Curriculum: The Integrated Leadership Perspective

Nine Organizational Perspectives courses form the heart of the Yale SOM integrated core curriculum. Each course approaches managerial problems from the viewpoint of a key internal or external organizational role, rather than a single academic discipline. SOM students learn that solutions require a broad view of the issues and an ability to synthesize competing points of view to come up with the most effective ways to lead organizations.

At the end of the first-year curriculum, students take the Integrated Leadership Perspective (ILP). The ILP merges the Organizational Perspectives in a series of interdisciplinary cases structured to describe challenges faced by leaders of organizations of differing size, scope, and sector. All of the cases involve current situations, and much of the class material is "raw," consisting of financial filings, data sets, news reports, company material, and other primary source data.

For the final week of the ILP, students studied the case of Climate Change Capital, an investment firm that seeks out opportunities that promise both a solid return on investment and a way to reduce carbon output and help stem climate change. The case was prepared specifically for the course by the Yale SOM case research and development team. Students were asked to digest a large amount of raw data — the companies’ SEC filings, analyst reports, media accounts — and then determine whether the firm should invest in an opportunity in Chile. Students had to understand global politics, cutting-edge science, and whether something that might make good sense environmentally is also a smart investment.