In the past few years, much attention has been paid to the need for business schools to modify both their curricular and pedagogical approaches. We have not been educating our students with enough regard to competencies, self-image, skills, and personal characteristics (Boyatzis, 1982; Porter and McKibbin, 1988; popular press). We have failed to focus enough on ethics. We have lived in a domestic cocoon in the midst of a global environment. We have not sufficiently connected our theories with the real world--i.e., engaged our students in applications, internships and experiential learning. And according to our deans, our corporate friends and foes, and our colleagues, we have not integrated very well what we have attempted to teach. It's all well detailed in the Porter-McKibbin Report (1988), and if you missed it there, you can read about it in any recent sampling of The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, or Fortune.

It should come, then, as no surprise that many, if not most, of us are in the midst of re-thinking our curricula and how we deliver it. While no single course can remedy all wrongs, this chapter is written to report on a new course that tries to strike out in a somewhat different direction to supply at least a small part of what's been missing. It's called "A Humanistic Approach to Leadership and Management" and it has been taught on both the undergraduate and MBA levels for two years now.

The essential premise of the course is this: while the traditional management curriculum defines planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling in a series of chapters that turn into courses which refine those definitions, this course instead asks students how they would (should) behave when placed in a variety of everyday leadership and management situations calling for difficult decision-making in front of and beside many impressionable and inquiring minds--those of their subordinates and their superiors. It uses a mix of three-fourths literature and one-fourth management theory readings as well as some film clips to provide guidance and stimulate reflection and discussion. (See Syllabus, Appendix A).

Before introducing the elements of the course, however, a brief review of the points from the Porter-McKibbin report that are salient to the current discussion is in order. In researching where American business school education is succeeding and failing, Porter and McKibbin surveyed and/or interviewed a sample of all the deans, placement directors, provosts and other administrators of all 620 U.S. member schools of the AACSB, 10 % of those schools' faculty members (approximately 2800 faculty members contacted), and students and alumni of both BBA and MBA programs at the schools. Over 8700 questionnaires alone were returned. Interviews were conducted at 50 different colleges and universities. Additionally, 1692 executives from 958 Fortune companies and 281 non-Fortune companies were returned. One of the most dramatic findings among the results of this survey was that, with the exception of the faculty members, all groups feel decisively and overwhelmingly that we are emphasizing the quantitative side of our curricula far too much. Executives were especially staunch on this point. On the other hand, all groups, including the faculty, feel even more decisively that we are emphasizing the behavioral side far too little. For example, 66-72% of executives felt we are emphasizing the behavioral side too little while only 4-9% felt we are emphasizing it too much. For purposes of this course, then, we are especially concerned with focusing on the particular areas of skills and personal characteristics (SAPC) requiring emphasis within the behavioral side.

The nine SAPCs appearing in the research are as follows:

1) Analytical

2) Computer

3) Decision making

4) Initiative

5) Leadership/interpersonal

6) Oral communication

7) Planning/organizing

8) Risk taking

9) Written communication

Of these, all groups surveyed generally felt that b-schools are coming the closest to the proper emphasis on the analytical and computer SAPCs while they are doing the most poorly in the other seven areas. The corporate view, represented only by vice-presidents of human resources and managers of small businesses, due to a need to keep the surveys short for other corporate groups, suggests that b-schools should spend more time on all nine of these SAPCs, but the most time on Leadership/interpersonal skills, Oral communication, and Written communication, in that order. Interestingly, Deans and faculty members agree that written and oral communication should be rated at the top, and include analytical skills in the group, too. But they have yet to understand the urgency of the business world's needs in the leadership/interpersonal skills area. For deans, leadership/interpersonal skills are (a close) fourth, and for faculty members, a distant tie for fifth. This latter finding suggests that faculty members, who are least likely to find themselves in a leadership position, have the least regard for the need for such skills, and are the most out of touch with what the corporate world says it needs the most!

