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EDLD 602—Fall 2009 LEADERSHIP, INQUIRY AND RESEARCH, PART I: CONFLICTING CONCEPTIONS OF LEADERSHIP, KNOWLEDGE, AND RESEARCH Instructors: Robert Donmoyer ([email protected] /619.260.7445) George Reed ([email protected] /619.940.4102) COURSE DESCRIPTION This is one of two courses students in the University of San Diego Leadership Studies Ph.D. program are expected to take at the start of their Ph.D. studies. The course is designed to provide students with a cognitive map of the current leadership studies field. It does this by focusing on (a) alternative conceptions of leadership, (b) alternative conceptions of knowledge, (c) the relationship between different notions of leadership and different views of knowledge, and (d) the implications of all of the above for doing research in Leadership Studies. There is, in fact, little consensus in the leadership studies field about how the notion of leadership should be defined. This lack of consensus is not necessarily a problem; in fact, it could be argued that thinking about leadership and leadership issues in different—and even contradictory—ways is a key component of effective leadership. Even if this idea is correct, however, the field’s conflicting conceptions of leadership can be confusing to new Ph.D. students. This course has been designed to give students the intellectual tools to make sense of the diverse thinking about leadership that characterizes the leadership studies field. Also included on the cognitive map that this course will provide are different contemporary views of knowledge. University programs in leadership, like other university-based professional programs, are justified, in part, by the claim that there is a link between the sort of knowledge that universities develop and teach, on the one hand, and successful practice, on the other. Yet knowledge today is not what it used to be! Today, for instance, some scholars argue that even knowledge that has been generated by using the most rigorous of scientific methods is, at base, little more than ideology. From this perspective, knowledge is a cleverly disguised political weapon that reinforces the power and privilege of some while helping to marginalize and disenfranchise others. Even those who hold more moderate views often conceive of knowledge in less-than-traditional ways. These different conceptions of knowledge lead to very different ways of thinking about—and different ways of doing—research. These different research strategies often produce very different—and, at times, even contradictory—recommendations for leadership practice. Once again, disagreements are not necessarily problematic. Disagreements about the nature of knowledge and research, however, can create difficulties for students who do not have the conceptual tools to make sense of and manage radically different views of what knowledge is and what it can contribute to professional practice. Thus, this course also is designed to help students make sense of the different views of knowledge and research that are found, not only in Leadership Studies, but in most social sciences and in other professional fields that utilize social science knowledge and methods. 1

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EDLD 602—Fall 2009 LEADERSHIP, INQUIRY AND RESEARCH, PART I: CONFLICTING CONCEPTIONS OF LEADERSHIP, KNOWLEDGE, AND RESEARCH

Instructors: Robert Donmoyer ([email protected] /619.260.7445)

George Reed ([email protected] /619.940.4102)

COURSE DESCRIPTION

This is one of two courses students in the University of San Diego Leadership Studies Ph.D. program are expected to take at the start of their Ph.D. studies. The course is designed to provide students with a cognitive map of the current leadership studies field. It does this by focusing on (a) alternative conceptions of leadership, (b) alternative conceptions of knowledge, (c) the relationship between different notions of leadership and different views of knowledge, and (d) the implications of all of the above for doing research in Leadership Studies. There is, in fact, little consensus in the leadership studies field about how the notion of leadership should be defined. This lack of consensus is not necessarily a problem; in fact, it could be argued that thinking about leadership and leadership issues in different—and even contradictory—ways is a key component of effective leadership. Even if this idea is correct, however, the field’s conflicting conceptions of leadership can be confusing to new Ph.D. students. This course has been designed to give students the intellectual tools to make sense of the diverse thinking about leadership that characterizes the leadership studies field. Also included on the cognitive map that this course will provide are different contemporary views of knowledge. University programs in leadership, like other university-based professional programs, are justified, in part, by the claim that there is a link between the sort of knowledge that universities develop and teach, on the one hand, and successful practice, on the other. Yet knowledge today is not what it used to be! Today, for instance, some scholars argue that even knowledge that has been generated by using the most rigorous of scientific methods is, at base, little more than ideology. From this perspective, knowledge is a cleverly disguised political weapon that reinforces the power and privilege of some while helping to marginalize and disenfranchise others. Even those who hold more moderate views often conceive of knowledge in less-than-traditional ways. These different conceptions of knowledge lead to very different ways of thinking about—and different ways of doing—research. These different research strategies often produce very different—and, at times, even contradictory—recommendations for leadership practice. Once again, disagreements are not necessarily problematic. Disagreements about the nature of knowledge and research, however, can create difficulties for students who do not have the conceptual tools to make sense of and manage radically different views of what knowledge is and what it can contribute to professional practice. Thus, this course also is designed to help students make sense of the different views of knowledge and research that are found, not only in Leadership Studies, but in most social sciences and in other professional fields that utilize social science knowledge and methods.

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COURSE OBJECTIVES

At the end of this course, successful participants will be able to:

1. Describe and critique different conceptions of leadership. 2. Describe and critique different conceptions of knowledge from a variety of

academic disciplines and fields of study.

3. Discuss the relationship between different views of leadership and different conceptions of knowledge.

4. Describe how an awareness of different and even contradictory conceptions of

knowledge could be useful both in exercising leadership and in interpreting and/or planning leadership-related research.

