THE LIFELONG STUDY OF LEADERSHIP

Some topics of study are relatively easy to master; leadership isn’t one of them.

Curiosities about leadership extend through every period of human history, across language and culture, and into all sectors and professional fields. The study of leadership is unusually multi-disciplinary, with important contributions across academic fields. It includes a near bottomless pool of literature and practical cases, all seeking to understand one of the most powerful forces of change in our world.

GLE2003: Introduction to Leadership exposes students to the foundational ideas, contributions and contradictions in the study of leadership. Students learn to more critically examine their own ideas about leadership, as well as explore their own capacities and opportunities to lead.

A highlight of the course for students is conducting interviews with someone they deem to be “a leader” as a critical, practical exploration of one developed academic theory of leadership. Usually, students (and their professor!) come away from this work with new questions about leadership — the hallmark of topic worthy of lifelong exploration.