leadership in context: prlc 3810
PRLC 3810: Global Issues in Leadership
PRLC 3810 examines leadership in a dynamic 21st century world. It is designed to help students think broadly about global issues and continue their preparation for leadership positions in business, government, and non-profit organizations. The course is focused on improving personal leadership skills and emphasizes the importance of always leading consistently with the highest ethical principles and values. The course will involve some leadership and management theories, but throughout it emphasizes how to apply them in the real world. By combining practical examples with theory, and what works with what does not, the course will provide useful guidelines for students who want to be leaders of the future.
Global Issues is organized around seven major global flows: population, energy, security, investment, disease, illegal drugs, and terrorism. Each topic includes a guest lecture, and an overview taught by teams of students. Five of the seven topics also include a case study. To round out the class, the professor provides five general leadership lectures. To support the lecture material, there are assigned readings and other assignments, both individual and team-oriented.
Leadership in Context Objectives
Leadership in context is the study of historical and contemporary leaders across a wide swath of organizational contexts to better understand the individual characteristics and embedded contexts that enabled - and hindered - leadership success.
-
Assess the strengths and weaknesses of historical and contemporary figures in a leadership role
-
Formulate alternative perspectives as to how historical events and circumstances would change had a given leader acted differently
-
Hypothesize how various contextual factors influence and are influenced by leadership actions
-
Evaluate organizational performance through the lens of multiple leadership perspectives
My Leadership Lens
After hearing Professor Riggle speak my freshman year, I have been looking forward to taking his class. I think it will be interesting to finally see leadership in context. What I hope to gain is the ability to articulate good and bad leadership in certain scenarios and how actions and behaviors could have been altered to produce a better outcome. I also want to become better at speaking up in class. Often times I feel what I have to say is not important and will fail to give my input when I have something to say. Knowledge-wise, I hope to learn about current leaders in the world, and how their leadership style influences their success.
Course Reflection
The content of this course was better than expected. I felt that I was up to date on real world issues, both current and in the past, along with the leadership styles involved in the failure and success. I believe I will continue to reference the articles we read and the topics discussed. What better context to discuss leadership issues than the real world?
I achieved my goal of speaking up more in class. I did quite dislike the subjective grading of participation in class, but regardless, I did the best I could. Each day, I made sure to read the assigned articles and take notes just in case I was chosen in the Russian roulette of "On the Spot."
I quite enjoyed working on the group project with my colleagues. It had to be one of the hardest, most demanding presentations I ever had to give. The topic was Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), and this was a little out of my league as I am a neuroscience major. However, my team had great ideas, and I was more than willing to support them. Late nights preparing and practicing paid off, and we gave a stellar presentation about a transportation investment in of the most congested cities in the world, Jakarta, Indonesia. Unfortunately, I learned that my public speaking skills need improvement, but I also became aware of my strong suit when working in groups, and that is organization and aesthetic.
Honestly, I learned more than I thought I would in this course. I appreciated the various global issues we discussed. I felt that is what made the course well-rounded. The intimidation of the class is high, but the content makes it all worth it.