5. Produce academic and professional writing and make oral presentations that (a)

discuss, apply, and extend interesting and important ideas covered in the course; (b) support ideas and articulated positions with convincing evidence and appropriate reasoning and argumentation; (c) employ clear and easy-to-follow organizational structures; and (d) exhibit few technical errors.

TEXTS AND ADDITIONAL READINGS

• Antonakis, J., Cianciolo, A., and Sternberg, R. (2004). The nature of leadership. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

• Schein, E. (2004). Organizational culture and leadership. San Francisco:

Jossey-Bass.

• American Psychological Association (2001) APA Publication Manual, 6th Edition. Washington, D.C. (Recommended). Note that the 6th edition was just recently released, so feel free to continue to use the 5th edition if you already have the earlier version.

• Perrin, R. (2007) Pocket Guide to APA Style, Second Edition. Boston: Houghton

Mifflin. (Recommended)

• Additional required readings are available through the Library’s E-Reserve System or WebCT. Note: The books from which many of the additional required readings were excerpted are available at the bookstore as supplementary texts for this course. Course participants may wish to purchase some or all of these texts to build their personal libraries. The password for E-reserve is “INQUIRY” [all caps].

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GRADING

1• Mini-Essay on the Role of Perception —5 points (Due 9/15)

• Cultural View of Organizations and Leadership Essay—15 points (Due 11/3) • Book Review—10 points (Oral Reports as Assigned/Written Reviews due 11/24) • Conference Presentation—10 points (Due 12/1 or 12/8) • Conference Paper—45 points (Due 12/12)

2 • Attendance/Participation—15 points Note: Please post the above assignments on the WebCT site for this course on or before 5 pm on the dates listed in the Course Outline below.

COURSE OUTLINE

Conceptions of Leadership and Knowledge, Part 1: The Past as Prologue

Overview of this Section of the Course As noted above, this course is focused on the leadership studies field, a field that only began to develop during the second half of the twentieth century. People, however, were interested in and, in fact, systematically studied leadership long before a formal academic field of leadership studies was established. Bernard Bass (1990), an influential member of the leadership studies field during its formative years, for instance, has noted that the study of leadership

rivals in age the emergence of civilization which shaped its leaders as much as it was shaped by them. From its infancy, the study of history has been the study of leaders—what they did and why they did it. (p. 3)

Earlier insights about leadership that emerged from the study of history did not simply disappear once a formal field oriented toward studying and teaching about leadership was established. For this reason, it seems important to preface discussions of the field and the conceptions of leadership and knowledge that have been endorsed by segments of the field with a look back at how earlier eras thought about these concepts. The initial sessions of this course, therefore, will treat past thought as a kind of prologue for the

1 Descriptions of this and subsequent assignments are included in the appendices of this syllabus. The mini-essay assignment is described in Appendix A; the memo assignment is discussed in Appendix B. See Appendix C and D for the book review assignment and Appendix E for the conference paper and presentation assignments. 2 The attendance/participation points are yours to lose. You will be awarded these points automatically unless you have unexcused absences, do not appear to be prepared for class, and/or do not contribute to class discussions and activities.

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thinking that will be discussed in the remainder of the course. The basic storyline in this section of the course, in other words, is that the past shapes our perceptions of the present and our conceptions of what we should do in the future. The perception theme—a theme that will reappear throughout the course—also will be introduced during the first section of the course. List of Session Topics and Assignment for This Section of the Course Session # 1 (9/8): Course Introduction Specific Topics/Activities:

Course Logistics A Review of Leadership Theories and Assumptions A Review of Contemporary Conceptions of Knowledge One of the Course’s Themes: The Problem of Perception Setting the Stage for Session # 2: Historical Timeline Activity

Session # 2 (9/15): The Past as Prologue Specific Topics/Activities:

Discuss Readings about Perception Review Ideas from Mini-Essays Revisit Timelines and Discuss Contributions of Timeline Individuals

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read the paper, “Past Practices as Both Barrier and Stimulus to Creative

Decision-Making” (E-Reserve Reading # 1).

• Read the paper, “Generative Metaphor: A Perspective on Problem-Setting in Social Policy” (E-Reserve Reading # 2).

• Read the paper, “Reality is a Shared Hallucination” (E-Reserve Reading #3).

• Complete the mini-essay assignment described in Appendix A, post it in WebCT

CE6 before class, and bring five copies of your mini-essay to class. Be prepared to brief members of the class on your essay.

• Investigate the historical figures included in last week’s timeline activity.

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Conceptions of Leadership and Knowledge, Part 2: 3From Great “Man” Thinking to Scientific Management to the