The traditional academic research done by Boyatzis and his McBer associates found 19 types of competencies related to high performance (at various levels) among over 2000 managers studied in 41 different management jobs in 12 organizations (Boyatzis, 1982). These competencies break down into five clusters: Goal and Action Management, Leadership, Human Resource Management, Directing Subordinates, and Focus on Others. All five of these clusters contain elements of essentially the same characteristics that were of such concern to the respondents of the Porter-McKibbin Report.

Clearly, we must begin to focus on these competencies, skills and personal characteristics in a more direct and effective way at both the BBA and MBA level. Hopefully, a course such as "A Humanistic Approach to Leadership and Management" does exactly that.

Course readings are carefully integrated to cover leadership/management issues through dramatic or literary examples of such issues followed by a management theory piece that relates directly to the issue(s) revealed. For example, Sophocles' Antigone is followed by Kelley's (1988) "In Praise of Followers" and Kouzes' (1988) "When Leadership Collides with Loyalty." Selections from Willa Cather's O Pioneers! and Golda Meir's My Story are followed by Virginia Schein's (1989) "Would Women Lead Differently?" Other works that have been read in their entirety in the course include Golding's Lord of the Flies, Wouk's The Caine Mutiny, Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner, and the novel that culminates and integrates the whole undertaking, Adams' Watership Down. Selections are read from Melville's Moby Dick, Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls, Marquand's Point of No Return, White's View from the Fortieth Floor, among many others. Historical and non-fiction accounts of leaders as varied as Pericles, Cochise, Churchill, General Patton, Mahatma Ghandi, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Moses, Martin Luther King, and many others are read. Management theory pieces read include articles and chapters by Bradford and Cohen (1984), Conger and Kanungo (1987, 1988), Yukl (1989), Reich (1984), Bennis and Nanus (1985), and Zaleznik (1974,1983), among others.

All the fictional readings are selected to reveal something about leadership and management. Some works of literature commonly associated with business courses--like Lewis' Babbitt, Vonnegut's Player Piano, Miller's Death of a Salesman, for example--are not read because they shed little light, except perhaps in a very oblique way (e.g., the scene in which Howard fires Willie in Death of a Salesman), on the main focus of this particular course, which is not business in literature, but rather what it takes to be a humanistic leader and manager. Of course, what it may take is always the subject of much debate, but in the interests of getting started, the course focuses on the very skills and personal characteristics identified by the AACSB (1987), highlighted in the Porter-McKibbin report, and largely derived from Boyatzis' research on the competent manager that have been previously mentioned. At the same time, it uses Bradford and Cohen's concept of the "post-heroic" developmental manager for a philosophical underpinning.

The course uses some variations on the journal and the oral presentation to help students approach skill-building. For example, instead of defining "proactivity" and exhorting students to be proactive instead of reactive in their future management styles, this course requires them to write out in their "learning logs" exactly which initiatives they would expect themselves to take in given situations. These logs are kept for the purpose of allowing students to reflect on their possible alternative courses of action in various difficult management situations. Situations described can be imminent and real or they can be imagined as realistic future possibilities. Regardless, students are expected to develop a "canon" of principles to follow deriving from their best consideration of these alternatives. Hopefully, such an exercise helps them to consider the proper course for an imminent situation or prepares them so that when they are later unexpectedly thrust into some of the very situations they are writing about, they will have less chance of doing something precipitous that they might later regret. They will have already considered whether they should lie to their subordinates, for example, or under what conditions, if any, 'omitting the truth," would be acceptable. Or, in a more sophisticated vein, they will have a clearer idea of how to approach such seldom-discussed issues as what kinds of rules and policies they should avoid making for their subordinates, or, what is the difference between inconsistency and intelligent reversal of the rules. This kind of analysis precipitates discussion of effective decision-making and risk-taking as well.

