Graduate Program

Master of Science in Leadership & Organizational Development

Focused on the human elements of business — motivating teams, managing conflict, and leading with both strategy and empathy

The MS-LOD Program focuses on the human elements of business, helping students learn how to motivate teams, manage conflict, and lead effectively.

“Leadership is not just a matter of planning and performance. It is a people-centered discipline.”

18 months

Five trimesters

30 credits

To graduate

In-person

Evening classes

3 starts/ year

Jan · May · Sep

Program Outline

Courses draw across diverse fields, such as psychology and management theory, as well as real-world case studies that demonstrate how effective leadership requires both strategy and empathy.

Program Design

The MS-LOD is designed for students with a bachelor’s degree or those with a professional background that are ready to advance their careers. Many enter the program with experience in areas like finance, marketing, or operations, seeking the skills and confidence to step into leadership roles.

Throughout the program, students build strong communication skills, develop the ability to inspire teams, and learn to lead professionally and collaboratively. The focus is on applying knowledge in ways that drive meaningful results when students enter the professional world.

Hear from our community

Testimonials

Hear from our faculty
“

What sets the MS-LOD program apart is its immediate, practical relevance to the modern workplace. We dive deep into organizational behavior, strategic communication, and team dynamics. Because of our interactive classroom environment, students can openly analyze real-world corporate challenges. It’s powerful to see working professionals take the psychological and strategic leadership frameworks we discuss in class and use them to transform their own workplace cultures the very next week.

Dr. Yasuki Mori

Faculty, MS-LOD

Hear from our students
“

Studying leadership in a diverse city like Tokyo, alongside classmates from all over the world, is an incredible experience. The MS-LOD program at LUJ doesn’t just teach management theory; it builds your cultural and emotional intelligence. Collaborating with peers from different professional backgrounds has taught me how to lead, inspire, and align diverse teams, skills that are absolutely essential for any global organization today.

Yingzhu Lai

MS-LOD Student from China

Completing your MS-LOD at Lakeland University Japan

Lakeland University Japan is a trimester university – it holds three terms per academic year, accepting new graduate students at the start of each term:

  • January (Spring Term)
  • May (Summer Term)
  • September (Fall Term)

The MS-LOD requires 30 credits to graduate. Graduate students at LUJ take 6 credits per academic term, meaning that they can expect to graduate in 5 terms (18 months).

Compulsory Courses

Providing students an overview of the theories and perspectives presented by research on leadership. This course outlines the development of leadership studies conceptually over time and highlights different models, theories, and practices that are relevant in the field.

Preparing students to think about leadership in a thoughtful and insightful way, this course dives deeper into the conversations surrounding what leadership means in our modern society presented by some of the most pivotal leadership thinkers. Leadership is a practiced art that requires deep thinking and critical insight. This course helps students not only understand leadership more deeply, but become better leaders themselves through critical thinking, reflection, and dialogue amongst their peers.

The intent of this course is to provide for students an overview of organizational development (OD) and change. This includes relevant theories and models used by change agents and organizational development practitioners to expose students to the manners in which OD is practiced. Since organizations are comprised of individuals and function as an output of their behaviors, this course also briefly touches on some of the psychological aspects behind change.

This course, as a capstone group experience, asks students to implement into practice the leadership and organizational development skills/perspectives/concepts/theories learned throughout the program of study. This course includes an extensive case study of a professional organization, an assessment of organizational development techniques that can be employed, a process plan for organizational development or change within the organization and/or its leadership, and recommendations for the organization moving forward based on analysis and evaluation.

This course presents ways to increase the probabilities of accomplishing successful change, maximizing desired results, and improving competitive position on a sustainable basis. This course not only enables its participants to define organizational effectiveness, but also to develop a model most appropriate to an organization’s unique characteristics and situational realities, incorporate organizational effectiveness concepts into the management practices and culture of the organization, and use organizational effectiveness as an organizational learning strategy.

An overview of the integration of pricing, distribution, promotion and product differentiation policies used in planning and decision making. The integration of marketing with other business functions is emphasized, along with its socio-economic implications. The emergence of e-commerce as a marketing strategy is also considered.

This is a study of the impact of a firm’s social, legal, regulatory, political, ethical and international environments upon its objectives. The specific course objectives are to provide a general understanding of the major relationships between business firms and their stakeholders, to develop key concepts and principles that can be used by managers as they cope with the various stakeholders, and to provide some practice in using analytical tools by applying them to selected current problems and issues confronting business.

This is a capstone course designed to allow the student to integrate knowledge obtained from previous courses with personal experience. A student-centered approach provides opportunity for practice and experimentation in the competitive strategy formulation. Emphasis is on the conversion of the vision of executive intuition into definite plans that can be operationally implemented in each functional business area. Strategy support systems will be used to assist the student in making the transition from a change-resistant operations approach to the change-oriented and future-oriented approach.

Tuition at a glance

Plan your investment

¥70,000

Per credit

¥508,000

Per term (full load)

¥2,637,000

Estimated total (30 credits)

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