Concept of Transformational Leadership Overview of this Section of the Course In this section of the course, and, in fact, in all of the remaining sections, the focus is on the academic/professional field of Leadership Studies. This section focuses, in part, on twentieth-century scholars’ attempts to make both the study of leadership and the study of the phenomena and issues leaders confront scientific. It also emphasizes that earlier methods for studying leadership did not completely disappear when a formal field of Leadership Studies was established. As noted above, early ideas about leadership were developed, in large part, through the informal and formal study of history and, more specifically, by studying historical figures that were believed to be especially instrumental in shaping historical events. More often than not, these historical figures were male. Thoughtful people now understand that this focus on males resulted from cultural bias and contextual factors rather than from any innate superiority that males have in exercising leadership. Unfortunately, historians’ work not only reflected the biases of the larger culture that had socialized them; historical studies of “great men” also reinforced cultural assumptions. Historical studies of “great men,” for instance, reinforced problematic assumptions about the linkage between gender and the proclivity to lead. They also implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) defined leadership skills in masculine terms. Historical studies of “great men” also reinforced the even more basic notion that leadership is a property of individuals and results from personal characteristics. This notion—often characterized as the great man theory of leadership—still influences our thinking today. One example is our proclivity to think (and talk) about presidents rather than presidencies. The former notion directs our attention to the personal characteristics and quirks of the individuals who occupy or have occupied the oval office; the latter concept normally expands our focus to include not only presidential staffs and other appointees, but also contextual factors including the standard operating procedures and organizational cultures of presidential administrations. As was suggested above, the field of Leadership Studies was created, in large part, to move beyond the great man theory of leadership by making the study of leadership scientific. Bernard Bass and the other academics that helped shape the emerging leadership studies field, for instance, attempted to develop instruments that could be used to systematically measure different approaches to leadership and their effects. Bass and others then used these instruments to systematically test hypotheses about leadership and generate knowledge that, presumably, could be used to educate leaders and select those exhibited the sorts of traits and behaviors associated with success to fill leadership positions. Those who established the interdisciplinary field of leadership studies also 3 The sexist language employed here reflects the historical thinking rather than the instructors’ beliefs.

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assumed that other social science fields would generate knowledge that leaders could use to make informed decisions. This embrace of science—or, more specifically, a view of science that equated scientific research with quantitative measurement—did not necessarily eliminate the biases that characterized historically based great man thinking. Bias continue to infiltrate empirical work in part because early research was focused on identifying the traits and attributes of effective leaders at a time that virtually all recognized leaders were male. Still, the goal in Leadership Studies was the same goal embraced by other professional fields, including the somewhat older and better established field of business administration, during the twentieth century: Take authority for decision-making out of the hands of politicians and to turn decision-making authority over to university-educated professionals who, it was believed, would base decisions on scientific knowledge rather than on political self-interest.4 The goal of professional programs, including the newly developed programs in Leadership Studies, was to produce and codify such knowledge and transmit it to those who aspired to professional status. There is a certain irony, therefore, in the fact that one of the Leadership Study field’s most seminal constructs, transformational leadership, was developed by a presidential historian, James MacGregor Burns. Burns, in fact, developed the transformational leadership notion by doing what those interested in leadership had traditionally done: i.e., by studying great leaders in history. Despite its origins in non-quantitative historical research, Burns’ notion of transformational leadership was important in differentiating the emerging field of Leadership Studies from the somewhat older and much-better-established field of business administration which, historically, tended to focus more on managerial activities than on leadership. Given academics’ infatuation with science and measurement, however, it should not be surprising that scholars such as Bernard Bass quickly attempted to translate Burns’ construct of transformational leadership—along with the concept that was believed to be its antithesis, transactional leadership—into an instrument that could be used to conduct scientific studies of leadership that resembled the studies that scholars in business schools were conducting about management practices. This section of the course traces the study of leadership from (a) the focus on scientific management and efforts to identify effective leaders’ traits and attributes to (b) Burns’ efforts to differentiate transformational leadership from the more managerial or transactional approach focused on in the business administration field to (c) the efforts of Bass and other Leadership Studies scholars to study Burn’s notions of transformational and transactional leadership scientifically. This course component also focuses directly on the different types of research methods that have been used to study leadership.

4 A later section of this course will demonstrate that this assumption and, more specifically, the political/scientific distinction are more than a little problematic.

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List of Session Topics and Assignments for this Section of the Course Session #3 (9/22): The Emergence of a Scientific Approach to the Study and Practice of Leadership

Specific Topics/Activities

Compare and contrast the two overviews of the leadership studies field presented in the first two readings listed below

Discuss the scientific management tradition Review the study of leader traits and attributes

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read Pages 3-11 of The Nature of Leadership. • Read the overview of Leadership Studies from The Encyclopedia of Leadership

(E-Reserve Reading # 4).

• Read The Principles of Scientific Management (E-Reserve # 5a) • Read the Commentary on Taylorism and Scientific Management (E-Reserve #

5b).

• Read Chapter 5 of The Nature of Leadership.

Session #4 (9/29) From Scientific Management to Transformational Leadership Specific Topics/Activities

Discuss the thinking of James MacGregor Burns Compare Burns’ thinking about leadership with the thinking of another

founder of Leadership Studies, Joseph Rost of the University of San Diego Consider what was gained—and what might have been lost—by attempts

to translate Burns’ notions of transformational and transactional leadership into an instrument that precisely defines and measures whether a person is a transformational or a transactional leader

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read the excerpt from Burn’s Leadership included in the E-Reserve documents

(E-Reserve # 7).

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• Read Georgia Sorensen’s “The Intellectual History of Leadership Studies: The Role of James MacGregor Burns” (E-Reserve # 8).

• Read Chapter 8 of The Nature of Leadership

• Read the chapters from Rost’s Leadership for the Twenty-First Century (E-

Reserve # 9).

• Read the excerpt from Dr. Lubovsky’s dissertation (E-Reserve # 11).

• Book review presentation (as assigned) for the following books:

Burns, J. M. & Sorenson, G. J. (1999) Dead center: Clinton-Gore leadership and the perils of moderation. New York: Scribner.