Another example may make the point. Classes often become obsessed with the question, Can a manager maintain the same kind of friendship with his "best friend" if that best friend has just become his/her subordinate? In what ways does the new work relationship necessarily affect the friendship, if at all? Should the manager ever confide in any subordinate? Should managers allow a subordinate to confide in them? And if so, what kind of information would be an acceptable confidence? Discussions can rage over such questions, questions students don't usually consider, even in Organizational Behavior. In this course, they must write out answers, scenarios, as to how they will behave, in their learning logs as well as in papers that make reference to their readings. Part-time graduate students may get an opportunity to act out their scenarios for real at their full-time jobs, while full-time undergraduates may have the opportunity to do so in their part-time jobs. After a little encouragement, both are happy to report to the class on their results. The subject has been inspired by their class reading of a novelette by Joseph Conrad entitled The Secret Sharer. Later, the class gets into the deeper subject of that work, in what ways must one know oneself to take command?

Creative oral presentations offer students another avenue for approaching the business of learning how to behave as effective managers. The presentations require them to script and act out "management dilemma" scenarios suggested in fictional and biographical works taken from a reading list rich with examples of failed or successful leadership. Students are provided with a guide to effective presentations in advance, and are required to lead a short discussion of the major leadership questions they think they have raised following their presentations. This course assignment requires definite risk-taking from normally reserved graduate students. Undergraduates have fewer inhibitions but still see themselves as in a clear risk-taking mode. The benefits are large, though: that students will actually practice thinking out some initiatives that they could see themselves undertaking, and in the presentations, actually take some of these initiatives in a "pretend" or "laboratory" setting. Then, when a similar scenario occurs in their post-graduate (or present) managerial lives, they will have already considered the possible responses; they will start from a much broader understanding of possible implications than one might normally expect from a b-school graduate. The whole approach represents a small insurance policy against every manager's biggest fear--surprise.

Now, it might be of value to describe some recent examples of the highly creative scenarios of which students are capable. In one presentation, two students read Tip O'Neill's recent book, Man of the House. One took the role of Tip, complete with pillow under his disheveled suit, powdered hair, and cigar, while the other brought the props to play several roles in rapid-fire succession--Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, Congressman Edward Boland, author-collaborator William Novak, and wife Millie O'Neill. Their 30 minute skit divided into 8 vignettes in which they were able to make 8 separate points about the nature of effective leadership. Shirtboards with the points succinctly summarized in magic marker appeared on the chalkrail as each skit ended. The presentation culminated with an overhead projection of some further points. Following the presentation, students ran a discussion on points raised. In another presentation, Winston Churchill, complete with cane, tails, and top-hat, was interviewed on "television" by a BBC reporter who affected a brash reportorial tone of voice and a strong British accent from beginning to end. The Larry King format was used with viewers calling in with tough questions for Winston (read from cards held in the reporter's hand). One volume of Martin Gilbert's biography of Churchill was brought to life in a very unusual way. We have also had the Donahue Show, Oprah Winfrey, and several original skits which only sought to replicate the concepts from books read rather than the actual material in the books themselves. The students who put on these presentations and run the discussions after them demonstrate great initiative and risk-taking in doing so. And they gain self-confidence from their successes. In one oral presentation, which they will remember long after they graduate from their programs, they have discovered that initiative and risk-taking pay off. We have covered three of the SAPCs directly in a new way.

It certainly is not to be assumed, though, that we feel that we need do nothing more in this regard to help develop these SAPCs. While no other oral presentations are required in the course, students will continue to mull over initiative and risk taking as they read about countless literary and historical figures who have taken some dramatic initiatives and risks. Additionally, they will see and discuss films and film clips that portray such leaders, e.g., the CBS film clip containing biographical information and the "I have a dream" speech of Martin Luther King or clips from such movies as "Stand and Deliver," "Moby Dick," and "The Caine Mutiny." Finally, we will read topical theoretical material such as some of the articles contained in Conger and Kanungo (1988) on characteristics of charismatic leadership.

