Matthew R. Bice, PhD

Dean, School of Professional & Graduate Studies

913.344.6045

matthew.bice@bakerU.edu

Earn a Business Leadership Degree at Baker University

About

To drive productivity, design better work environments, tap into much-needed creativity, and formulate strategic direction, organizations of all kinds need qualified managers and leaders—and they’re searching for candidates who have degrees in leadership.

While you continue your career, you can also earn a leadership degree as part of Baker’s Bachelor of Business Administration program. Here, you’ll become the business leader you were always meant to be.

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As you study coursework focused on a wide array of business topics, you’ll build a well-rounded foundation and earn a degree in leadership to benefit any organization.

Cultivate versatile business leadership skills with a Baker leadership degree online:

Create effective organizational climates
Coach, manage, and motivate teams
Make intuitive, data-driven business decisions
Communicate effectively across all levels of an organization

Baker’s leadership degree is built on curriculum that helps you develop your own leadership style. Along the way, expert faculty—who are also active business professionals—provide coaching and support. It’s a program designed by and for working professionals who have limited time to earn a degree in leadership.

You’ll also explore real-world problems and gain problem-solving experience as you find innovative ways to overcome business challenges.

Adult learner studying at home with her family.

Leadership Degree Details

Learning doesn’t have to happen in a classroom. You can earn a business leadership degree at Baker University without relocating or leaving your full-time job.

• Earn your leadership degree online from anywhere.

• Six-week classes help you finish coursework quickly.

• Take one course at a time.

• Thrive in a program designed for working professionals.

• Earn your degree in leadership in as few as two years, depending on transfer credits.

Start your journey by taking the first step in the admissions process.

Leadership Degree Program Highlights

When you decide to invest your time and money in a leadership degree from Baker, you can be confident that you’ll graduate with the business leadership skills needed to make a difference in any environment.

Here are just a few reasons to consider earning your business leadership degree at Baker University:

Rankings and affordability. Baker University is highly ranked for best online programs, offering the highest ROI in Kansas and the highest average salary among graduates of universities in Kansas.

Actionable lessons. You’ll be able to implement course material into your work, building valuable career credibility and making a lasting impact in your current role.

Networking. Build rewarding relationships at all levels. Connect with faculty who have practical expertise and excellent business leadership skills. Interact with active alumni who support our Bachelor of Business Administration program and can help guide you to lucrative employment opportunities after you earn a degree in leadership.

Individual attention. You may earn your leadership degree online, but you’ll feel like part of a real business community. Receive personalized attention from professors and career advising professionals.

HR specialization. An optional HR concentration offers a deeper perspective into the human resources aspects of business. You’ll learn how to handle staffing issues and employment law to become a better leader.

Ongoing support. From answering questions about returning to school to finalizing enrollment, your enrollment recruiter will be with you at every step. From there, you’ll have an academic advisor who guides you through degree completion planning, helps you manage course scheduling, and connects you to resources for success.

Set your goal

4+1 Bachelor’s to MBA Dual Degree Program

Students who earn an undergraduate business degree from Baker Online or College of Arts and Sciences in Baldwin City can earn their bachelor’s degree and MBA in five years. This program is open to current students and graduates.

Students participating in the 4+1 program must complete seven of the 10 required courses to earn their MBA. Academic advisors will design an academic plan for students that will allow them to complete the remaining 21 credit hours in one year.

What Can You Do With a Degree in Leadership?

From manufacturing plants to financial institutions, businesses are looking for creative, ethical leaders who can help them meet their business goals while solving problems and motivating and supporting team members. Go anywhere and be ready to make business better.

Earning your BBA with a major in leadership will help you build a career path that takes you anywhere. Pursue a new high-level leadership position, land a promotion, or start your own business.

You’ll be prepared to do the following:
• Clearly communicate and collaborate with internal and external stakeholders
• Confidently use critical thinking, problem-solving, analytical, and business leadership skills to make decisions
• Support an innovative, diverse, and inclusive workforce
• Advance strategic initiatives and business outcomes
• Build strong and trusting relationships

Business Leadership Career Paths
Businesses of all kinds are searching for business leaders to help them meet objectives and build a competitive edge. Earning a leadership degree online can qualify you for positions in these fields:
• Finance
• Health care
• Human resources
• Marketing
• Nonprofits
• Project management
• Real estate
• Sales or customer service
• Technology

Exceptional Experiences: Baker Leadership Degrees

You can do this. You can fit college courses into your existing schedule. Online classes are held year-round, and new classes start every six weeks.

Learn from business professionals. Instructors in our business leadership degree program are working professionals from diverse disciplines. As experts in their fields, they’re ready to share experiences and knowledge with you while challenging you to reflect on and critically examine plans and initiatives.

Become a business leader. A leadership degree from Baker commands respect in the business community. It signifies your ability to meet high standards and lets employers know that you have the knowledge and business leadership skills required to excel in your career.

Prior learning credit. Baker’s Prior Learning and Assessment Center offers flexible, efficient ways to recognize college-level learning you’ve already acquired through work experience. You can earn credit in several nontraditional ways, saving time and money.

