Leadership Theory and Application

Catalog description

This course seeks to provide students with a broad theoretical foundation for understanding leadership and formal organizations with application to student’s problem of practice. Both topics are defining subjects in all professional schools, e.g., in public, business, hospital, and educational administration. Leadership cannot be examined apart from the organizational context in which it occurs; leadership and organizations go together like yin and yang. Leaders influence organizations for good or ill. Yet organizations also influence leaders. Whereas the general focus of this course is on leadership and formal organizations, the specific focus is directed at understanding leadership in organizations. The theories, concepts, and readings examined in the course are intended to provide students with a set of cognitive tools to read, analyze, and guide students in becoming leaders in organizations society envisions. This larger goal is pursued for the dual purposes of: 1) complicating students’ thinking about leadership; and 2) increasing the capacity as leaders.