At this point, a word on preparation may well be in order. Students do have an opportunity to practice oral expression skills prior to engaging in their scenarios. Much classwork involves small groups dealing with difficult questions concerning the readings and reporting back the results to the group. Some examples are: "What key leadership behavior omissions prevented Ralph from becoming an effective leader in Lord of the Flies?" or "Construct some present-day managerial analogies to Ahab's dismissal of the captain of the Rachel's request for help in favor of continuing his pursuit of Moby Dick" or "In what ways does Alexandra Bergson's leadership style in O Pioneers! suggest dilemmas of leadership still present for women leaders in American business today?" Considered responses to these questions must be presented by groups to the class as a whole following small group discussions and considerations of the relevant issue. These responses both stimulate large group discussion and constitute the first practice to the oral presentations of the second half of the semester. A formal mid-semester participation evaluation is also in place to help students with oral communication skills.

In addition to the learning logs required of each student in this course, written communication includes a weekly quiz consisting of one comprehensive short essay question as well as three papers handed in during the semester. The goal of the essay question quiz is twofold: to require students to demonstrate that they have done the reading; and to compel them to associate some key issue relevant to leadership to that reading. Sample quiz questions include: Provide specific examples of how Creon made it difficult to be a good follower in his kingdom (after reading Antigone and Kelley's "In Praise of Followers"); Compare the leadership skills of Pericles and Churchill (after selections from Thucydides and Gilbert); Discuss charismatic characteristics of Captain Ahab (after selections from Moby Dick and an article by Conger and Kanungo (1987) on behavioral aspects of charisma). Topics chosen by students for their papers have included: How the American Indian chiefs used Bennis' Four Leadership Strategies (after reading selections from Dee Brown's Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Bennis and Nanus); Why Vision is Not Enough (after reading Styron's Confessions of Nat Turner); Ralph and Jack--A Comparison of Leadership Failures (after reading Golding's Lord of the Flies). Papers are saved to diskettes and rewriting is encouraged where necessary; formal written communication is a skill easily studied in the course.

It has already been suggested how some of the SAPCs are encouraged in the course--how leadership, initiative, and risk-taking are studied in literature and encouraged in oral presentations and how written communication is practiced through the papers and essay quizzes. But what exactly is it that makes this approach to skill-building a humanistic one?

It may have been noticed that nowhere so far in this description of the course has mention been made of contingency leadership, situational leadership, task and relationship orientations, managerial grid, etc. The course does not take a traditional or historical social science approach to the subject. Certainly, important terms such as Theory X/Theory Y or "initiating structure" and "consideration behavior" come up in discussion or readings, but they are not studied per se. Instead, the course tries to focus on the situations and dilemmas attendant to the task of being an effective leader and manager by using a deductive approach. What has worked in novels? What has worked in history? What has failed, and why? Can we find some management theory which will confirm or enhance our understanding of the answers to these questions? It is concerned with leadership and management on a very basic level--what is power, why do I need it, how do I get it, how do I maintain it, and how do I use it for good (the inevitable ethical perspective)? It begins on a microscopic level, but it moves to a macroscopic one in a vicariously experiential way. We read about successful and failed leadership and we identify with the leaders and managers or with the followers. Either way, this identification helps us develop our SAPCs in a manner unavailable to courses using more traditional techniques.

The course, then, is humanistic in that it uses fiction, biography, drama, film, and even current events to examine the subject of leadership in human groups. It is eclectic in its perspective, hoping to recall the humanism of the Renaissance in spirit. It is a "humanities"-oriented approach, using readings from the arts as a centerpiece, readings from the social sciences for re-focus and direction.

Some valuable by-products result from the use of such an approach. While the study of ethics in business is not expressly covered in the course, the subject comes up every day in connection with the discussion of effective leaders whose goals are/were destructive, of "negative" charisma, and of the "right" course to chart out of any of hundreds of managerial dilemmas. It is a major interest of the learning logs. Another valuable by-product comes in students' new appreciation of the value of the liberal arts, specifically drama and literature, in helping one become a better businessperson. Students who never understood the relevance of Greek drama, for example, want to argue endlessly over where loyalty should stop and disobedience begin in Creon's kingdom, a subject continued rather neatly in their reading about Captain Queeg and his concept of "constructive loyalty" in The Caine Mutiny. Thus, the course becomes humanistic in one more way. Students learn the value of approaching leadership with due respect for man's humanity to man; consideration behavior can become instilled at the emotional level that made great literature great in the first place.