Financial Support to Earn Your Leadership Degree

Baker University is highly ranked for its online business leadership degree programs, offering the highest ROI in Kansas and the highest average salary among graduates of universities in Kansas. Find out what types of support are available to you as you earn your BBA in Leadership, making the degree even more affordable.

Financial Aid Options

Tuition & Fees

Business student using whiteboard to show classmates a master’s in instructional design project

Baker Is Military Friendly

Military Advanced Education named Baker University one of America’s Top Military-Friendly Colleges and Universities. Veterans and active-duty service members and their spouses may qualify for tuition discounts.

Military Benefits

Meet Our Students

“Responses were immediate and friendly, and the instructors were always eager to assist me with achieving my educational goals. I highly recommend Baker to those looking to further their education, especially for those with families or already working in careers.”

—Steven | Bachelor of Business Administration Student

What You’ll Study While Earning a Leadership Degree Online

You’ll benefit from high-quality instruction you can apply the next day. Each Baker BBA course is online and lasts six weeks. Courses are held year-round to fit your schedule.

These are just a few of the courses offered as part of Baker’s Bachelor of Business Administration with a major in business leadership:

Leadership Lessons from History. Survey leaders and apply leadership theory to their styles, evaluating lessons learned over time. You’ll study the actions taken by many leaders as they struggled to make ethical decisions, think critically, and build teams.
Economic Trends in Business Leadership. Learn the basic principles and concepts of economics—including cost, supply and demand, elasticity, GDP, inflation, fiscal and monetary policy, and international trade—and how they influence business decisions.
Leading and Coaching Teams. Study effective leadership and coaching models and discover how to apply these concepts as you develop structures, processes, and strategies to create and maintain effective teams.

View Full Course Descriptions

Related Programs at Baker University

In addition to business leadership, Baker University’s Bachelor of Business Administration program offers two other majors:

Management major: Develop and refine the management skills you need to be successful in today’s global business environment.
Marketing major: Build knowledge and skills to plan, develop, deliver, and manage marketing strategies for a variety of businesses and organizations.

BBA students can also choose to minor in criminal justice or psychology or add a concentration in human resources.

Coursework & Requirements

Admission Requirements

All applicants: Completed application form

Applicants with fewer than 12 hours of transferable college credit: Official high school transcript or state-approved high school equivalency test is required. The high school GPA must be at least 2.3. The minimum score required for admission using an official state-approved high school equivalency test is based on the scoring standards in place at the time of testing.

Applicants with fewer than 12 transferrable college credits who were home-schooled:

A transcript or portfolio of their home-schooled experience
Transcripts of any completed high school work
An original ACT score report from Educational Testing Service with a composite score of 21 (or SAT score of 510)

Applicants with credit from other institutions: Official transcripts from all regionally accredited institutions of higher education previously attended with a combined GPA of at least 2.0 is required. NOTE: Coursework attempted or completed at any postsecondary institution not disclosed at the time of application cannot later be submitted for potential transfer-in credit.

International applicants whose native language is not English:

A minimum TOEFL test score of 600 on the paper-based test, score of 250 on the computer-based test, or score of 100 on the internet-based test for international applicants, or a minimum IELTS score of 6.5
Additional requirements will apply

Required to enter the upper-level bachelor’s courses: A minimum of 48 hours of transferable credit including 3 credit hours of college-level English composition or equivalent course with a grade of C or better. Students admitted with fewer than 48 credit hours will begin with BK 110 and EN 102 and continue in the lower-level bachelor’s courses. Students admitted with 48 hours or more will begin with BK 110 and EN 305 and continue in the upper-level bachelor’s courses.

Enrollment Eligibility

Applicants who do not meet these minimum requirements will be considered for conditional or provisional admission on a case-by-case basis.

A student seeking to earn a bachelor’s degree must complete the required course of study as prescribed in the program. If a student has completed a comparable course within the past five years, he or she may request a course waiver for a maximum of two courses. The request to waive or transfer coursework must be made in writing before beginning the bachelor’s program. The student’s schedule and financial aid packaging must be factored into the approval process for waived coursework.

How to send transcripts to Baker.

Graduation Requirements

Successful completion of the specified upper-division courses (24 hours) and at least one of the majors (18 hours). A maximum of 6 hours of comparable coursework may be transferred into the upper-division business or major courses with the exception of EN 305.
A cumulative business program GPA of at least 2.0
A cumulative GPA of at least 2.0.
Satisfaction of the 30 credit hours of general education requirements in arts and humanities, social science, and science. Typically, an earned Associate of Arts or Associate of Science degree from a regionally accredited institution will satisfy the requirement.
Satisfaction of the 9-credit-hour general education requirement in math, upper-college English, and computer science. This 9-hour requirement is fully met by courses within the BBA upper-division courses: Math (BU 333), upper-college written English (EN 305), and computer science (BU 327). These hours cannot be counted toward total hours more than once, substituted, or waived by Baker. Completion of this requirement through these BBA upper-division courses does not decrease the total number of hours required for the degree (120 credit hours); rather, it allows students to complete additional elective coursework.
Submission of intent to graduate form six months before anticipated degree completion
Payment of all tuition and fees
Approval by the faculty and Board of Trustees

