BC 611: Leading with Integrity

Overview

The ability to understand one's strengths in the context of the needs of an organization is the foundation of effective leadership. Leading others requires choosing an appropriate leadership method and becoming a servant-leader. Leadership also requires ethical principles, systems thinking, time management, strategic problem solving, accurate decision making, creativity and effective risk-taking. You will learn aspects of becoming a leader and setting a vision for a learning organization that is not afraid to reinvent itself in order to propel itself to success. You will study theories and strategies of leadership, finishing the course by creating a personal professional plan for leadership.

Learning Outcomes

Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

• Identify personal leadership strengths and weaknesses with regard to problem analysis, judgment, decisiveness, organizational ability, sensitivity, oral and written communication based on self-assessments.
• Act upon a set of traits, behaviors and qualities of responsible leadership and apply them to contemporary organizational structures.
• Explain current and successful theories and models of leadership and their respective value to business.
• Compose a reflexive journal resulting in a personal and professional leadership plan based upon your formulation of a working definition of leadership.
• Demonstrate the economic value of applying appropriate leadership theories to business practices.
• Create community as a leader among working professionals that results in productive interdependency in identifying and solving problems.
• Create a company vision statement, mission statement and strategic intent, including goals and objectives.
• Analyze the body of literature of theories of leadership and coordinate with contemporary publications to derive best practices.
• Incorporate the fundamental concepts of systems thinking as it pertains to leadership and action learning problem solving.
• Design a Diversity Mission Statement with goals and objectives to guide implementation.
• Differentiate between management and leadership behaviors.
• Design an ethics leadership policy and identify ethical behaviors leaders must model to ensure business success.
• Assess specific needs for leadership in your own business environment and develop a strategy to meet those needs.

Required Texts
BC 611 texts are available from the JIU/MBS bookstore