Finally, the course helps students integrate concepts learned in management classes not just with the rest of the business curriculum, as the Porter-McKibbin Report calls for, but with their readings from their English, history, psychology, sociology, and anthropology classes. It is a kind of integration that may go beyond what we have envisioned for our curricula in the past but not beyond what our colleagues in the school of arts and science and in the upper levels of corporate America have envisioned. It says, taking arts and sciences courses in the first two years of college and business courses in the second two is not good enough by itself to make certain our education is complete. The two curricula should meet in ways that prove they are really parts of the same educational purpose--preparing us for life after University. This course is one such meeting ground.

But deans will say, who on my faculty can teach such a course? You have to have a degree in English or the humanities. The people who can teach such a course are any of those from the business faculty who have the interest. We management faculty have never had trouble reading extensive cases featuring difficult problems in organizational behavior and presenting them to students for analysis. The idea in this course has never been to approach the literary works from the point of view of style or literary history. Any literary techniques or devices that can be pointed out may be a bonus to the students but are in no way required for purposes of the types of analysis being done in the management classroom. In fact, it may well be that ONLY management professors, who are trained in identifying, understanding and presenting the management theory that goes with the reading of the artistic and historic literature of this course, could effectively discuss the scenes, actions, and behaviors depicted in the books read and films watched in connection with that professional literature.

Finally, what do students say? So far, this course has been presented twice to undergraduates and once to graduate students by the author. It has scored in the high 90th percentiles on the majority of categories of the Student Instructional Report, notably the following:

· overall value of this course to me

· my interest in the subject area has been stimulated

· overall value of class discussions

· overall rating of the course readings

· challenging questions or problems were raised for discussion

One fascinating descriptive statistic is that half the students who took the undergraduate courses self-reported gpa's of 2.0-2.5, which would put them in the bottom third of their college class.

One might wait a long time to see such students sign up for an upperclass elective requiring readings by Sophocles, Thucydides, Melville, Conrad, among others, in more traditional courses.

Written "general comments" were entirely laudatory with many undergraduates saying it should be required of all business majors: "it teaches the student to think more creatively and more freely"; "more courses of this format are needed here"; "this class taught me a different way to think and look at things I've read and learn from them"; "I have learned a great deal about how to 'see' the alternatives to a situation, from both the leaders' and subordinates' points of view. I think this should be a required course for all management majors"; "I enjoyed this course more than any other of my college courses. I would like to see more of these types of courses, especially in the field of management"; "this course examines management in a more real world sense than all my previous management classes"; "helped me to open my mind and analyze different situations and prepare myself on how I would handle them in the future"; "the way all of the readings related to leadership gives a whole new outlook on fiction"; "I took this class because I thought it would help me with management skills. It did just that."

Graduate student comments have been in much the same vein: "has heightened my interest in reading"; "has made me more aware of my work environment"; "at first I felt intimidated by the readings but now I enjoy them"; "very stimulating--will help in my dealings with other employees and as a manager." The only negative comments have concerned the amount of reading--150-200 pages per week.

For management professors who like to read eclectically and see connections from what they read to their professional interests, this approach to management curriculum and pedagogy will re-invigorate their teaching. For corporate and academic followers of the Porter-McKibbin Report and other treatises either directly or indirectly arguing for the necessity of a management action skills approach, it covers some of the bases they feel are left untouched. For students, it seems to fill a void identified in our curriculum and bring a subject formerly resident mostly in some rather dry textbooks out into each student's own special spotlight for examination. In fact, the introduction that students get to some excellent primary management theory sources in their reading from professional journals and monographs in this course should help them bridge the gap from assigned textbook reading to finding their own counsel in primary professional sources as they travel through the business world.

