FIT3207 Computing in practice: Leadership and influence

This optional practice unit builds on Computing in Practice 1: Professional Practice and is open to students from all courses participating in the Monash IT Industry Practice Program. You will continue working within a student-led company, with a focus on understanding organisations as systems and exploring how leadership, influence, stakeholder relationships, culture, workflows, information flows and decision-making shape what the company can achieve.

You will examine leadership as a practice of understanding and influencing systems, not simply directing individual tasks or holding formal authority. Through learning stories from industry and academic leaders, you will consider different leadership journeys, leadership philosophies, professional turning points, and approaches to working through uncertainty, change and complexity. These stories will help you compare leadership approaches and reflect on the kind of contributor, collaborator or emerging leader you want to become.

The unit introduces systems thinking as a way to understand company behaviour. You will look beyond isolated events to identify patterns, structures, incentives, assumptions and mental models that influence how teams work. You will consider how vision, purpose and values can shape organisational direction, and how leaders create environments that support collaboration, accountability, creativity, psychological safety and sustained delivery.

Not all students will hold formal leadership roles in the company. At pass level, the emphasis is on understanding leadership, analysing organisational systems, engaging with leadership stories, contributing constructively, and recognising opportunities to influence through responsible professional practice. Students who are ready to take on greater responsibility may use the unit to exercise growing influence within the program, such as supporting team direction, improving workflows, mentoring peers, strengthening stakeholder relationships, or helping align others around a shared vision.

The unit gives you agency to define your own development focus. In consultation with mentors, peers and company leaders, you will identify the leadership, influence, strategic, technical, creative, analytical or professional capabilities you want to strengthen. You will then contribute to company work in ways that advance those capabilities, while building portfolio evidence that demonstrates your learning, impact and professional growth.

Assessment is centred on an individual evidence-based portfolio. Your portfolio will show how you have understood the company as an organisational system, engaged with leadership stories and approaches, identified opportunities for influence, responded to feedback, and developed the capabilities you selected for growth.