BAD 64158 Spring 2008 Hogue

 

Instructor:                    Mary Hogue, Ph.D.

Office:                         A423

Phone:                         (330) 672-1148

Office Hours:              W 4:00-6:00

                                    You also may stop in my office any time you see my door open,

                                    or I will be happy to schedule a mutually convenient appointment.

E-Mail:                         mhogue@kent.edu

Class meeting:              W 6:15-8:55

Required text:              No text is required for this class. Assigned articles are posted on Vista.

                                   

Course Objectives: This course offers students the opportunity to better understand the concepts of leadership, to better understand themselves as leaders, and to explore skills that will help them to grow as managers who lead others. Specifically, students will:

w        Explore important theories and concepts of leadership.

w        Obtain a more comprehensive understanding of their personal unique leadership strengths and development opportunities.

w        Analyze the leadership of others

 

Course Overview: Course objectives will be met through extensive class discussions of assigned reading material as well as videos and experiential exercises.

 

Grade Determinations: Grades will be earned through:

 

Class participation. Although ours is a distance learning class, which does not lend itself easily to class discussion, leadership is not a topic that you can effectively understand without such discussion. Experts who dedicate their lives to the study of leadership do not all agree on exactly what leadership is, so we cannot have a class in which I lecture to you on the meaning of leadership. Instead, it is my goal in this class that you come to understand the complexity of the topic. That means that rather than focus on memorizing theories and jargon, I want you to learn to think better about leadership, and I want you to apply that better way of thinking to leadership attempts that you observe and to yourself as a leader.

 

Your participation enhances not only your own understanding of leadership but your classmates’ and mine as well, so you will be rewarded for your participation. Fifty points are available for participation. They will be awarded at my discretion.

 

When I award points, I will first make a subjective judgment, asking myself, “If I were awarding a letter grade to this person for participation, what letter grade would I award?” A-level participation is spectacular (attending class each week, demonstrating thoughtful reading of assigned articles by often asking insightful questions, often adding thoughtful comments). B-level participation is above average (missing only a couple of days, showing that the material was read by sometimes offering insightful comments or questions, offering to answer questions I pose). C-level participation is average (usually in class, speaks once in a while). D-level participation is below average (not usually in class, almost never speaks). Failing participation occurs when a student is rarely in class and rarely speaks).

 

After letter grades are determined, I will assign points based on the 50 available such that A is 45-50 points, B is 40-44 points, C is 35-39 points, D is 30-34 points, and F is 29 or fewer points.

 

As you read the assigned articles, use the following as a guide. Look for:

 

            1. the author(s)’ main point or purpose for writing the article

            2. facts cited by the author to support her or his main point

            3. terms that you are not familiar with

 

Then, critically analyze the author(s)’ arguments. Ask yourself:

 

            1. does the information fit with your previous understanding

            2. does the information fit with your previous experience

            3. if the information does not fit, then why does it not fit

 

All of this will be the basis of our class discussions and can be used to prepare for discussion.

 

Personal leader assessment. Research suggests that to be an effective leader, one must have self-knowledge. To that end, you will write a Self-Assessment paper. You will explore yourself as a leader by taking several self-assessment tests, through personal reflection, and by soliciting feedback from your social/professional network and your fellow students.

 

The information you gather will be synthesized so that you can better understand your strengths and improve those areas that have the opportunity to be improved.

 

Begin with a brief introduction telling me your career plans and giving a brief overview of your paper. Follow the introduction with two sections: Strengths and Limitations. Be sure to include careful descriptions of the concepts you discuss. It is not sufficient to tell me that you had a score of X on personality test A. You must tell me what that means with respect to you as a leader and how you know what it means. For example, do not simply state, “I took an IQ test online. My score was 120. That will help me to be a better leader, so it is a strength.” Instead, tell me, “At www.psychtests.com, I took an online IQ test. My score was 120. That means that I have above average intelligence. According to our class discussion (Hogue) intelligence is a key characteristic in leadership perception. Linda Gottfredson defined intelligence as the ability to quickly process complex information, and she noted that it is linked with several life outcomes including social position suggesting that with my score, others will be able to identify me as a leader more easily thereby increasing my chances of influencing them. Cialdini notes, influence is an integral part of leadership. Hogue defined influence as an effect that determines or sways thoughts or behaviors. Together, this suggests that my intelligence is a leadership strength.”

