Leadership Classics

Introduction

This section of the Website is intended for the use of instructors who have adopted the textbook, Leadership Classics. Its primary purpose is to facilitate your use of Leadership Classics and the Website content. One of the distinguishing features of this collection of readings is the pedagogical material provided at the end of each section; namely, questions and learning activities that you will find appropriate for exams, class discussions, or homework assignments. Several of these learning activities refer students to this Website, where they can complete various self-awareness exercises. The materials in this instructor's section correspond to and elaborate on these self-awareness activities, and will enable you to help students get the most from these exercises. Like the self-awareness section for students, this instructors' area is organized by section, and then by activity number (corresponding to the activities in the book). The questions and learning activities generally follow the order of the readings within a particular section.

Also note that the resources section of this site contains a wealth of information for supplementing your lectures.

Getting Started

Read the introduction to the self-awareness activities section for the students and strongly emphasize the following points during the first class section:

The importance of knowing yourself resonates in many of the entries in Leadership Classics and in the leadership literature at large. It has often been noted that self-awareness is the sine qua non of leadership development.
Beyond basic threshold requirements such as desire and energy, there are no personality profiles that predict leadership effectiveness. This can be quite liberating in terms of recognizing one's own leadership potential.
One way to gain a better self-understanding is via self-assessments.
Effective leadership has more to do with what we do, how we behave, that who we are.
Effective leadership is intentional, not reactive or automatic.
Knowledge of self is a critical element of managing behavior. All activities are offered as learning opportunities, not diagnostic exercises. This is especially important. We're not talking good/bad here; enhancing knowledge of self is the only objective.
The activities offered are suggestions and students should be encouraged to identify other options.
Using copyrighted assessments is a very expensive and prohibitive for normal classes.
Some of the suggestions will ask students for demographical information for research purposes. This is their "charge" for using their assessments.
In some cases, the student may be asked if they wish to purchase a more complete report. It should be strongly emphasized that there is no expectation to purchase anything, ever!

Like with most instructions, the final point should be emphasized more than once.

The number of self-awareness assessments is substantial. I have found a term paper assignment based on these assessments to be effective. Making sense of the findings as a whole, noting consistencies and inconsistencies and reflecting on why the findings are personally relevant makes for a challenging and practically useful assignment. If your class is supported by WebCT or Blackboard there is a journal function which facilitates the recording of results and implications.