Why Study Rhetorical Leadership?
A rhetorical education prepares students with a theoretical framework, practical skills, and models for effective, ethical leadership in areas like public service, education, the non-profit sector, business, and social activism.
Leadership through rhetoric is vital for those with limited resources and formal authority who must rally others primarily through language and arguments. Rhetoric is a humanities-based academic specialty that focuses on making, evaluating, and improving arguments in practical, shared decision-making situations. Unlike public relations or management approaches to leadership, the discipline of rhetoric has a 2500-year tradition of motivating, teaching, and critically examining how symbols unite people for or against shared action.