Bass, B. M. & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational Leadership. 2nd Ed.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Session #5 (10/6) Approaches to Studying Leadership: Specific Topics/Activities

Discuss physical-science-inspired quantitative methods for studying leadership.

Discuss Wheatley’s non-traditional approach to using the physical sciences to make sense of leadership.

Discuss some recent examples of the qualitative historical approach to studying leadership

Review a line of research that produced the training approach that is the focal point of next week’s class

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read the excerpt from Campbell and Stanley’s Experimental and Quasi-

Experimental Design for Research (E-Reserve # 10). • Read Chapter 3 in The Nature of Leadership.

• If you have time, Read Chapter 4 of The Nature of Leadership. (At the very least,

review the list of instruments developed to study leadership on pages 94 through 97 of Chapter 4.)

• Read the excerpt from Margaret Wheatley’s Leadership and the New Science.(E-Reserve # 22).

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• Read the excerpt from Dr. Smith’s dissertation (E-Reserve # 12).

• Present oral book review presentation (as assigned) for the following books:

Goodwin, D. (2005). Team of rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Session #6 (10/13) From Empirical Research to Practice: Situational Leadership® Specific Topics/Activities

Field trip to the Center for Leadership Studies to learn about a highly successful leadership training initiative that was developed from the scientific study of leadership.

Assignments to be Completed by This Session

• Read Chapters 6 and 7 in The Nature of Leadership.

• Read Chapters 1 and 8 in Management of Organizational Behavior (E-Reserve

18-E).

This class will meet at the Center for Leadership Studies, 230 West Third Avenue Escondido, CA 92025. For more information about the center go to www.situational.com.

Conceptions of Leadership and Knowledge, Part 3:

Socio-Cultural Views of Leadership and Knowledge Overview of This Section of the Course The course thus far should have made clear that, with some notable exceptions (including James MacGregor Burns), most twentieth-century Leadership Studies scholars—like scholars in most other social scientist fields during the twentieth century—spent their time (a) developing instruments to quantify social phenomena and (b) using the instruments they developed to test hypotheses about social phenomena. Similarly, individuals who practiced or taught leadership—e.g., individuals like those who work in organizations such as the Center for Leadership Studies, the site of our Session 6 fieldtrip—looked to scientific research to tell them “what works” and what they should do in their practical work.

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Even as most social scientists (including most scholars in Leadership Studies) were focused on developing instruments to quantify social phenomena and using these instruments to test hypotheses in supposedly objective ways, cultural anthropologist were traveling to exotic locales, “going native,” and, more often than not, doing research with little or no formal instrumentation and without the benefit of experimental (or even quasi-experimental) research designs. To a large extent, they were doing research in a way that was similar to the way historians like James MacGregor did research. The only difference was that they did not study what happened in the past through the review and analysis of historical documents and artifacts. Rather they studied what was happening in the here and now through face-to-face interaction. These cultural anthropologists—along with subgroups of scholars in other disciplines such as sociology and psychology—also tended to view knowledge differently than most twentieth-century social scientists viewed knowledge: For cultural anthropologists and a handful of scholars in other fields, knowledge was not objective truth that can be discovered through the use of scientific procedures that kept human subjectivity at bay; rather, knowledge was always a socio-cultural construction that could only be understood if a scholar tapped his or her own subjective responses to social situations. Over time, the socio-cultural perspective of knowledge, in one form or another, has been embraced by a wide variety of social science-oriented fields including the field of Leadership Studies. Furthermore, as this section of the course will demonstrate, some scholars even have portrayed physical science knowledge as a socio-cultural construction. In short, this section of the course focuses on socio-cultural conceptions of knowledge and leadership. It also focuses on research methods that initially were developed in the field of anthropology but are now used to study social phenomena from the socio-cultural perspective in a wide variety of fields, including the field of Leadership Studies. List of Session Topics and Assignments for This Section of the Course Session # 7 (10/20): Exploring the Construct of Culture Specific Topics/Activities

Debrief fieldtrip Introduce the notion of culture through a cultural simulation Critique the two Geertz chapters; review responses to the questions on

the Geertz reading guide

Assignment to be Completed by This Class

• Read Chapter 15 in Geertz’s The Interpretation of Culture (E-Reserve #13A).

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• Read Chapter 1 in Geertz’s The Interpretation of Culture (E-Reserve #13B). Be prepared to answer the study guide questions in class.

Session #8 (10/27) Knowledge as a Socio-Cultural Construction Specific Topics/Activities

Discuss first two readings listed below Review books listed below Consider the implications of a socio-cultural view of knowledge for

conceptions of truth and objectivity

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read Chapter 8 (“A constructionist lens on leadership”) in Goethals and Sorenson’s The quest for a general theory of leadership. (E-Reserve 13E).

• Read Excerpt from Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (E-Reserve #

13C).

• Present oral book review presentation (as assigned) for the following book:

Wolcott, H. F. & Abbott, M.G. (2003). Teachers Versus Technocrats. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.

Erikson, K. T. (1976) Everything in its path: destruction of community

in the Buffalo Creek flood. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Session #9 (11/3) Socio Cultural Views of Leadership Specific Topics/Activities

Compare and contrast the perspectives of cultural leadership articulated in the first and second reading assignments listed below.

Consider key ideas from essays on the cultural perspective developed by class members.