Nevertheless, the single greatest benefit may well remain students' discovery of new perspectives in connecting great literature to the specific behaviors they will contemplate and undertake in their professional lives. It is both instructive and gratifying to see them anxiously racing through our great books, some of them over 600 pages long, in search of help with their questions on how to manage better. After all, fiction, non-fiction, and film are much more likely than our textbooks to be their curriculum after college. If they have identified and practiced the concepts and skills of leadership and management revealed in that curriculum in college, then they are much more likely to make the connection to effective demonstration of such skills in their careers.

APPENDIX A: Syllabus--Undergraduate Course

MAN 392--A Humanistic Approach to Leadership and Management

This course uses literature and film to arrive at a better understanding of how effective leadership and management occurs. We will read mainly fiction and non-fiction examples of both effective and ineffective leadership in action to help us form a clear idea of the elements crucial to success, not only in the initiation of good leadership, but also in maintaining the organization or organizational unit following the leader's tenure. Our readings will also include some management theory selections as background. All readings will be available through the college duplicating service or in paperback. Leadership style self-surveys taken at the beginning and end of the course will seek to measure any changes in students' understanding and attitudes in attempting leadership and management initiatives of their own.

1. To introduce students to the value of literature--especially fiction, critical biography and autobiography--in helping them to be better managers and leaders.

2. To assist students to the realization that management and leadership situations occur both within and outside a business context and that the same principles of good practice apply in all such situations.

3. To encourage students to connect management and leadership theories to their own lives using examples from literature as an intermediary step.

The course divides into five sections:

I. Introduction and Definitions (Weeks 1-2)

II. Attaining the Power to Lead (Weeks 3-8)

III. Maintaining Power (Weeks 8-9)

IV. Managing for Achievement (Weeks 10-12)

V. Assuring Organizational Continuity (Weeks 13-15).

Fiction and non-fiction readings, usually book excerpts, will be assigned weekly for each sub-topic. Management readings and film excerpts will be interspersed as well. Quizzes, "learning logs," 3 short papers, and a short presentation with a classmate will form the basis for grading. Classes will be held seminar style.

I. Introduction and Definitions

Week 1: Introduction; The American Manager: the Popular View;

The American Manager as Hero

Assignment: Yukl, Ch. 4; Bradford and Cohen, Ch. 3; Begin Lord of the Flies; Contemp Issues in Leadership (Part I sel.)

Week 2: The Developmental Manager

To Be Discussed: LOF; Yukl; Bradford and Cohen; I Heard the Owl Call My Name sel.

II. Attaining Power

Week 3: Position Power; Formal and Informal Power Compared

To Be Discussed: Secret Sharer; Yukl, Ch. 2;

Week 4: Referent Power ("charisma")

To Be Discussed: LOF; Confessions sel.; Moby Dick sel.; Yukl, Ch. 10; Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, sel.; CIL (Part 2)

Week 5: The Importance of Vision

To Be Discussed: Bennis sel.; View from the 40th Floor sel.; O Pioneers sel.; CIL Article 12 and Part 4 sel.

Week 6: Expert Power

To Be Discussed: For Whom the Bell Tolls sel.; War as I Knew It (Patton) sel.; Power Broker sel.;

Week 7: Other Types of Power: Coercive, Association,

Informational, and others. "Manipulation"

To Be Discussed: The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power sel.; Caine Mutiny sel.; Point of No Return sel.;

Week 8: Other Types of Power (cont.)

To Be Discussed: Antigone; Single Pebble sel.

Week 9: Communicator of Meaning; Persuader

To Be Discussed: Complete Writings of Thucydides sel.; Bennis; Gilbert and Manchester sel. from Winston Churchill biog; IV. Managing for Achievement

Week 10: Motivator

To Be Discussed: Moby Dick sel.; Begin Watership Down;

Bradford and Cohen, Ch. 5 (opt.).

Week 11: Organizer

To Be Discussed: Watership; My Life (Golda Meir); Bradford and Cohen, Ch. 7.

