CMS 338 - Leadership Stories - Browning
FALL 2011
TTH 9:30-11 in BUR 112
CLASS SIZE = 45
Introduction
Stories of leadership
There are several components to this course. First, as represented by the title of the course are stories of leadership. But in this instance the title refers to your stories of leadership instead of tales of famous leaders. Rather than relating tales of celebrated women and men and what they achieved in dire circumstances, we will ask you to compose leadership stories of your own making—stories that place you in the role of the actor and doer in the drama. You will be constructing and presenting these stories during the course of the semester. The conceptual base for this course is narratology, which is the study and theory of narratives, or complex stories—what they’re made of, how they’re structured, and what we gain from using them as a vehicle for communication. Narrative (or story) is a way of knowing, understanding, and appreciating the world, and we will be asking you to develop and display your understandings via stories throughout this course.
Leadership principles
Second, there is a leadership principle for each section of the course that will be distilled from the research and theories of leadership. The principles will be communicated in story form and embedded in that section’s discussion. Ideas related to leadership will be loosely coupled with the other concepts covered in the section. The goal will be to capture a key understanding of the nature of leadership without necessarily presenting the idea front and center in the section’s material, but at the same time tying it to other ideas that result in a compelling narrative.
Evaluation and course materials
During this semester, students will develop and tell stories following major concepts learned during course lectures. These stories will be non-fictional, from your own experience, and will be two to three minutes long. Telling these stories plus a mid-term and final exam, make up the evaluation for the course. Course materials will be available on BlackBoard.
