Leadership Symposium II

Executive MBA in Leadership

LDR 650

Breyer State University
Instructor: Linda Michelle Council, MBA, BS

SYLLABUS

COURSE OVERVIEW: Welcome to LDR 650 Leadership Symposium II! Almost any well-designed organization or group can function adequately, and even exceptionally during times of plenty and times of calm. The true challenge to those in leadership roles is to be able to respond effectively during crises. This leadership symposium covers the cutting-edge leadership and management philosophies used by today's business leaders to help their organizations and entrepreneurial start-ups prosper and diversify at a global level.

Focusing on leadership through crisis and models of strategic and critical decision-making, this course presents various perspectives of leadership utilizing contemporary and contrarian theories on leadership. The acquisition and development of unconventional perspectives and critical thinking skills will be emphasized and their importance to leadership will be accentuated. Attention will be given to the identification of the unique ethical demands of leadership.

Besides this, an essential component of a successful career is an effective personal leadership style that fits appropriately within your professional setting. You should take the opportunity within this symposium to explore the elements of individual style with the goal of increasing your own and your organization's effectiveness. To achieve this, we will examine some contrarian perspectives that break from conventional leadership wisdom.

The coursework is designed to include the classics as well as the most current thinking in the field, and in addition to focusing upon leadership techniques and theories, we will be exploring the complexities of developing strong critical thinking and critical-decision-making capabilities. Beyond this, no subject is more immediate to the concerns of leadership today, than the ability to lead in an ethical fashion. Thus, we will also be concentrating upon helping students of leadership meet those challenges as well. I hope you will enjoy this symposium and will find it to be a challenging as well as a rewarding experience in learning!

As you begin the course, I'd like you to remember that although you've taken an on-line course because you are prepared to work with a large degree of independence, you aren't expected to complete your studies in total isolation! I'm here to offer you guidance, constructive criticism (everyone hates this, but it's an important part of a good education), or additional support. Please do contact me if I can offer any assistance.

TIME FRAME: This is a five-semester hour course. This course is allotted ten weeks of time. You must complete all of the requirements for the course successfully by the end of the ten-week period. The first day of week one will begin the day that you register for the course, or the day which you notify me that your textbook has arrived and you are ready to begin your studies. Please be cognizant of the time frame. It is rare that extensions of time are permitted, unless you have good justification. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be awarded five-semester hours of credit.

TEXTBOOK: There are three (3) required textbooks for this course. Please purchase your books as soon as possible.

Book 1: The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership. Sample, S. Jossey-Bass. ISBN # 787955876.

Book 2: Leadership on the Line: How to Stay Alive Through the Dangers of Leading. Heifetz, R. and Linsky, M. Harvard Business School Press. ISBN # 1578514371.

Book 3: Meeting the Ethical Challenges of Leadership. Johnson, C. Thousand Oaks, CA; Sage Publications, Inc. 2001: ISBN # 978-1412941297.

In addition, because your major work for this course, as well as most graduate level writing in the social sciences, must be done in accordance with the American Psychological Association style, if you have not already purchased it, it is recommended, but not required, that you acquire the following:

Book 1: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association-5th ed. (2001). American Psychological Association. ISBN # 1557987912.

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EXAMINATIONS: There is one final examination for this course, which covers the material in all the required text readings.

The final examination must be taken by the end of the tenth week in the course.

The examination is located in the classroom for this course, but will be unavailable to you until you are ready to take the exam. The examination is an integrative essay exam in which you will use your textbooks to develop your responses. You will have three days to complete your exam, once you access it from the classroom.

To access the exam, you must send me an e-mail and request access to the exam. Upon registration, you will receive my e-mail address. Remember, as noted above, you should ALWAYS type the initials BSU in the beginning of the subject heading of your e-mails to me. This alerts me when I look at my list of e-mails that yours is not SPAM and I won't accidentally delete your e-mail without reading it. Once I get your e-mail, I will then provide you with access to the exam. You will receive a return e-mail from me telling you that you are authorized to access your exam.

