MBA Program Office
MANAGEMENT 652: FOUNDATIONS
OF LEADERSHIP AND TEAMWORK SYLLABUS
At every level of organizational life, leadership is required to create direction, set strategy, and achieve goals. Leadership has always been critical to society, but it has acquired new significance in recent years. Personal leadership throughout the organization is of greater importance during these times of heightened uncertainty, restructuring and change. The role of leadership also becomes more critical as more organizations span cultural and national boundaries.
The tenor of leadership has changed as well. Many organizations are flattening their hierarchies and building work teams, with “command and control” leadership giving way to facilitation and empowerment. Also, leadership is much less the exclusive prerogative of top executive ranks and much more a quality that is expected at every level in a successful organization. With these changes, the skills of teamwork and teambuilding have become much more intertwined with the skills of leadership.
The field of leadership is inherently multifaceted and cross-disciplinary, including organizational studies, individual and social psychology, political science, sociology, and history. Our theories and vocabularies of leadership are still developing. We know that many aspects of leadership can be learned and that many of its qualities can be acquired through experience, reflection and development. In this course we will touch upon a number of the facets of leadership and teamwork, recognizing that this is yet one step in a lifelong process of learning about leadership.
The course focuses on developing concepts, experience, and skills for leadership and teamwork. It draws on writings, cases, exercises, and students' experience to explore the foundations and techniques of leadership. The course reflects our recognition that the skills of teamwork are also the skills of leadership and that many early experiences with leadership occur at a team level.
The three key themes addressed in this course are:
- Knowing oneself
- Working in teams
- Leading others
We seek to apply these themes to an environment of increasing change, uncertainty, stress, incidence of crisis, and rapidity of decision-making.
In this course, we will examine concepts of leadership and their application in practice. This cycle of concept to practice to learning will provide a further base for lifelong learning and development of the students' leadership abilities. We examine leadership conceptual frameworks through readings and class discussion. We explore applications of leadership through case studies, outside speakers, exercises, Learning Team projects and analysis, classroom discussion and the students' own experience.
A very important aspect of the course is the students' own self-assessment and self-knowledge of their leadership skills and abilities. The course encourages students to observe leadership in their own experience, asking where it is most in evidence and how it can be further developed. It is useful for the students to reflect on their own leadership experience in recent years and what steps they can take now to enhance their abilities further. Students are asked to complete a Leadership and Team Assessment Tool which allows students to identify their strengths and weaknesses along 12 dimensions. The goal of this assessment tool is to aid students in thinking about their own personal leadership goals and growth.
We see this course as a cooperative learning venture. The faculty will facilitate your learning about leadership and teamwork through class discussion, case studies, readings, and outside speakers. Your Leadership Fellows will work with you in your Learning Teams to challenge you to apply your class work to analyzing and improving both your team work as well as your individual development goals and advancement. Your role is to be a truly active learner in this course—this course is all about your progressing in developing your own unique set of personal leadership abilities—you are expected to bring your own leadership and thinking into the class discussion and your assignments, and to plan and manage your own development toward your goals, using your team and your faculty and Leadership Fellows.
THE WHARTON
LEADERSHIP EXPERIENCE
The Wharton Leadership Experience for the MBA first year is a mix
of curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular experiences that aim
to enable each student’s self-development of their awareness and abilities
in leadership and teamwork. This course is the key curricular element:
it opens the first year with a focus on teambuilding, teamwork and self-assessment;
it concludes the first year with more focus on broader leadership skills
and self-development plans for the student's summer experience and her
second year at Wharton. Co-curricular and extra-curricular elements
begin with the preterm retreat and continue with myriad varied opportunities
for students to observe and to practice leadership skills e.g., the Wharton
Leadership Lectures speakers and personal leadership opportunities in
Wharton clubs and programs.