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Professional Practice:
Leadership

Distance Study NZ & International

Designed for current and aspiring leaders across various sectors, this major helps you develop strategic thinking, change management, and mentoring skills. Through engaging with leadership models and theories, both global and faith-based, you’ll cultivate a leadership style grounded in empathy, servant leadership, and practical wisdom.

Applications for 2025 are expected to be open in November. 

To be notified when applications are open register your details:

Study Pathway

The Postgraduate Diploma  is a prerequisite for entry into the Masters programme.

Programme overview

The Postgraduate Diploma in Professional Practice and Master of Professional Practice programmes create a safe, but challenging space focused on ‘being and becoming’ confident Christ-following professionals whose practice is research-informed.
The learning experiences within the programme equip and enable participants to engage with research and reflective inquiry into their professional practice in order to improve understanding of that practice and increase its intentionality and strategic alignment with the biblical narrative and the idea of the Kingdom of God on earth. 

Dr Lindsay Fish is the Programme Leader for the Professional Practice programme, and is an experienced researcher and educator.

Programme Highlights

  • Culturally attuned learning: The curriculum integrates Mātauranga Māori principles and honours Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
  • Faith-informed education: Draw on your faith to inform compassionate, ethical professional practice.
  • Flexible learning options: Access the programme from anywhere in New Zealand or abroad through online and in-person wānanga.

Unique approach

At BTI we recognise that we are created to engage with the spiritual dimension as well as with the social and physical aspects of people’s lives in the places where we live and work. It is this unique approach to the Master’s degree, together with an integration of theoretical, personal, and professional learning spaces, that will give you the edge over other professionals. 

Integrate professional with personal

A key component of our professional master’s degree programme is to heighten awareness of your own gifts, talents, strengths, weaknesses and ways of thinking that influence your ‘ways of being’. By engaging in this way, students enter into a practical synthesis between existing literature, personal experience, the Biblical narrative and your own professional context, allowing each to inform the other. These cycles of critical reflection provide opportunities for questioning societal, cultural, and institutional norms and potentially challenging some of the prevailing assumptions and values that inform them. 

Advance your career

Completing a reputable postgraduate programme in professional practice can help to advance your career, moving you up the career ladder, or into a connected field.

All professional backgrounds

We have students on this programme from all professional backgrounds who are seeking to transition to a deeper level of understanding of the intersection between their personal gifts and calling and their professional context.

Entry Requirements

  • To support your application, the following is required:

    • An NZQA-approved Level 7 bachelor’s degree (or equivalent).
    • Minimum of two years professional experience (Leadership only).
    • Evidence of Professional membership within a relevant field.
    • Membership of a relevant professional body (Trauma-Therapy major)
    • Applicants without a Bachelor’s degree who choose the Leadership major will be invited to submit an essay with their application, and be required to successfully complete paper MPP840 with at least a B grade before progressing to further study within the Masters programme.
    • Applicants for the Trauma majors will begin with the PG Cerificate in Responding to Trauma, then complete one of the PGDipPP trauma majors before moving into the Master’s.
    • If your degree was completed with an overseas organisation, an International Qualifications Assessment is required.
    • Please note: International applicants are required to meet the minimum English language requirements: the equivalent in IELTS of an Academic Score of 6.5, with no band score lower than 6.

Graduate profile and careers

Graduates from a postgraduate programme of study such as the Leadership major of the Master of Professional Practice will find it advances their career prospects, either within a current professional field, or into an allied field.

The leadership component of the programme positions students well within the market place to take the next step on the career ladder. Graduates will have a rounded knowledge of leadership as applied to their particular professional context, bringing middle and senior management positions within accessible reach. 

“l have experienced MPPL not just as a master’s degree or new learning of information, but as a journey into deep transformation – spiritual, physical, emotional, and professional – and the journey continues.” 

– Philippa Becker, Teacher and MPPL student. 

“l initially went into the master’s programme unsure of whether I could complete it, but through the gentle nurturing and support which I received from the teachers, I was able to complete my degree.

– John Wilson, Teacher and MPPL Graduate

“I knew that God had called me to complete the MPPL at this time in my life and knowing that gave me the drive and passion to persevere.”


– John Wilson, Teacher and MPPL Graduate