Master of Arts in Leadership
The Master of Arts in Leadership prepares reflective, justice-oriented leaders to navigate complexity and create meaningful change with integrity, systems awareness, and contemplative depth.
Program Overview
The Master of Arts in Leadership is a practice-based graduate program grounded in Naropa University’s distinctive contemplative education model.
You’ll explore leadership through contemplative practice, systems thinking, and applied skill development while examining questions of ethics, power, privilege, and meaningful change. Designed for leaders working across nonprofit, environmental, civic, spiritual, and community-based settings, the program helps you build practical leadership skills you can apply directly within your professional or community work. Throughout the program, you’ll connect theory with practice through reflective coursework and an integrative capstone project rooted in a real-world challenge or area of care.
Faculty Expertise
Students learn from Naropa faculty with expertise across leadership studies, contemplative education, environmental policy, religious studies, public administration, nonprofit management, conflict resolution, and social justice praxis. Faculty bring scholarly depth and applied experience in areas such as systems transformation, interspiritual dialogue, equity-centered leadership, ecological justice, and contemplative practice.
Quick Facts
- Degree: Master of Arts in Leadership
- Total Credits: 30 credits (33 with optional thesis extension)
- Format: Online
- Time to Completion: 2 years full-time; part-time options available
- Tracks: Environmental Leadership, Spiritual Leadership, Civic & Social Justice Leadership
- Capstone: Integrative, student-designed project connected to professional practice
- Signature Feature: Contemplative education, systems literacy, and effective strategies for creating change integrated throughout the curriculum
- Applications open for Spring 2027
Pending Approval from the U.S. Department of Education
Although the program has been approved by the Higher Learning Commission, Naropa is awaiting final approval from the U.S. Department of Education before the program can participate in federal financial aid programs. At this time, students enrolled in this program are not eligible to receive federal student loans, federal grants, VA education benefits, or institutional aid from Naropa, including Naropa scholarships or grants.
Program Format
The Master of Arts in Leadership is a flexible, two-year graduate program designed to support working professionals and community leaders.
Coursework is completed primarily online, with select live class sessions that encourage relational learning, reflection, and cohort connection. Throughout the program, you’ll apply your learning directly to real-world leadership contexts while developing an integrative capstone project connected to your professional or community work.
Most students complete the program across three academic terms, with the option to extend coursework into a lighter fourth term.
Optional Intensives
- While no in-person retreats are required at launch, optional virtual or on-campus intensives may be offered periodically.
Degree
Requirements
Master of Arts in Leadership
Leadership Core: 12 credits
- LDR-600E Inner Work and Leadership Identity (3)
This course grounds students in the inner dimensions of leadership: self-awareness, embodied presence, and the relationship between personal transformation and organizational change. Drawing on contemplative traditions and reflective practice, students examine their own leadership histories, values, and growing edges. Practices of journaling, somatic awareness, and structured reflection are woven throughout the course. - LDR-615E Foundations of Leadership Theory and Inquiry (3)
This course introduces students to the major theories and frameworks of leadership – from transformational, servant, and adaptive leadership to distributed, feminist, and decolonial models – alongside the research methods most relevant to leadership practice. Students develop a critical leadership vocabulary, examine the ethical demands different frameworks place on the leader, and design a small-scale inquiry project connecting their professional context to a guiding research question. This inquiry project serves as the intellectual foundation for the capstone. - REL-615E Power, Privilege & Diversity (3)
An examination of the nature of the human group-field. Of particular concern is how human groups create both helpful and harmful conditions in the world. This class provides the theoretical underpinnings of the group-field, including living systems theory, group dynamics, liberation theory, conflict theory, and healthy communication models such as mediation and nonviolent communication. Woven throughout is a focus on the dynamics of privilege, power, and diversity, and group-field process work as a way to engage group life. Course offered online. - LDR-620E Transforming Systems (3)
This course examines how leaders understand and intervene in complex adaptive systems. Drawing on systems thinking, organizational theory, and social change literature, students develop tools for mapping systems, identifying leverage points, and leading change at multiple scales. Case studies span environmental, nonprofit, civic, and spiritual community contexts, illustrating how systems transformation looks different depending on the leader’s domain.
