Leadership is not about personality, authority, position, influence, or power as such. Leadership is an art, a craft, a practice, to which everyone is called sometime or other, in widely different situations. Leadership can be practiced with varying degrees of authority, from any position, at varying scales of influence, and with varying access to different sources of power. Leadership is the work of motivating a group of people to act in certain ways as they shape what they share.
In this course we will explore two kinds of leadership, positional leadership and contributory leadership, and two kinds of leadership practices, algorithmic leadership practices and heuristic leadership practices. Positional leadership is the kind of leadership that comes with a particular, recognized position in a group, and contributory leadership is the kind of leadership that you can contribute regardless of your position in a group. Algorithmic leadership practices are those leadership practices for which there are clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals, and heuristic leadership practices are those leadership practices for which there are not (or not yet) clear, commonly agreed-upon procedures and goals and that demand imaginative discernment. We will attend to leadership with regard to both making beneficial change happen and ensuring needed maintenance.
Participants in the course will read from a carefully curated selection of texts on the practice of leadership, will engage one another in asynchronous online forum discussions about their own leadership experiences in relation to these readings, will meet in a series of six synchronous online video sessions (starting late in April and concluding in an intensive series of sessions on three consecutive days early in August), and will draft and workshop two papers on topics selected from a set of options but all oriented towards the leadership practice and professional development of the participants. Participants are encouraged to take a complete break from coursework during the month of July. The course will conclude with each participant organizing and reflecting on a celebration of learning done in the company of their own confidantes.
ICSD 132504/260003 S22*
Blended (Online Asynchronous/Synchronous)
(MWS, MA-EL)
Syllabus
Enrolment Notes:
To register for this course, email academic-registrar@icscanada.edu. Last date to register April 19, 2022. Maximum enrolment of nine (9) students. ICS reserves the right to decline registrations.
*Approved for Area 2 or 4 of the CSTC