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read Chapter 11 in The Nature of Leadership.

• Read Schein’s Organizational Culture and Leadership. • Read Excerpt from Brian Mathews’ Dissertation (E-Reserve # 14).

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• Submit Essay on the Cultural Perspective of Organizations and Leadership.

Conceptions of Leadership and Knowledge, Part 4: Political/Power-Oriented Conceptions of Knowledge and Leadership

The discussion of constructivist views of knowledge in the previous section of the course begs an important question: Who benefits from the socially constructed and sanctioned knowledge that influences leaders’ decision-making and actions in particular organizations and culture? At times, the answer to this question can be rather obvious. For instance, if members of a culture assume a priori that only men can exercise leadership and/or if the “scientific” study of leadership only focuses on males, it seems axiomatic than men benefit and women are essentially marginalized by the reality that has been socially constructed. Not surprisingly, therefore, the field of Women’s Studies has challenged both conventional views of knowledge and the views of leadership that traditional forms of knowledge tend to support. Similar challenges also have come from other places as well. For instance, so-called neo-Marxist scholars and critical theorists have critiqued what they refer to as the hegemonic assumptions of mainstream Western culture, including assumptions about the objectivity of social science knowledge. In addition, some persons of color, both inside and outside of the academy, have demonstrated that socio-cultural assumptions that marginalize minority groups are embedded within the language and framing of most mainstream social science research. This fourth section of the course extends the socio-cultural perspective focused on in the prior course component by highlighting work that assumes that all knowledge—including scientific knowledge—is not only socially constructed; it also, inevitably, serves the interests of some while further disadvantaging others. The section of the course also explores the implications of the knowledge-as-power critique for thinking about leadership and for doing leadership-related research. List of Session Topics and Assignments for This Section of the Course Session # 10 (11/10): Power, Politics, and Critiques of Traditional Conceptions of Knowledge and Leadership Specific Topics/Activities

Discuss Readings Listed Below Consider the implications of the political perspective for Leadership

Studies: What can a field committed to critique offer to a field oriented toward proactive action?

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Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read Excerpt from Jurgen Habermas’ Knowledge and Human Interest (E-Reserve # 15).

• Read bell hooks’ “Feminism: A Transformational Politic” (E-Reserve # 15 A). • Read the Lather article on Research-as-Praxis (E-Reserve # 16). • Read the Bishop article on an Indigenous Approach to Research (E-Reserve # 17).

• Read the article entitled “Dialogue Across Differences” (E-Reserve # 18).

• Read Chapter 12 in The Nature of Leadership.

• Present oral book review presentation (as assigned) for the following book:

Bell, E.L.J. and Nkomo, S.M. (2001). Boston: Harvard Business School

Press.

Conceptions of Leadership and Knowledge, Part 5: Putting the Pieces Together Again (or Finding Ways to Manage the

Situation if the Pieces Don’t Fit) Overview of This Section of the Course Up to this point, the course has focused on an array of different conceptions of both leadership and knowledge, some of which conflict with each other. This diversity would seem to be problematic for the field of Leadership Studies for academic and professional fields normally require some degree of consensus about basic concepts and ways of operating. The final section of the course prior to student presentations, therefore, considers a fundamental question: How can there even be a field of Leadership Studies given the diversity of perspectives about leadership, knowledge and research that currently exist within the field? The first session in this section of the course focuses on a number of attempts to find unity and coherence in the face of diversity. This session, for instance, considers the attempt by a group of leadership scholars to construct a general theory of leadership that most members of the leadership studies could accept and that could, consequently, bring unity and coherence to the field. The session also considers Wilber’s self-described

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“theory of everything,” a theory that many leadership scholars believe can integrate diverse perspectives and bring coherence to our field. But what if the search for a unifying theory fails (as, indeed, it did in the general-theory-of-leadership project)? The second session in this section of the course focuses on possible ways to manage diverse and, even, contradictory perspectives about leadership and knowledge and make what, at first glance, might seem like a liability into a potential asset. List of Session Topics and Assignments for This Section of the Course Session # 11 (11/17) The Search for an Integrated Theory Specific Topics/Activities

Critique the first article listed below Discuss Wilber’s integral approach and its potential to bring unity and

coherence to Leadership Studies Review the Wren article about “the quest for a general theory of

leadership”

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read the article on the need for a more integrated approach to the study of leadership (E-Reserve # 19).

• Read the paper entitled “Integral Business and Leadership” (E-Reserve # 20)

Read the Excerpt from The Quest For a General Theory of Leadership by J. Thomas Wren (E-Reserve # 23).

Session # 12 (11/24) What do we do if the Search for an Integrated/General Theory of Leadership Fails?/Course Review Specific Topics/Activities

Critique the practical reasoning strategy for managing the diverse and contradictory perspectives found in the leadership studies field

Review key ideas from the course as a whole

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• Read the excerpt on the practical reasoning view of leadership and leadership training (E-Reserve # 21).

• Read the article “How Business Schools Lost Their Way (E-Reserve #24) • Post book review drafts if not previously submitted.

