Course Syllabus
Welcome to BUS650: Entrepreneurial Leadership
Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information about taking Saylor Academy courses, including information about Community and Academic Codes of Conduct, please read the Student Handbook.
Course Description
In this graduate-level course, engage with entrepreneurial leadership concepts by applying the POLC model, motivating people, and addressing leadership challenges in entrepreneurial ventures.
Course Introduction
Do you know why leadership is so important to an entrepreneur? In this course, we will learn about your role as an entrepreneurial leader and address the behaviors and traits it takes to lead your business to success. What does it take to successfully lead an entrepreneurial venture, whether you have a staff of two or 200 people? In this course, we will answer this question.
Some of those skills involve the POLC model, that is, the planning, organizing, leading, and controlling aspects of the day-to-day management of your business. Part of your success as a leader in your business means understanding how best to motivate a team and ensure diversity and inclusion in your organization. As a leader, we also want to use the right style, such as servant leadership and authentic leadership, to help us motivate our team and make our business as successful as possible.
In addition, we will address some of the challenges you might face as a leader in your venture. For example, we will learn about strategies to best manage a team and help lead them in making decisions. We will also discuss how to address any performance issues within our teams and how to set goals to ensure we apply the POLC model in the best way possible. At the end of the course, you will understand how to lead your organization into growth and success.
This course includes the following units:
- Unit 1: Your Role as an Entrepreneurial Leader
- Unit 2: Motivating Your Team
- Unit 3: Leadership Styles
- Unit 4: Entrepreneurial Task and Leadership Challenges
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- Analyze the differences between various leadership and management theories, such as transactional and transformational leadership;
- Analyze the traits and skills of an effective leader, such as emotional intelligence, conflict management skills, communication skills, and critical thinking;
- Propose a plan to manage challenges that entrepreneurial leaders must handle, such as team dysfunction and change management
- Identify factors to assist in enhancing a businesses talent management focus; and
- Apply common change management models, such as Lewin's Model to guide an entrepreneurial venture to effective change management processes.
Throughout this course, you will also see learning outcomes in each unit. You can use those learning outcomes to help organize your studies and gauge your progress.
Course Materials
This course's primary learning materials are articles, lectures, and videos.
All course materials are free to access and can be found in each unit of the course. Pay close attention to the notes that accompany these course materials, as they will tell you what to focus on in each resource and will help you understand how the learning materials fit into the course as a whole. You can also see a list of all the learning materials in this course at this link.
Some parts of this course may have been created or reviewed with the support of artificial intelligence (AI). To make sure you receive accurate, high-quality, and academically sound learning materials, all AI-assisted content is carefully checked and approved by Saylor Academy's faculty and subject matter experts.
Evaluation and Minimum Passing Score
Only the final exam is considered when awarding you a grade for this course. To pass this course, you will need to earn a grade of 70% or higher on the final exam.
Your score on the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. Be sure to study in between each attempt! If you do not pass the exam, you will not complete this course or receive a certificate of completion. You can attempt the exam as many times as you want.
There are end-of-unit assessments in this course that are designed to help you study and do not factor into your final course grade. You can take them as many times as you want until you understand the concepts they cover.
You can see all of these assessments at this link.
Continuing Education Credits
The certificate earned by passing this self-paced course displays the program hours you completed and continuing education credits (CEUs). CEUs document successful completion of courses that are designed to improve the knowledge and skills of working adults. Many industries value CEUs, and now your certificate reflects them clearly, and they may be used to support career advancement or to meet professional licensing standards. This course contains 4.0 CEUs.
Tips for Success
BUS650: Entrepreneurial Leadership is a self-paced course, meaning you can decide when to start and complete the course. We estimate the "average" student will take hours to complete. We recommend studying at a comfortable pace and scheduling your study time in advance.
Learning new material can be challenging, so here are a few study strategies to help you succeed:
- Take notes on terms, practices, and theories. This helps you understand each concept in context and provides a refresher for later study.
- Test yourself on what you remember and how well you understand the concepts. Reflecting on what you've learned improves long-term memory retention.
Technical Requirements
This course is delivered entirely online. You will need access to a computer or web-capable mobile device and consistent internet access to view or download resources and complete auto-graded assessments and the final exam.
To access the full course, including assessments and the final exam, log into your Saylor Academy account and enroll in the course. If you don't have an account, you can create one for free here. Note that tracking progress and taking assessments require you to log in.
For more details and guidance, please review our complete Technical Requirements and our student Help Center.
Optional Saylor Academy Mobile App
You can access all course features directly from your mobile browser, but if you have limited internet connectivity, the Saylor Academy mobile app provides an option to download course content for offline use. The app is available for iOS and Android devices.
Fees
This course is entirely free to enroll in and access. All course materials, including textbooks, videos, webpages, and activities, are available at no charge. This course also contains a free final exam and a free course completion certificate.