Elevating Organizational Leadership Through Thoughtful Instructional Design: A Case for Instructional Design Integration, Not Segregation.

What is the process for, and the impact of, teaching instructional design (training design) to organizational leaders? Organizational Leadership and Instructional Design are often seen as two separate, distinct entities. However, organizational leadership and instructional design often intersect and/or have a necessary interplay. While organizational leaders focus on strategic direction, development, and overall success of an organization, instructional designers focus on the highly intentional, intricate crafting of learning experiences (and other practices) that are part of, and often critical to, achieving organizational direction, development, and success. This article outlines how the instructional design process was used to analyze, design, develop, implement, and evaluate a course called Training Interventions - an instructional systems design course that would become part of the core curriculum for an undergraduate Organizational Leadership Program. The title of the article has double meaning - meant to reflect both the course’s purpose (developing strategic, thoughtful leaders through the learning of instructional design process) and the process used to create it (the application of instructional design process to designing and developing a course that teaches instructional design process). In addition to the process of designing the course, the outcomes and potential implications of teaching leaders (from different fields) systematic, thoughtful instructional design processes and principles is discussed. More specifically, the article concludes with a discussion on the implications of integrating instructional design into other curriculums, as opposed to its more traditional segregation.