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Session # 13 (12/1) Conference Paper Presentations

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• If selected, make conference presentation based on your conference paper. Session # 14 (12/8) Conference Paper Presentations

Assignments to be Completed by This Class

• If selected, make conference presentation based on your conference paper. NOTE: REMEMBER TO SUBMIT YOUR CONFERENCE PAPER ONLINE NO LATER THAN 9 PM ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12, 2009. NOTE: PLAGIARISM WILL RESULT IN BEING GIVEN A FAILING GRADE IN THIS COURSE. THE UNIVERSITY MAY IMPOSE OTHER CONSEQUENCES, AS WELL. FOR A DETAILED DISCUSSION OF WHAT CONSTITUTES PLAGIARISM, SEE APPENDIX F. IF YOU HAVE ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT CONSTITUTES PLAGIARISM AFTER READING THE CONTENTS OF APPENDIX F, PLEASE SPEAK WITH THE COURSE INSTRUCTORS.

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Appendix A

Description of Mini-Essay Assignment After reading the articles on perception to be completed prior to the second session of the course and thinking about the ideas related to perception presented in the first session, write a brief (three to five page) but well-organized essay about how perception impacts thinking and acting. This can be a personal essay in which you use your own experiences to illustrate the points that you are trying to make. Before you begin, you should articulate a thesis, i.e., a succinct statement that articulates the overarching idea that you will elaborate on and defend throughout the rest of the essay. Here is an example of a thesis statement you might use: Our past experiences profoundly influence how we view and enact leadership. Also, decide on three or four sub-points that you will use to structure the rest of your essay and support your overall thesis. If one was building an essay around the thesis in the previous paragraph, for example, one might want to utilize the following sub-points: (a) Perception is always selective. (b) Past experiences direct our attention to certain options and blinds us to other possibilities. (c) Selective perception resulting from prior experiences impacts our thinking about and our approaches to leadership. After you have decided on your argument and the components of your argument, write an advance organizer paragraph that articulates both your thesis and the sub-points you will use to elaborate on and defend your thesis. The paragraph for the examples presented in the two previous paragraphs might read something like this:

The poet tells us that the past is prologue. Here I will use a number of experiences from my own life to demonstrate that past experience profoundly impacts how we think about and approach leadership. First, I will demonstrate the selective nature of perception, i.e., our tendency to focus on certain phenomena in our environment and be totally unaware of other phenomena. Second, I will demonstrate how selective perception is influenced by past experiences. Finally, I will describe how selective perception resulting from prior experience can impact how we think and approach leadership.

An advance organizer paragraph like the one that was just illustrated can serve as a kind of roadmap for your readers. You might also translate each of your sub-points into headings that you insert before each of the sub-sections of your paper to help your reader follow your line of argument. The first heading in the above example, for instance, might be: The Selective Nature of Perception. The second heading could be: The Impact of Past Experience. The third heading might be something like: Selective Perception and Leadership.

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You might also reiterate each of your sub-points in the conclusion of your essay. You could, for instance, conclude a paper built around the thesis and sub-points listed above as follows:

In this essay I have argued that perception is always selective, that it is shaped by our past experiences, and that experienced-influenced perception impacts in significant ways how we think about and enact leadership. The challenge anyone who wants to be an effective leader is to recognize how the past shapes our thinking and acting and, then, to seek out other experiences—real or virtual—that will yield a smorgasbord of options for approaching leadership situations in a diverse array of settings.

Before concluding this description, a caveat is in order. The pointers that have been presented here are designed for those who have had little experience with writing essays. Those who already can write coherent, highly focused, and well organized essays without relying on the somewhat formulaic approach that has been articulated above should feel free to ignore the above suggestions. Everyone, however, should keep in mind the following criteria that will be used to assess this and subsequent written assignments:

• the appropriateness and originality of the ideas presented

• the level of support—in the form of reasoning and/or evidence—for the paper’s thesis (In this essay, evidence will, for the most part, be personal experiences.)

• the clarity of the paper’s organization

• the technical correctness of the paper’s mechanics, including the author’s

adherence to the style conventions articulated in the style manual of the American Psychological Association.5

5 This assessment scheme focused on Ideas, Support, Organization and Technical (ISOT) issues was initially developed by June Yennie-Donmoyer for use with her high and middle school English students.

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Appendix B Essay on the Practical Applications of a

Cultural Perspective of Leadership and Organizations Assume that you have decided to write a five to seven page article for a magazine that is read primarily by leaders in your field. You have decided to focus your article on the practical implications of a cultural view of organizations and leadership. You know that you will have to briefly explain what a cultural perspective entails and that, consequently, that you will have to cite—and maybe even quote from—material you have read for class. But you also know that most of your readers are mostly interested in how any idea can help them be more effective in practical situations. Therefore, you understand that your article needs to keep the focus on action and be chocked full of examples of how a cultural perspective of organizations and leadership can be useful in real-world situations. There is an implicit thesis in what was written in the previous paragraph: Viewing leadership and organizations from a cultural perspective can help leaders be more effective. Your job, therefore, is to defend that thesis in a way that your practitioner audience will find interesting and useful. Make sure your article is clearly organized and easy for your readers to follow. Feel free to use some of the organizational strategies described in Appendix A or to invent your own strategies for organizing material and helping your reader follow your thinking and organizational structure. The assessment criteria articulated in Appendix A also will be used to assess this assignment. In other words, your article will be assessed on (a) the quality of the ideas and thinking on display in the memo, (b) the support you provide for your ideas, (c) the clarity of the article’s organization, and (d) whether your article is free of grammatical and other technical problems.

