and in-class case studies, learning exercises and gamification activities.
At the moment, I teach modules in reflexive leadership, management and creativity. I teach reflexive leadership to help undergraduates and postgraduates critically analyse their own assumptions, ideas and preferred vocabulary, consider their actions, and what impact these actions have on others and on the greater business ecosystem. I develop management skills in apprenticeship students as I believe that the best way to teach management is to work with practicing managers. I also teach creativity and together with some colleagues we train undergraduates using a creativity methodology to solve the wicked problems of real companies.
How would you describe the students that join your programme? How do you select them?
The students who join the programme have a keen interest in taking up management roles and leading projects and people. They are looking for a broad, yet up-to-date training in all aspects of management (strategy, IT, business ethics, sales, data science for decision making, career and talent management, Operations and project management etc.) so that they can embrace managerial functions in a wide range of businesses. The students either have a business background or come from many other disciplines such as IT, Law, Engineering or Science.
Students are selected based on their motivation to take up managerial roles to work in product/project management, managerial consulting or business development. They are also selected on their English level as all modules are taught in English.
In 2021, you have decided to revamp the programme. What are the biggest changes you have made? Why?
In 2021, the MSc was revamped to respond to the job market needs and also to the trajectory of our graduates. We included three new modules:
Sales Management – to hone students’ knowledge of sales and negotiation strategies and enable them to make effective sales pitches;
Career and Talent Management – to enable students to understand the different approaches to attracting talent into organizations, as well as to motivating and retaining talent as well as apprehend the varied approaches to having a successful career depending on one’s evolving interests;
Data Analysis for Decision Making – to permit students to gain an acquire a statistical toolbox commonly used in business applications and increase their knowledge on the importance of data analysis in business intelligence.
Which words best define the programme?
Three words best define the programme: reflexive, relational and overarching.
Reflexive as students are taught to identify their own leadership signature, the actions they take and how these actions have an impact on themselves, others and their workplace and the social environment.
Relational as students are enticed to gain a personal and relational toolbox of skills such as teambuilding, leadership, ethical awareness, critical thinking, within a cohort where they continuously collaborate, interact and co-create.
Overarching as students a provided with an overarching knowledge of management and leadership so that they can manage and lead many different profiles within the workplace.