General Education Course Requirements | 33 credits

Introduction to Undergraduate Education (BK 110) 3 credits (required for all BBA students)
Arts & Humanities (with no more than 6 semester credits counted from any one discipline) 18 credits
Social Sciences 6 credits
Sciences 6 credits
Math (College Algebra or higher) 3 credits (satisfied in the BBA upper-division and major courses)
Computer Science 3 credits (satisfied in the BBA upper-division and major courses)
Upper-College Written English 3 credits (satisfied in the BBA upper-division and major courses)

Total 33 credits (minus the 9 credits included in the BBA upper-division courses)

General Electives | 45 credits

Upper-Division & Major Courses | 42 credits

Minimum Credits Required for Graduation | 120 credits

Transfer Hours

We will evaluate your transcripts from other regionally accredited colleges and universities to determine which credits transfer.

BBA Core Courses - Upper Division

EN 305 Written Communication II (Must be taken within the fist three courses.)

This course prepares students for writing in professional settings and in future SPGS courses. Students learn to write analytically and persuasively with a reader-centered approach. Students will employ the writing process of invention, drafting, editing, and revision. Students will become skilled at finding and eliminating most common writing errors and learn to write succinctly. This course is a prerequisite for other upper-division coursework. (3 credits)

BU 315 Best Practices in Management and Leadership

Designed to provide an overview of the roles and responsibilities of managers in the day-to-day operation of organizations, this course examines the critical roles of leadership, decision making, and communication and explores aspects of motivation and managing conflict, change, and diversity in contemporary organizations. (3 credits)

BU 327 Leveraging Technology in Decision Making

This course presents the many forms of information systems that provide data to contemporary organizations, including databases, the Internet and decision-support systems. The course reviews system design, infrastructure, security, and electronic commerce. This course satisfies the computer science requirement within the Bachelor of Business Administration and Bachelor of Science in Accounting degrees. (3 credits)

BU 333 Business Analytics

This course introduces analytics and statistics as applied to managerial planning and issues. Emphasis is on conceptual understanding as well as conducting analytic analyses. Students learn the limitations and potential of business analytics with hands-on experience. The course covers the basic concepts of analytic model building and its role in rational decision making. Students are encouraged to take an analytic view of decision making by examination of trade-offs, constraints, uncertainty, and analyses. Students collect and analyze analytics to prepare and present a comprehensive final project report. (3 credits)

MKT Principles of Marketing

This course is an introduction to the basic principles of marketing, practices, and the application of these practices. Subjects covered include ethical decision-making, feasibility analysis, products, promotion, channels of distribution, pricing, international marketing, and use of technology in marketing. Prerequisite for marketing majors only. (3 credits)

BU 348 Strategic Human Resources

This course introduces the essential elements of personnel management. Students study employee recruitment, hiring, training, and evaluation. Students learn the processes of wage, salary, and benefit administration. The importance of labor relations is also emphasized. (3 credits)

BU 352 Business Law I

This course examines the formation and application of common law, the Uniform Commercial Code, and administrative agency law in relation to the business organization. (3 credits)

BU 373 Applied Accounting for Business Decisions

This course goes beyond the mechanics of financial accounting to provide a more advanced understanding of accounting practices. It incorporates financial and managerial accounting concepts, including statement of cash flows, budgeting for planning and control, cost accounting systems, and break-even analysis. (3 credits)

Leadership Major Courses - Online Only (18hrs)

LDR 320 Economic Trends in Business Leadership

This course presents the basic principles and concepts of economics, including cost, supply and demand, elasticity, costs and benefits, GDP, inflation, fiscal and monetary policy, and international trade. Students will learn about these principles with an emphasis on how they influence business decisions. (3 credits)

LDR 365 Leadership: Lessons from History

Students evaluate leadership lessons learned across time by surveying leaders and applying leadership theory to their styles. Readings will illuminate the actions taken by many leaders as they struggled with making ethical decisions, thinking critically, and building teams of people. (3 credits)

LDR 397 Leading and Coaching Teams

Students experience an applied approach to effectively leading and coaching models and apply these concepts. Students develop structures, processes, and strategies to create and maintain effective teams. (3 credits)

LDR 433 Building Organizational Climates

Students discover the elements that create organizational climates. After reviewing the literature and foundations of organizational climates, students develop systematic methods of building climates within organizations. (3 credits)

LDR 446 Project Planning and Implementation

This course introduces the concepts and procedures essential to project-centered organizations. Learn about team development and conflict resolution, and use industry-leading software to enhance the project management process, including task assignment, project control, scheduling, and budgeting. (3 credits)

LDR 465 Leadership Project

Students analyze common mistakes and pitfalls made in project management. The course surveys broad concepts including successful project planning, organization and implementation. Topics include the project management life cycle, work-planning technologies, and evaluation techniques. (3 credits)