Leadership Coursework

 

ORGL 500: Organizational Leadership

An introduction to organizational leadership begins with an examination of these questions: How do leaders explain the causes of dysfunctional thinking and/or behavior in themselves, other leaders, or in organizations?  How do they understand the differences among a variety of styles of leadership and models of organizations?  How do they apply the theories of leadership and the principles of organizational behavior to actual situations?  How do they formulate a broad, integrative perspective from which to view leadership and organizational behavior?  Drawing from the social science, this integrated course focuses on research and models of leadership relevant to defining and achieving collective goals in a variety of organizational settings.

 

I thought, Oh my goodness!  What have I gotten myself into!  I had no idea what it really meant to be a leader.  You mean the ant in front is not the leader?  I also had no idea how much I had to read and study to begin just glimpsing the styles and models of organizational leadership.  As I read, words became a series of “Aha” moments.  As a result, “AHA MO” is now my Virginia license plate.  As I related to the words, I immediately wanted to apply them to my work and home life.  However, I did not know how.  I struggled with my own questions and possible answers.  The end of ORGL 500: Organizational Leadership made me hungry for more.

 

ORGL 501: Methods of Organizational Research

Gall, Gall, & Borg note that research is a systematic and persistent approach to answering questions (2006).  This course meets that charge head on, as we attempt to explore the philosophies of research and how to answer questions that we are passionate about.  Through engagement with primary research and exposure to current methodologies and the inquiry process, this course requires the development of a full research proposal (e.g. literature review, rationale for the proposed questions, formal research questions and/or hypotheses, and proposed method description).

 

Dr. Popa really stayed with me throughout this course and helped me to begin understanding how to break down cause and effect.  I titled my paper, The Indispensable Manager, Myth or Beneficial Reality.  It was a study of my workplace, a place as befuddling as anything I had ever encountered.  In studying our agency structure and researching the cause and effect of this particular hierarchical malignancy, I was able to bring some sanity to my world.  At the end of the course, I presented the paper to my Director with some major trepidations. 

 

I must note that six years later that indispensable manager has now been forcefully demoted.  Indispensable Management – myth or reality?

 

ORGL 502: Leadership and Imagination

Why is creative imagination an important leadership capacity?  How do leaders employ their imaginative processes within the organization?  What can leaders do to stimulate and nurture their imagination?  Through the theme of “seeing and seeing again” perspectives from the liberal arts (i.e. art, drama, history, literature, music, and psychology), students are challenged to apply and expand their creative and imaginative capacity.  This experiential class provides opportunities to meet and engage with class members as well as faculty and staff in a face-to-face setting, establishing relationships to support their success throughout the program and beyond graduation.

 

What a great joy to finally meet and interact with our professors and other servant leaders in training.  These days challenged our imaginations and expanded our perceptions.  I was able to walk amongst the youngsters at Gonzaga and to feel joyful for what they all have the opportunity to become and the positive transformations they can effect on our society.  This week gave me hope for all of our futures.  What a gift.

 

ORGL 503: Organizational Ethics

Worldviews inform personal, social, political, and professional lives.  They influence our perception and practice of leadership, how we respond to adversity, how we relate to others and what we understand to be our purpose.  Through a modified case study approach, students are challenged to explore human life from two radically opposing worldviews, examining ethical dilemmas of leadership within the context of moral choices and implications of decision-making.  Defining personal worldviews in online postings will help students identify and clarify personal motivations, behaviors, and reactions to ethical problems in the organizational setting.

 

Ethics has always been a fascinating subject for me.  It seems there are so many definitions of what is ethical from every point of view.

 

From one of my papers, I removed a quote that applied directly to my employment:

 

In Ciulla’s Ethics the Heart of Leadership (2004), Al Gini opens chapter two with this: Conventional wisdom has it that two of the most glaring examples of oxymorons are the terms business ethics and moral leadership (p.25).  He goes on to say that, this “cliché” exists because not enough evidence exists to the contrary.  By p.33, he has narrowed the cliché down to my issue at hand, when he reminds us of the “Machiavellian assertions that “politics and ethics don’t mix” and that the sole aim of any leader is “the acquisition of personal power.””

 

At the time, this assertion held great power over me.  I have since learned that it is not always the case.

 

ORGL 504: Organizational Communication

All organizations — from Microsoft, to churches, to social clubs, and universities — rely on communication, and being able to communicate strategically is crucial to meaningful participation.  This course will explore contemporary concepts about the meanings and functions of communication in organizations.  Organizational communication encompasses not only communication within businesses, but also within large private or nonprofit associations, larger community groups, and governments both large and small.  We will cover such selected topics in organizational communication research, such as culture, socialization, systems theory, communication and technology, and globalization.

 

This was admittedly an incredibly hard class for me.  I took what I was learning and began applying it to a communications audit of the Asian Center of Merrimack Valley in Lawrence, Massachusetts.  Martin Luther King Jr. once said “a genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus” (Consensus Quotes, 2013).  This hit the nail on the head.  The audit revealed major organizational communication gaps and recommended that the Board adopt long-term vision and organizational strategy as a priority in defining the new paradigm – a bearing where immediacy is a result of organizational communications and not merely a prioritized goal.  Though well received by the ED and half of the Board, neither consensus nor sculptor were at hand.

