Lectures: 1 session / week, 3 hours / session for 7 weeks
This final part of the LGO leadership journey is about leadership and making things happen as the sub-title of the course implies. The sessions have been specifically designed to build upon your leadership experiences and look at challenges you will likely encounter post graduation.
A grade for the course will be assigned after the completion of this final portion of 15.317. Class participation and the reflection paper described below are the graded components of 15.317 Part II.
The final deliverable is a 5 page (max) reflection on your personal leadership take-ways from your two years in the LGO Program. As background for your final reflection, reread your leadership development paper from your first summer. Did you achieve what you had hoped to? What have you learned that you didn’t expect? What were your most pivotal leadership learning experiences over the past two years (either in the formal LGO curriculum or elsewhere) and what did you learn? This paper is due a week after the final class session.
| SES # | TOPICS | READINGS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A different lens on leadership |
WatchRatatouille, directed by Brad Bird ad Jan Pinkava, 2007. Consider: Who is taking leadership? When, how? Pay particular attention to Remy and Linguini and how they developed they leadership competencies. |
| 2 | Leadership fears |
Leitschuh, Cheryl. “Leaders and the Four Fatal Fears.” (PDF) Nielson Report 6, no. 4 (2006): 1–3. Kets de Vries, Manfred F. R. “The Dangers of Feeling Like a Fake.” Harvard Business Review Magazine, September 2005. |
| 3 | Leading stakeholders with diverse interests |
Dominguez, Cari. “Views from the EEOC: Generational Diversity.” Diversity & the Bar, July/August 2003. Alsop, Ron. “The ‘Trophy Kids’ Go to Work.” The Wall Street Journal (October 21, 2008). |
| 4 | Leading high performance teams and final class prep | |
| 5 | Leading transformational change |
Fairholm, Matthew R. “Leading from the Middle: The Power and Influence of Middle Leaders.” The Public Manager 30, no. 4 (2001). (PDF) OptionalSchein, Edgar H. Chapters 12 and 13 in Organizational Culture and Leadership. Jossey-Bass, 2010. ISBN: 9780470190609. |
| 6 | A reflection of your LGO leadership journey |
| SES # | TOPICS | SESSION OVERVIEWS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | A different lens on leadership |
This session will explore the various leadership roles within a restaurant. Your pre-work for the session is to watch the movie Ratatouille. Be prepared to identify who is the leader in the movie (who, when, and why). Peter and Colleen McCarthy, chef and owners of EVOO, will assist in a leadership simulation and share their leadership challenges in managing their three restaurants. Activity overview (PDF) |
| 2 | Leadership fears |
All leaders possess fears; whether it is fear of failure, fear of not meeting up to expectations, fear of not making the right decision, etc. Come prepared to write down 2-3 fears that you hold concerning your future jobs and careers. During class we will build upon your own experiences to discuss fears you may likely hold. We will need several volunteers to present leadership scenarios this week and next. The format for the case presentations (20 minutes each) will be as follows:
Activity overview (PDF) |
| 3 | Leading stakeholders with diverse interests | This session will focus on leading diversity. We will build off your experiences (using the same format outline in the prior class) to discuss the many faces of diversity (gender, race, cultural, age etc.). |
| 4 | Leading high performance teams and final class prep |
During the first half of this session, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas J. Gordon IV, USMC, a visiting military Fellow at the MIT Center for International Studies, will share his experiences in building high performance teams. Members of your leadership committee highly recommended Lieutenant Colonel Gordon as a keynote speaker based on a presentation he gave during an IAP Workshop. We will spend the remaining portion of the session preparing for our final class session (details to be discussed in class). Preparation notes for final class (PDF) |
| 5 | Leading transformational change | This session will focus on leading transformational change, especially from the middle of organizations. We will once again follow the format laid out for Ses #8. Hence, we will need volunteers to share their experiences. |
| 6 | A reflection of your LGO leadership journey | For our final class, you will have an opportunity to showcase your LGO leadership experiences. We have invited the LGO co-directors and representatives from the MIT Leadership Center at Sloan and the Gordon Leadership Program to come to class and hear first hand from you what you have learned from your two-year leadership journey. The goal for the session is to share what LGO is doing and help our invited guests think about whether and perhaps how the LGO approach can be adapted to teach leadership to other MIT student groups and programs. |