Week 12: Teambuilder

To Be Discussed: Watership; Bradford and Cohen; Reich article, "Entrepreneurship Reconsidered: The Team as Hero".

V. Assuring Continuity

Week 13: Empowerer

To Be Discussed: Watership; article on empowerment: Conger and Kanungo, "The Empowerment Process: Integrating Theory and Practice";

Week 14: Guardian, Transformer, and Translator of the Organizational Culture

To Be Discussed: Watership; Peters or Deal and Kennedy;

Something Happened sel.

Week 15: Tying it all Together

To Be Discussed: Yukl, ch. 12; CIL sel.; entire reading list

Notes: Weekly quizzes will be given. One may be missed due to absence or the lowest grade dropped at student's discretion. There will be no make-ups. The first paper will be due the 5th week, the 2nd will be due the tenth week, and the 3rd will be due the last week. Papers will be typed and will not be expected to exceed 5 pages. Students will sign up for presentations during the first 3 classes. Presentations will be given at the rate of no more than one per week and will last no more than 25 minutes, including 15 min. class discussion of points raised. The instructor will clarify the format of papers, learning logs, and presentations in advance and will supply a reading list from which presentation books may be chosen. Perfect attendance will be worth 20 points, with 5 points off for each class missed. Coming in late or leaving early will result in partial credit. There will be no exams.

Personal Grade Record--MAN 392

Name Semester Date

Max Me Grade Schedule

I. Three Short Papers A : >280

A-: 270

Paper 1 (10/5) 30

B+: 260

Paper 2 (11/2) 30 B : 250

B-: 240

Paper 3 (11/30)30

C+: 230

II. Oral Project 40 C : 220

C-: 210

III. Essay Quizzes (<1 page)

D+: 200

Quiz 1 5 D : 180

2 5

3 5 F : >180

4 5

5 5

6 5 Notes

7 5

8 5

9 5

10 5

11 5

12 5

13 5

14 5

IV. Learning Logs

Week 4 (9/28) 25

Week 14 (12/14)30

V. Participation

Week 7 15

Week 14 15

VI. Attendance 20

TOTAL 300 | |

What is a Learning Log? Have you ever kept a journal or a diary about your personal life? If you did, you may remember jotting down entries any time of day, as the mood struck you or you just felt moved by an insight or a memory or an idea. You really didn't care if the words written were grammatically correct or spelled properly. The main idea was to feel free to write down an idea or a thought.

Learning Logs operate in much the same way as diaries or journals except they try to capture your ideas or insights on a particular topic and then put them into a particular format. The ideas as the author develops them become a little more refined and developed.

Your topic for this course's Learning Logs is:

What questions can I raise about good/effective leadership and management? What leadership dilemmas can I foresee before they might happen to me? In other words, can I visualize myself caught in the same kind of crises as some of the fictional (and real) leaders and managers? If so, how should I act now that I have the benefit of foresight? Given the time to ponder the best responses to such difficult situations, what do I think would be the best course of action?

In this course, you will read about leaders who rose to extrraordinary heights of leadership and some who fell flat on their face. What can you do to make sure your chances are best for rising rather than falling?

I would suggest topic headings like the following for parts of your log:

* Moral Dilemmas of Leadership (e.g., should your ever violate the confidence of a subordinate? if so, when?)

* Analogues (e.g., The situation of X in command of his ship is analogous to me as chairman of the such and such committee, or to that of my father as patriarch of the family)

* Leadership Behavior Questions (e.g., Question: Is it okay to try to pursue friendship with a subordinate to as complete a degree as you might pursue friendship with a "peer"? Answer: X's attempt to do this ruined him. I can't think of anything he could have done differently. Maybe the highest form of friendship is not possible with a subordinate... Therefore, maybe I should consider trying to cultivate my very best friends away from work.)

You will pass in your Learning Logs twice during the semester, as noted. They should contain references from all non-theory readings. Their length is up to you. Don't worry about grammar.