 

Note that I defined course terms and fully supported and explained my claim. In your paper, you must do the same.

 

Your self-assessment should be thorough, so you must gather and discuss information from a number of different concepts as well as different perspectives. The more you are able to synthesize information rather than discussing concepts in a serial fashion, the better your grade will be. A statement such as, “The feedback from my subordinates confirms what Gottfredson said. When I asked my subordinates to pinpoint what they believed my best attribute as their leader was, 3 out of 4 of them said it was my intelligence” included after the above quote about your intelligence score shows a synthesis of information. Likewise, “Although the ability to process information quickly is necessary to be effective as a leader, social intelligence is key as well. Zacarro (2007) argues that no attribute alone can predict leader emergence or leader effectiveness. He argues that leader traits are integrations of characteristics and that different traits are constrained or called out depending on the situation. So, it is possible that when my subordinates suggest that I am intelligent, they may not mean only that they believe I can process information quickly. Because we work in a customer service department, they may mean that I am people-smart because I am able to determine the best approach to use with each unhappy customer” shows a synthesis of information.

 

Finally, end your paper with a Conclusion section that ties your strengths and limitations to your career aspirations.

 

You must email your paper to me as a Word document attachment before the beginning of our scheduled class Wed. March 19. It will be docked 5 pts. for each hour or part thereof that the paper is late, and late means that I have not received the paper – not that you have not sent it. So, please turn your paper in with plenty of time for me to send you a confirmation that I received it so that if you have not received confirmation from me, you can resend the paper without it being late.

 

I will grade the paper making comments throughout and email it back to you. It is worth a total of 125 points – 10 for the Intro, 50 for Strengths, 50 Limitations, and 15 for the conclusion. Grades will reflect both breadth (how many different perspectives and concepts did you include) and depth (how much understanding did you show of individual concepts and of the relationships between and among the concepts), and although this is not a writing class, too many grammar or spelling errors will lower your grade as will failure to cite your sources. The only citation necessary for assigned readings is the author’s name. If you cite outside information that I bring to class, you can simply cite me.

 

If you would like to send a small portion (maybe a paragraph or so) of your paper to me early so to find out if you are on the right track with defining, supporting, and synthesizing, then I’d be happy to look over it and give you feedback.

 

Leadership analysis. This is election season, and campaigning is essentially a request for the leader role. Thus, you must analyze one candidate’s attempt to lead.

 

Select one presidential candidate. You may select any candidate in the race, but I would suggest that you choose a front-runner so that person will still be campaigning throughout the semester so that you can watch that candidate with respect to the topic of each week. It will be easier to look for current articles, speeches or, interviews than it will be to find archived articles, speeches and interviews if the person drops out of the race. And it will be easier to look for pertinent examples when the course material is fresh in your mind.

 

Your paper must begin with a brief introduction specifying who the leader is and laying out a brief description of the paper. Then, following a section heading specifying the Leader section, you will write about who the candidate is. What is his or her background? Why does she or he want to lead? Can you find information about the person’s personality, intelligence, educational history, leadership history, values, personal experiences, beliefs, self-identity, etc.? If not, then describe those areas and explain the reasons for your descriptions. Also, describe the person’s behaviors. What tactics is this person using to influence or persuade followers to choose her or him? Why do you think those tactics were chosen? Be sure that this section contains information specific only to the leader.

 

Your next section requires a heading specifying that it is the Followers section. In this section, describe the people whom this leader is attempting to influence. To what audiences does she or he speak? What do you know about the personalities, intelligences, educational histories, leadership histories, values, personal experiences, beliefs, self-identity, etc. of those chosen to be followers? Are they always the same groups of people? Are there different types of followers to whom this person addresses her or his message? Explain yourself thoroughly, and speak only about the followers.