Choose One Track: 9 credits
- Environmental Leadership (Roots and Branches)
- Contemplative and Spiritual Leadership (Threshold Leadership)
- Civic and Social Justice Leadership (The Common Good)
Capstone: 3 credits
- INTD-601E Integrative Thesis Design (3)
In this course students design, propose, and research an integrative capstone project. Students can choose to do a more traditional academic paper of roughly 50 pages or a hybrid project that combines a shorter research paper with a creative or socially engaged project. Hybrid projects might include writing fiction, poetry or creative non-fiction, developing learning modules for a specific audience, or partnering with a local non-profit organization to lead a community initiative. Students may elect to take an additional 3-credit thesis course to support writing a longer, traditional thesis.
Elective or Thesis Extension: 3 credits
- Approved elective (3) or
- INTD 602E Interdisciplinary Thesis (3)
In this course students will complete the work begun in Integrative Thesis Design. Students will research and write a Masters Capstone Thesis of roughly 50 pages or complete a hybrid project. Through peer review, students will offer critical, reflective feedback to each other. Faculty mentors will support the students in their process of organizing, drafting, revising, and editing the thesis. The 30-credit curriculum is organized into four interlocking components: a foundational course on interdisciplinary research and contemplative practice, two sets of disciplinary concentrations, and a one- or two-semester capstone project.
Total: 30 credits
Why Choose Naropa?
Contemplative Leadership as Core Practice
Grounded in Naropa’s contemplative education tradition, the program invites you to develop leadership from the inside out. Alongside practical leadership skills, you’ll cultivate self-awareness, ethical clarity, resilience, and the capacity to respond thoughtfully within complex systems and communities.
Justice-Centered, Systems-Oriented Curriculum
You’ll explore how power, privilege, identity, and systems shape organizations, communities, and leadership itself. Through systems thinking, collaborative learning, and justice-centered inquiry, the program helps you develop the awareness and practical skills needed to navigate complex social, organizational, and ecological challenges with greater care and effectiveness.
Deep Customization Through Tracks & Capstone
The program is designed to support a wide range of leadership paths and professional goals. Through specialized tracks and an integrative capstone project, you’ll have the flexibility to focus your studies around the communities, organizations, or systems you care most about—while applying your learning directly to real-world leadership challenges.
How this Program Prepares You
Embodied and Ethical Leadership Practice
Students cultivate self-awareness and reflective capacity through sustained contemplative practice, enabling them to lead with integrity, emotional intelligence, and resilience in uncertain and highstakes environments.
Applied Systems and Organizational Change Skills
Through systems thinking, leadership theory, and applied coursework, students gain tools to analyze complex challenges, identify leverage points, and design strategies for meaningful transformation.
Professional Expertise in a Chosen Leadership Domain
Each track builds advanced, field-specific competencies—whether environmental, spiritual, or civic—ensuring graduates are prepared for leadership roles aligned with their values and professional goals.
What You'll Learn
Contemplative & Ethical Leadership
Demonstrate embodied understanding of contemplative or reflective practices and articulate how inner work informs ethical and resilient leadership.
Justice-Centered Leadership
Analyze systems of power, privilege, and oppression across intersecting identities and apply frameworks of collective liberation to leadership practice.
Systems Thinking & Change-Making
Apply systems thinking to assess complex organizational, social, and ecological challenges and develop strategies for change at multiple scales.
Focused Leadership Pathways
Demonstrate advanced knowledge and applied competency in their chosen leadership track.
Real-World Leadership Integration
Design and communicate an integrative capstone project that synthesizes theory, practice, and reflection in response to a real-world leadership challenge.