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Appendix C

Book Review Assignment/Oral Book Presentation

Books on leadership populate the shelves in ever increasing numbers and with great variability in quality. For this assignment you will be assigned a book from the list in Appendix D. You are to write an analytical book review and, with your classmates who were assigned the same book, conduct no more than a 15 minute structured discussion about the book’s contents and an implication or two about leadership or knowledge/research that the book raises. The written book review will be due during Session #12. You may also submit your written review when you discuss the book in class. Due to the number of students enrolled in the course—but also to link the book reviews directly to the course content—discussion due dates have been spread throughout the course, beginning with session five. Decisions about who will review which books will be made during the first class.

The Written Review: Format Considerations and Assessment Criteria

Book review formats vary but reviews, generally, do not exceed 2000 words and normally contain the following elements: 1. Bibliographic Information and Introduction: At the top of the review you should identify the book you are going to review by listing the author, title, date of publication, publisher, page count and cost of book in the form of a bibliographic citation. In the introduction, identify what you discern to be the author’s objective in writing the book. Identify any contributions to the understanding of leadership that the author makes. This also is a good place to provide a brief description of the author(s). 2. Brief Summary: You are obligated to bring the reader up to date on the content and organization of the book along with key points included in the text. Resist the inclination to dive into the details of the book. The purpose of this section is merely to set up the critical analysis which follows. 3. Critical Assessment: Evaluate the book’s contribution to our understanding of leadership.

a) Evaluate the author’s central argument, purpose, or thesis which may appear in the introduction or conclusion. Is the book well reasoned and logical? b) Look for bias or reasons why the author took a particular approach. Does the book reflect a particular paradigm, perspective or identifiable thought process? Are there underlying assumptions or alternative viewpoints that were not addressed?

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c) Consider the argumentation and evidence submitted by the author and the strength of sources used. Does the author appear to have an implicit (or, possibly, an explicit) conception of knowledge that has influenced the book’s contents?

4. Conclusion: Assess the organization and style of the book. Is it well-organized and clearly written? Is the style consistent with the book’s content and are the style and content appropriate for a specific audience or use? Provide a summative evaluation of the book. Is it a valuable contribution to the literature and do you recommend that others read it? The above format is meant to be suggestive rather than a structure that must be followed without variation. Most of the issues discussed above should be covered, but this might be done in a number of ways. We recommend reading a number of reviews and selecting elements that you like from each when writing your work. Several examples are posted on WebCT. The following on-line resources might also be helpful:

http://www.usd.edu/~khackeme/guides/reviewgd.html http://www.uvm.edu/~jmoore/world/brandrea.html http://www.umbc.edu/history/students/writingbookreviews.htm http://www.indiana.edu/~wts/pamphlets/book_reviews.shtml http://www.uleth.ca/lib/guides/research/display.asp?PageID=34

Your work will be assessed on the quality, appropriateness and comprehensiveness of the ideas expressed in the paper, how well you support the ideas you present, the clarity of the paper’s organization, and whether your proposal is free of grammatical and other technical errors. Follow the style guidelines outlined in the Style Manual of the American Psychological Association. Oral Presentation Your in-class discussion must last no longer than fifteen minutes. Do not read your book review verbatim, but do summarize key points. You may provide handouts as a courtesy to your classmates and/or to more efficiently use your allotted time, but please keep your discussion organized, but informal. For this assignment (though not necessarily for the conference presentation assignment) avoid using PowerPoint slides, video, and activities. The in-class discussion will be assessed on the basis of whether the points made are understandable and engaging and whether the ideas you present are both intellectually sophisticated and well supported. The assessment of the discussion will be factored into the participation rating.

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Appendix D

Books for Review

Session #4 (9/29) From Scientific Management to Transformational Leadership Burns, J. M. & Sorenson, G. J. (1999) Dead center: Clinton-Gore leadership and the perils of moderation. New York: Scribner. Bass, B. M. & Riggio, R. E. (2006). Transformational Leadership. 2nd Ed. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Session #5 (10/6) Studying Leadership: Historical and Scientific Approaches Goodwin, D. K. (2005) Team of rivals: the political genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon and Schuster. Session #8 (10/27) Knowledge as a Socio-Cultural Construction Wolcott, H. F. & Abbott, M.G. (2003). Teachers Versus Technocrats. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press. Erikson, K. T. (1976). Everything in its path: destruction of community in the Buffalo Creek Flood. New York: Simon and Schuster. Session #10 (11/10) Power, Politics, and Critiques of Traditional Conceptions of Knowledge and Leadership

Bell, E.L.J. and Nkomo, S.M. (2001). Our separate ways: Black and white women and the struggle for professional identity. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

