Empowering Future Leaders: Exploring Malaysian Undergraduates’ Views on Learning Leadership Discourse

The role of discourse in shaping how people see the world and in gaining authority has long been recognised.Using a language-focused approach that pays attention to interaction and context, many fields now look at leadership by asking how it actually happens and how it adds to the dynamics of the leadership process by critically examining authentic texts in authentic settings.Despite this, the recognition of language's role in shaping organisational realities has not been fully carried over into education, nor widely applied in research outside linguistically focused fields.This article examines students' awareness of leadership discourse and their experiences of engaging with it in the classroom.The participants are undergraduates at a Malaysian university who were introduced to leadership discourse as part of their Discourse Analysis course.Students were asked to analyse leadership through linguistic features of their choice, such as politeness, speech acts (including requests, apologies, and directives), or gendered language.The findings indicate that students perceive leadership discourse as highly relevant to both their everyday and professional lives.This article continues to promote a socially conscious approach to language and argues that future professionnals will be better prepared to recognise underlying power dynamics and to practise leadership with greater reflection, critical awareness, and ethical responsibility.