Careers
Advance Your Career
Earning a master’s degree can have a significant impact on your lifetime earnings and employability. You may have earned your undergraduate degree and entered a career in a field like biology, engineering, history or marketing. After working for a few years, you are ready to move up the career ladder. Typically, as you look at higher-level job opportunities, you will see they focus less on technical expertise and more on managerial expertise – i.e. the ability to lead people, analyze information, make good decisions and plan strategically. The Master of Science in Organizational Leadership program is designed to supplement your technical background with the necessary management, leadership and communication knowledge and skills needed to progress up the career ladder. As such, the program provides an excellent complement to almost any academic or professional background.
“In the new economy, where value comes increasingly from the knowledge of people, and where workers are no longer undifferentiated cogs in an industrial machine, management and leadership are not easily separated. People look to their managers, not just to assign them a task, but to define for them a purpose. And managers must organize workers, not just to maximize efficiency, but to nurture skills, develop talent and inspire results.”
The Wall Street Journal, What is the Difference Between Management and Leadership?
Growing Market for Master of Science in Organizational Leadership Graduates
Data from both the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Colorado Office of Labor Market Information suggests that management occupations are set to grow from 2022-2032.
Projected Growth in Management Occupations, 2022-2032
State of Colorado:
+ 29,258 Jobs
+ 14.66% Growth
Median Salary, 2022: $132,150
United States:
+683,000 Jobs
+5.4% Growth
Median Salary, 2022: $107,360
The Master of Science in Organizational Leadership provides the specific skills that employers are seeking for professionals aspiring to leadership positions within their organizations.
See the impact the Master of Science in Organizational Leadership can have on your career.
When combined with your academic background and professional experience, the Master of Science in Organizational Leadership degree will likely offer you exceptional qualifications for your next management position. To get a better sense of the types of positions you might qualify for with a Master of Science in Organizational Leadership you can search popular job sites. Begin your search using terms such as “organizational leadership” or the name of your field combined with the term “manager” or “management.”
Job Boards
| General Job Sites | Government Job Sites | Nonprofit Job Sites | Higher Education Job Sites |
|---|---|---|---|
MSOL vs. MBA
The degree for practicing or aspiring managers.
Both the Master of Science in Organizational Leadership (MSOL) and the Master of Business Administration (MBA) have become popular degree options for managers seeking to move up the career ladder. What’s the difference between the MSOL (and similar degrees) and the MBA?
Many of the skills sought by industry are those that the MSOL is specifically designed to develop – e.g., collaboration, mentoring, performance management, leadership development, business planning and decision-making.
MBA coursework typically emphasizes the functional areas of business – marketing, accounting, finance, HR, operations management, etc. Courses in economics and statistics are also quite common among MBA curricula, and there is usually some coursework in organizational behavior, leadership and/or strategy. Given the emphasis on business functions, an MBA degree has always seemed especially well-suited for those trying to launch a career in a functional area (e.g., marketing or accounting or finance) or for those pursuing or holding positions responsible for the full range of business functions (e.g., the role of an entrepreneur).
But many people have already launched successful careers and established their technical know-how in a particular field (e.g. biology, history or marketing). Their challenge is to move beyond their technical expertise to assume increasing levels of managerial responsibility and to demonstrate greater leadership in an organization. This is where the MSOL degree excels – by emphasizing high-demand, “soft skills” in management, leadership, communication and the like.