5 Skills You Will Gain From A Specialized Masters To Prepare You For Driving Positive Change

More than ever before, business Master’s candidates are demanding that business schools incorporate sustainability into their programs. This year, 68% of respondents to the Graduate Management Admission Council’s (GMAC) Prospective Students Survey agreed that sustainability was important or very important to their academic experience. 

This isn’t just about personal ethics. Managers with knowledge of sustainability and business ethics are increasingly in demand. 

The number of job postings for ‘green’ roles—whether a dedicated sustainability role or a job requiring green skills—grew by almost 25% between 2022 and 2023. Additionally, Sustainability Manager roles are now among the fastest-growing jobs in the US and Europe.   

Evidently, companies recognize the need to recruit leaders who can make decisions on sustainability issues. To gain those relevant skills, it may be worth considering a degree other than a traditional Master of Management. 

At emlyon business school, a new MSc in Leading Sustainable Transformations prepares students for future leadership roles—ones where sustainability takes center stage. 

The 18-month program gives students experience designing sustainable transformations through practical projects, including a semester exchange at the London Interdisciplinary School. 

Featuring insights from Vincent Giolito, program director and professor of Strategy, here are five skills students gain on the MSc in Leading Sustainable Transformations.

1. Learning to balance hard and soft leadership

As the course title denotes, leadership is at the core of the MSc in Leading Sustainable Transformations. “If there’s something really special about this program, it's the emphasis on leadership,” Vincent (pictured) claims. 

Students spend several days on professional and leadership development, participating in workshops and coaching sessions to discover their leadership potential.

These workshops on soft leadership skills, including communication and problem-solving, complement the hard skills of managing for-profit and not-for-profit organizations, such as CSR, finance, strategy and marketing. Through these workshops, the program claims to give students a fundamental and transformative approach to change management.

“Leadership is really about developing influence not only within processes and objectives—the classic stuff of management—but also the informal influence: relationships and communication,” explains Vincent. 

2. How to approach digital transformation  

The MSc in Leading Sustainable Transformations is naturally focused on sustainable transformations. However, the program also acknowledges the power of digital transformations to enable sustainable change. 

“The first term is dedicated to evaluating transformations and a firm's readiness to cope with them,” explains Vincent. “The first and most obvious is technological transformations.” 

emlyon ranks highly in ecological transition. It came first in the Le Point 2024 ranking and fourth in the Les Echos START/ChangeNOW 2023 ranking for schools most committed to ecological transition in France.

In these first modules, students will explore transformations in governance and strategy and also how innovations like AI fit into change management. The holistic approach to transformation means students develop technical skills in technology and recognize when developments like AI can be applied practically to further an organization’s sustainability goals.   

3. How to lead with societal impact in mind

After technological transformations, another critical skill for students on the MSc is societal transformation. This topic incorporates factors such as inclusion, diversity, and minority rights. 

Students will develop this societal knowledge during a year-long ‘Red Thread’ project. Outside of modules, students explore a real-world case study on a specific theme, for example, travel. 

As part of the project, they will develop specific research on the theme, connecting transformation and the societal and economic impacts. Students can choose a format for their research: a website, podcast, book, video, or another creative outlet. 

This project is developed in addition to a professional Master’s thesis. In this way, students explore the socio-economic impacts of transformation and academic themes. 

4. Collaboration and developing strong relationships 

Creating impactful change in organizations is more than just the job of one person. It takes many stakeholders to make a difference, and this understanding forms a core element of the leadership strand of the Master’s program. 

In addition to their individual projects, students must work in diverse teams to create a sustainable transformation plan. By nature, work groups are international: at the Paris campus, where the MSc is taught, 75 nationalities are typically represented. 

Working in multicultural teams naturally builds each student’s relationship skills, but the professional development strand of the course also focuses on skills like influence. At the end of the 18 months, students will understand where change must happen in organizations and how to develop teams that can enable change. 

5. How to build self-awareness

Making an impact in the world requires a strong belief in yourself and the change you want to make. This soft skill is integrated into the entirety of the MSc in Leading Sustainable Transformations, and guides students towards their future careers.

During the program, students participate in leadership development and career evaluation exercises to help them understand how they want to make a difference within organizations.  

“Many students in Master's programs arrive with little idea of what they want to do,” Vincent notes. “And in many programs, they end up with still little idea of what they want to accomplish in life or in their careers.” 

“Our aim here is to equip them with a much better knowledge of what they want to achieve in terms of transformations and how to make it happen,” he concludes.