 

ORGL 505: Organizational Theory

In this introduction to the study of organizations, students are exposed to a synthesis and integration of major traditions in organizational theory.  Emphasis is placed on grounding in theoretical concepts and their practical applications, exposing students to the chaotic and constantly changing world of organizations.  Students will learn to view organizations from multiples frames and perspectives, applying the frames to interpret organizational behavior.  Knowledge of organizational theory will be applied to a collaborative group project designing a “real-life” intervention.

 

I really liked this course. Understanding some of the actions organizations take to become more successful and what others have done to promote failure was enlightening.  I had never given much thought to my leadership on such broad terms, but had held them to much more intimate relationships.

 

ORGL 506: Leadership and Diversity

Who we are, whether we are comfortable with this idea or not, is shaped in part by the social roles we occupy and how society sees us in those roles.  As we will see from the very beginning of this class, our social roles, the class we are born into, and our gender all have implications for our lives.  We will explore intercultural communication as a tool to bridge differences and learn about identities, practices, and cultures.

 

One of the truly great classes in this program.  What was most interesting to me in this course was how myopic a view most of us have concerning both the impact we have on others and the world in general.  Our worldviews are shaped much more by this narrow vision than by the periphery that we totally ignore.  Things like intercultural communication are becoming realities of even the most geographically remote American’s everyday life.  The more we open our eyes and hearts to great leaders and philosophers, the better we lead.

 

ORGL 518: Transforming Leadership

How do contemporary leaders go beyond the social exchange theory to convert followers into leaders and leaders into moral agents?  This course offers a comparison of transactional and transforming leadership by examining past leaders and events.  An examination of the dynamics of transformation and how leadership can facilitate it within individuals and organizations will help students develop new insights into the theory and practice of transforming leadership.

 

This and Servant Leadership were my favorite classes, by far.  One thing I learned from this class was to look at my own executive leadership with a very different approach than I had been using.  This was important because when working for the Federal government, you have to know where your solid ground is.  Otherwise, a person can quickly find himself or herself overtaken by soil turned liquid.  Foundation there is a matter of survival and for me presented itself through an acute awareness of my surroundings.  What struck me most about my surroundings was my executive leadership’s high level of charisma and how that charisma led or, more precisely, directed.

 

I learned that my facilitation would come in the form of understanding the role I choose to take in the future of my organization.  I had often faulted myself in my lack of charisma – the innate kind of charisma that Birnbaum (p.171) tells us “has more to do with impression management than the hard work” a person puts forth.  The slice of charisma that I will work toward is the kind that is earned through integrity and the kind that does not rely on words like transparency and non-political.  Wherever I find the opportunity to proliferate the authority of other decision makers in order to strengthen the formal administrative structure of my agency, I will do so.

 

ORGL 520: Negotiation and Conflict Resolution

This course provides an overview of conflict on different levels, from micros through mezzo, macros to violent international conflict.  Using real-life situations and case studies, students will practice skills and strategies for dialogue, decision-making, and ultimately conflict transformation and system change.  This application is generic and therefore appropriate for all professions whether formally or informally involved in resolving conflict.

 

I thoroughly enjoyed my interactions and learning in this class.  Working with Brandon, Gerald, Derick and Amy to create the Copper Crucible (https://prezi.com/tdtsgf4stjmo/arizona-miners-strike-of-1983/) for our class presentation was memorable.  In a paper, I wrote concerning the strike:

 

At some point in this history, sides of the story and who the players are became much less important than the overarching unresolved conflict.  Conflict becomes sentient, independently a living breathing construct of “distrust, anger, fear, contempt, embarrassment, shame, pride, and disappointment” (Maiese, 2005).  Throw into the creation feelings of impassioned judgment and revenge – you have a machine capable of destroying generations.

 

I was able to see this kind of conflict within both my personal and professional life.  Recognizing it was the first step in appropriately dealing with it.

 

ORGL 530: Servant Leadership

An examination of the foundation, principles and practice of servant leadership.

 

This class came at exactly the right time in my career, even though I am older than most students are.  It profoundly affected my life in every way.  In every essence of the word, it was transformational.  My Servant Leader Assessment Paper sums up pretty well what I learned in this class:

 

It is interesting for me to note that my girlfriend, the Executive Director of a local community-based organization, edited this paper, for spelling more than content, and strongly disagrees with my self-assessment - that I have yet to attain servant-leader status.  I would venture to guess my coworkers and managers might say the same.  Yet, this paper serves to assess who I think I am as a leader.  I would fairly call myself…a work in progress.

 

Sipe & Frick (2009, p.182) provide this Marcel Post quote:

 

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.

 

ORGL 680: Leadership Seminar

The Leadership Seminar serves as the capstone experience of the master’s program in Organizational Leadership.  Students create a research portfolio, project, or thesis as evidence of a synthesis of the program.