To access, you will go to the classroom, click on testing, and click on the exam you are taking. You will need your User ID and Password to access the exam. The exam will appear on your screen.

Once you access and review the exam, you have seventy-two hours to prepare and submit your answers. The program provides me with the exact date and time that you accessed the exam. The program also notifies me of the exact date and time that you submitted your answers. Thus, the program is timing you. When you are ready, go back into the classroom and click in your responses and then click submit. I will check for your completed exam at the end of seventy-two hours.

FINAL EXAM PREPARATION: The purpose of the final examination is for you to demonstrate mastery of the material in the course at the graduate level. To do this, a series of eight to ten integrative essay questions will be given and you will respond to the questions with a minimum of one typed, double-spaced page for each question. This may also be counted as at least six, fully formed, grammatically correct, accurately punctuated paragraphs per question.

In an integrative essay, you will demonstrate that you can combine ideas, themes and concepts and research results from the readings in a way that shows mastery of the subject matter. Thus, you will take an idea or theme from one part of the reading and combine it with a concept from another area to create a response to the essay question or problem. In this way, you actually demonstrates a degree of familiarity and understanding with the course material.

You are expected to use the course textbooks as source material for the responses. Minimal direct quotations from the textbook are acceptable, but the majority of the writing should be paraphrased, in your own words, based upon the textbook material. You will have three days to complete the exam but if you are prepared having read, comprehended and reviewed the material you will not need that much time. However, you should budget three days of as much uninterrupted time at your PC as is possible, just in case you need it.

GRADING: The grading scale for this course is as follows:

90-100%    = A
80-89%      = B
70-79%      = C
Below 70%  = Fail

ABOUT YOUR INSTRUCTOR: Welcome, my name is Linda Michelle Council. I go by Michelle. For all purposes in our class I like to be called Prof Council. I hope that is ok with you.

I received my BS degree in Psychology in 1992 from the University of Southern Mississippi.  I got my MBA in 2001 from Baker College. I am working on a PhD in Higher Education Leadership from Touro University.

I live in a small town in South Mississippi . I have been married since 1996. I have a 8-year-old daughter, a 4-year-old son and a 16 month old daughter. My family is my life.

I will be available to my students to help them in anyway I can (within reason of course). I hope you will enjoy my class.

Please visit my personal web page http://lindacouncil.tripod.com/

INSTRUCTOR AVAILABILITY: Upon registration, you will be given my e-mail address. You will normally receive a response from me within twenty-four hours. If during your time in this course you change your e-mail address, please be sure to notify me right away. Please note that since my e-mail inbox is like nearly everyone else's, I often find loads of SPAM in it. Before reading my e-mail, I delete everything that looks like SPAM. You should ALWAYS type the initials BSU in the beginning of the subject heading of your e-mails to me. This alerts me when I look at my list of e-mails that yours is not SPAM and I won't accidentally delete your e-mail without reading it. If, however, you would prefer an online chat on the BSU course site, please contact me via e-mail to arrange an appointment.

COURSE ACCELERATION: It is permissible for you to accelerate in this course. You may chose to submit the paper prior to the ninth week of the course and to take the final examination prior to the tenth week of the course. You will need to notify me if you wish to accelerate the course and whenever you are ready to take your exam. Upon my notification, you will be given access to the exam. There is no mandate to accelerate. This is an individual choice that I will honor.

COURSE OBJECTIVES: Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

1). Examine and analyze the major contemporary and contrarian trends in leadership research.
2). Apply the leadership research to professional problems and issues, and to contemporary clinical, educational, and organizational settings.
3). Examine how his or her profession relates to and is influenced by an understanding of the methods and principles of leadership.
4). Apply leadership theory to important social and political phenomena in contemporary society.
5). Develop skill in the theory and practice of critical decision-making.
6). Develop appropriate leadership interventions in issues in professional settings.
7). Analyze current theories of ethical leadership.

INFORMATION: If you have any questions regarding this program, you may address them to adm@breyerstate.com. An administrative faculty member will respond to all questions.

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