 

Your third section falls under the heading, Situation. In this section you will look for situational factors that impact this attempt at leadership. What is culture in which it occurs? What is the greater historical context? Is there a more personal historical context? What role does the task at hand play? Think of other situational factors and explain those as well. Try to focus only on the situation, but because the followers are part of the situation for the leader and the leader is part of the situation for the followers, you may need to write a minimal amount about them as well.

 

Your final section is the Conclusion. In each previous section, you could only discuss the section’s topic (e.g., you cannot discuss the followers at all within the Leadership section or the situation at all within the Follower section). In this section, you must integrate the three sections explaining how the three parts interact. For example, you can discuss how the historical context elicits certain needs from followers that they look to the leader to fulfill and how the leader’s past experience tells followers whether they can expect the leader to fulfill those needs. You can talk about how the leader’s self-identity might differ from the followers’ identification of the leader and how the culture might affect those views. You could discuss how the situation awards power to the candidate and how the candidate’s past experience and a tendency to behave in a certain way might lead to a misuse of that power. There are endless possibilities. Combine your previous information in as many unique ways as possible in order to fully explain the attempted leadership process. This section should be large relative to the others.

 

You must use course and discussion material to support your claims in your paper. For example, it is not sufficient to say that Barack Obama is an extroverted person. You must say that you believe him to be an extrovert, which means this (cite your source), and you can tell that because when you saw him on these three television shows (cite them and the date of the viewing) he behaved in these ways and according to this other source, those are classic extrovert behaviors.

 

When citing outside material that I bring to class discussions, you can simply cite me (Hogue, in class). There is no set requirement for number of citations except to say this: you must FULLY explain each part of the process and you must support your claims with course material. This is your chance to show me that you understand course material, and you cannot do that if you don’t put it in your paper. It is your chance to show me that you know both what comes from the readings and what comes from me in discussion, so you must use a roughly similar number of each type of source (reading and me in discussion). Keep in mind that I know all of the topics we discussed. The more I have to write, “What about X?” the lower your grade will be. The more I am able to see that you fully covered course material, the better your grade will be.

 

Papers must be emailed to be before class Wed. April 30. Again, mail them early enough that I can send confirmation of receipt, and be careful with spelling and grammar.

 

There are 150 points available for this paper, 33 1/3 for each of the first 3 sections and 50 for the integrative section. Awarding points will have nothing to do with number of pages written. It will be all about correctly applying, defining, and explaining course material.

 

Points available:                       Participation                                                                           50

                                                Self-assessment/Self-development paper                     125

Total                                                                                      325

 

 

A.       Students attending the course who do not have the proper prerequisite risk being deregistered from the class.

 

B.       Students have responsibility to ensure they are properly enrolled in classes.  You are advised to review your official class schedule (using Student Tools/Flashfast) during the first two weeks of the semester to ensure you are properly enrolled in this class and section.  Should you find an error in your class schedule, you have until Friday, January 25, 2008 to correct the error with your advising office.  If registration errors are not corrected by this date and you continue to attend and participate in classes for which you are not officially enrolled, you are advised now that you will not receive a grade at the conclusion of the semester for any class in which you are not properly registered.

 

C.       Academic Honesty:  Cheating means to misrepresent the source, nature, or other conditions of your academic work (e.g., tests, papers, projects, assignments) so as to get undeserved credit.  The use of the intellectual property of others without giving them appropriate credit is a serious academic offense.  It is the University's policy that cheating or plagiarism result in receiving a failing grade for the work or course.  Repeat offenses result in dismissal from the University.

 

D.       For Spring 2008, the course withdrawal deadline is Sunday, March 30, 2008.   Withdrawal before the deadline results in a "W" on the official transcript; after the deadline a grade must be calculated and reported.

 

E.       Students with disabilities:  University policy 3342-3-18 requires that students with disabilities be provided reasonable accommodations to ensure their equal access equal access course content.  If you have documented disability and require accommodations, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester to make arrangements for necessary classroom adjustments.  Please note, you must first verify your eligibility for these through the Student Accessibility Services (contact 330-672-3391 or visit www.kent.edu/sas for more information on registration procedures).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Schedule

 

Following is a tentative class schedule. Changes to this syllabus will be made either in class or through Flashline email. You are responsible for any changes made.