Responsible Leadership

Abstract

Students will learn about different leadership styles and how power and leadership play out in social interactions. Emphasis is placed on personal development and the implementation and application of topics to the workplace context.

Objective

This course will enhance students’ understanding of the complexity of hierarchical relationships in the workplace in weekly lessons that include lectures, analyses of leadership situations (e.g., case studies), exercises, and group discussions. More specifically, students will be informed about how power shapes people’s behaviors and decision-making processes. They will learn to analyze the different elements that make a good leader such as personality traits, behavior, and skills. With case studies and small group exercises, students will learn to evaluate different types of social and emotional skills related to leadership. Students will be encouraged to reflect upon their own communication skills and leadership potential and will be given the opportunity to train their leadership skills. The course further addresses integrity and ethics in leadership.

Content

Lectures will include - Introduction to the course and the topic of power and leadership, definitions - Leadership styles and theories: Universalist theories, behavioral theories, contingency theories, “new leadership” theories - Leadership, communication, and interpersonal skills (3 sessions): 1. Effective communication: Listening and speaking, running effective meetings, delegating effectively, giving performance feedback, 2. Hierarchy and communications: Pitfalls and solutions, communication training, 3. Importance of social skills for leadership effectiveness - Agility in teams: Overview of the Scrum Framework in the context of software development, leadership in agile teams, the role of motivation, training: experiencing first-hand how to develop a product in an agile way - Power abuses, ethics in leadership: Why do leaders behave unethically? Destructive leadership: theories, examples, and consequences - Diversity and discrimination in relation to power and leadership: Expectations, bias, and discrimination the workplace, sources of bias, how to reduce bias and discrimination - Leadership and innovation: Which are the particular paradoxes and trade-offs leaders face when they are leading for innovation? How could they successfully manage those challenges? Homework - Writing a leadership skills training report (~20 hours) - Mandatory readings and exercises (~20 hours)

Resources