Rowitz On Leadership

Over the years, I have been asked to give advice on the development of an introductory course on leadership development. If we assume that the semester class will run 16 weeks in three hour segments, what would be the topics covered in such a course. A second assumption is that the students in the course have not held leadership positions prior to taking the course. A third assumption is that course development is often a subjective process based on the experiences of the course instructor and the textbooks that they may adopt. If you use the following topic outline, feel free to change a specific topic or to rearrange the topics to better suit your own thinking about the course. Some variation will also occur if the course is offered in an online version.

TOPICS

Week 1        Overview to the Course

Week 2        Interface Between Management and Leadership

Week 3    Three Contemporary Approaches to Leadership(Kouzes and Posner, Heifetz and Linsky,and Mitroff)

Week 4    Systems and Complexity Thinking

Week 5    Leadership Wheel and Team Development

Week 6    Values Clarification

Week 7    Mission, Vision, and Goals and Objectives- Key Stages in Planning

Week 8    Leadership Case Study Analysis- Student Presentations

Week 9    Business Plans, Action Plans, and Work Plans

Week 10    Infrastructure Building with Application to Field of Study

Week 11    Crisis Leadership

Week 12    Communication Issues

Week 13    People Development

Week 14    Planning process

Week 15    Decision Making

Week 16     Student Report Presentations

Many other topics are possible such as Change, Mentoring and Coaching, Global Leadership, Leadership Style, and so on.