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Appendix E

Conference Paper/Presentation Assignments

Assume that you had an opportunity to attend the annual meeting of the International Leadership Association (ILA) and that, during a social hour conversation with an established scholar in the field, you talked about this course and some of the things you learned in it. After listening with great interest, the scholar informed you of a symposium session s/he is putting together for next year’s ILA meeting. The symposium will be built around papers focused on traditional and emergent aspects of leadership theories and research. Assume the scholar asked you if you would be willing to participate in the symposium, should her symposium proposal get accepted. Participation entails two things: (a) writing a paper of approximately fifteen to twenty double-spaced pages and (b) presenting a ten minute oral presentation at the conference that provides a very brief overview of the paper’s contents and summarizes one or two of the key ideas from the paper. The scholar suggest that you could focus on your newly acquired expertise about linkages between theories of leadership, theories about knowledge (the scholar referred to this as epistemology), and research methods. She also indicated, however, that you have considerable latitude when selecting your specific topic. Now, fast forward: Assume the scholar’s symposium proposal was accepted. Assume also that comments by the two reviewers of the proposal suggested that they were especially impressed by the description of your paper, since they believed it covered new ground for the field. Your task now is to write the paper and prepare the ten minute oral presentation about the paper. For the purposes of this course, your work will be assessed on the quality, appropriateness and comprehensiveness of the ideas expressed in the paper/presentation; how well you support the ideas you present with reasoning, evidence, and appropriate references to the course readings, the clarity of the paper’s/presentation’s organization; and whether your proposal/presentation is free of grammatical and other technical errors. (With respect to this last point, make sure that, in your written work, you follow the style guidelines outlined in the Style Manual of the American Psychological Association. You may find The Pocket Guide to APA Style helpful in this regard. Both the manual and the briefer “Pocket Guide” were ordered for this course through the university bookstore. Both also are available through the Amazon.com website.)

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Appendix F

What is plagiarism? Peter Moore (Religious Studies, University of Kent)

Plagiarism occurs where one person presents the words or ideas of another as his own, or where others are allowed or encouraged to form this impression. Plagiarism typically but not necessarily takes a written form. Plagiarism is a form of deception or cheating. At its worst it amounts to intellectual property theft. One who plagiarizes is living, immorally, off the intellectual earnings of others. There are, however, significantly different 'grades' of plagiarism, as identified below. Even so, while clear enough in respect of the intentions of the plagiarizer, the different grades of plagiarism are not necessarily easy to distinguish objectively, from the reader's or examiner's point of view. Faced with a case of plagiarism, an institution may not find it easy, or consider itself obliged, to differentiate between one grade of plagiarism and another when penalizing students. Three grades of plagiarism Grade A plagiarism occurs where an individual makes a premeditated and systematic attempt to pass off the work of one or more others as his own, the plagiarizer taking care to disguise the fact by suppressing all revealing references, by changing words here and there in order to deflect suspicion, and so on. Paradoxically, this worst form of plagiarism can prove the most difficult to detect. Grade B plagiarism occurs where an individual in the course of writing an essay or dissertation knowingly refrains from making clear, through the erratic or inconsistent use of recognized conventions, the normal distinctions between such elements as paraphrase, quotation, reference and commentary. This kind of plagiarism tends to be naive, clumsy and transparent, with the plagiarized elements often coming from the same sources which are in the same essay properly referenced or quoted from, all of which makes it relatively easy for the plagiarism to be identified. Whereas the Grade A plagiarizer is trying deviously to get ahead, the Grade B plagiarizer is usually just hoping naively to get by. Grade C plagiarism is plagiarism that is unintended or accidental. It occurs where through laziness, disorganization or indifference an individual neglects to acknowledge the source of an idea or quotation; or sticks too closely to the original wording when paraphrasing a source; or innocently reproduces, as his own material, ideas or quotations which have been noted down or copied out without their sources being recorded. One variation on this form of plagiarism occurs where an individual makes excessive or exclusive use of ideas or words from one particular source, even while fully acknowledging this source in the notes and bibliography. Technically, journalism frequently involves elements of grade B or grade C plagiarism, in so far as reporters and feature writers regularly copy or summarize ideas and documents without bothering to make due acknowledgment.

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Plagiarism and unpublished work Plagiarism does not cease to be plagiarism if the words or ideas plagiarized are not actually in published or permanent form; nor does the gravity of plagiarism vary with the quality of the work plagiarized. Thus copying someone else's essay is still plagiarism, and it is still plagiarism even if the essay is a bad essay. Getting someone else to write an essay which one then presents as one's own is also plagiarism. Plagiarism and permission Nor is plagiarism mitigated by the fact that a person may for some reason give you permission to reproduce or quote from his work (e.g. an essay) without acknowledgment, since the intention remains that of passing off someone else's work as your own. It is even possible to plagiarize oneself, for example by presenting as a fresh piece of work (whether or not under a new title) the whole or part of a piece of work already submitted to and marked by another teacher. Penalties for plagiarism Theoretically one might propose that different grades of plagiarism deserve different grades of penalty. Thus Grade A plagiarism should presumably be deemed serious enough (at least in the case of pieces of written work constituting examinations) to warrant instant dismissal or disqualification. Grade B plagiarism would require the disqualification or heavy penalizing of the particular piece or pieces of work in question, perhaps with the threat of a tougher penalty for any further plagiarism. Grade C plagiarism should probably remain a 'domestic' matter, with individual teachers or tutors counseling students about their studying and writing techniques. It must be remembered, however, that an educational institution is perfectly within its rights to treat plagiarism as an either/or phenomenon. The onus therefore must be on students making sure that they avoid all grades of plagiarism, by keeping a proper record of their sources for notes and quotations, and by acknowledging either within the text or in footnotes the authorship of the ideas, quotations and paraphrasing used in the essay or dissertation itself. The key factor here is acknowledgment. Acknowledge your sources and you have nothing to fear. Copyrighted by Peter Moore 2000 This document may be freely quoted from, reproduced

and distributed, in either printed or electronic format, provided due attribution of authorship is clearly visible on all copies.