Career Opportunities with a Master of Arts in Leadership
Graduates of the MA in Leadership are prepared to lead across nonprofit, civic, environmental, spiritual, and community-based organizations. Through a combination of contemplative practice, systems thinking, and applied leadership development, students build practical skills that support thoughtful, collaborative, and values-driven leadership in a wide range of professional settings.
- Nonprofit Executive Director or Program Manager
- Environmental Policy Advocate or Sustainability Director
- Community Organizer or Social Justice Advocate
- Spiritual Community Leader or Interfaith Program Director
- Chaplain or Spiritual Care Administrator
- Civic Engagement Coordinator
- Organizational Development Consultant
- Public Sector or Nonprofit Manager
Hear from a Faculty Member
In the dominant culture, leadership is primarily undertaken from a ‘power over’ mentality, leading to environmental devastation and unjust social structures. What is needed is ‘power with’ leadership which is most effective when it stems from an individual’s ‘power within.’ A Naropa education provides ‘power with’ frameworks and skills with a foundation in mindfulness and compassion allowing graduates to cultivate their ‘power within’ in order to help build a just and sustainable future.
Travis Cox, PhD
FAQS about the
Master of Arts in Leadership
How is Naropa's MA in Leadership different from other leadership degrees?
Naropa’s MA in Leadership combines leadership theory, systems thinking, and applied skill development with contemplative practice and deep personal inquiry. Students explore not only how organizations and communities function, but also how self-awareness, ethics, and presence shape effective leadership in complex and changing environments.
What does it mean to "lead from wholeness"?
Leading from wholeness means bringing your values, humanity, and authentic presence into the way you lead. At Naropa, students learn to integrate inner development with professional practice, cultivating leadership that is grounded, relational, and aligned with a deeper sense of purpose.
Who should consider an MA in Leadership?
This program is designed for professionals, entrepreneurs, educators, nonprofit leaders, community organizers, and others seeking to deepen their leadership capacity and create meaningful change within organizations, communities, and social systems.
What topics will I study?
Students explore leadership theory, organizational dynamics, systems thinking, communication, ethics, power and privilege, and contemplative approaches to leadership. Coursework is designed to help students navigate complexity, foster collaboration, and respond skillfully to real-world challenges.
How do contemplative practices support leadership development?
Contemplative practices help leaders cultivate focus, resilience, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence. By developing the capacity to pause, reflect, and respond thoughtfully, students learn to navigate complexity, uncertainty, and change with greater clarity and effectiveness.
What can I do with a Master's in Leadership?
Graduates pursue leadership roles across nonprofit, civic, environmental, educational, spiritual, and community-based sectors. The degree can support careers in organizational leadership, program management, community engagement, sustainability, social impact, nonprofit administration, consulting, and other mission-driven fields.
Learn More About the Program
Connect with your counselor
Rachel Thompson
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions
- 303-970-9831
- rachel.thompson@naropa.edu
- Schedule Appointment
Connect with your counselor
Rachel Thompson
Assistant Director of Undergraduate Admissions
- 303-970-9831
- rachel.thompson@naropa.edu
- Schedule Appointment
Ready to Apply?
Admission Requirements
Naropa University’s admission process follows our contemplative education principles. We value academic excellence as well as the commitment to introspective work. Admissions are rolling and applications will be accepted until the program is full.
Learn more about admission requirements, current deadlines, and the application process for the MA in Leadership.
Costs & Payment Options
At Naropa, we believe quality education should be accessible to all. Learn more about costs and payment options.
Graduate Scholarship Opportunities
Scholarships are a great way to help with the costs of going to school. Naropa University offers an array of scholarship opportunities to graduate students. Students may be eligible to receive scholarships by applying for scholarships or by being nominated for a scholarship. For more detailed information about the different scholarships available and how to receive them, please review our graduate scholarship page.
Interested in the Master of Arts in Leadership?
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Episode 39. Susan Skjei: Training Authentic Leaders
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